I was a bit dubious at first, but I understand what they're on about now: The concern is that goods will be finished much closer to PoS, resulting in more tran

I was a bit dubious at first, but I understand what they're on about now: The concern is that goods will be finished much closer to PoS, resulting in more transport of bulk commodities and less of finished goods. Intermodal transport (which includes those loooooooong double-stack trains you often see) is primarily finished goods going to market. If railroads want to stay competitive, I do agree that they need to "skate to where the puck is going" and make sure they have the capacity to handle shifts in traffic patterns. A good example is the Powder River Basin. That is the largest coal producing region in the US and for about 30 years has received massive capital investment. However, coal is on the decline and crude-by-rail is on a massive upswing. The railroads got caught flat-footed there and have been scrambling to increase capacity for crude-by-rail. As far as bulk crude, how else are you going to transport it outside of a pipeline? In this the railroads are safe, but in the future they may not be.