[AnimalMuppet]

> Theres an AFB outside of LA with proper rail siding. He identified it & facilities in thread.

It exists. It has a rail siding. Can it handle the throughput that we're talking about? Air force bases have rail service, but they don't have the infrastructure for high-volume rail traffic.

> Railroad are a regulated monopoly.

Railroads are regulated, but are not a monopoly. (Though a railroad may have a monopoly on rail service to a particular customer, that's not the usual definition of a monopoly.)

> DOT/FRA can mandate service & regulate rates (either for freight or using their track) to prevent one carrier from making movement impossible. If DOT/FRA do it right they'd economically incentivise the short haul.

I believe that the STB is the one that regulates rates and service (and much less stringently than the old Interstate Commerce Commission did pre-Staggers Act deregulation). DOT is more about regulating safety.

Anyway: Could it be done? Yes, maybe, to some degree. Could they move enough containers to unblock the ports in a finite amount of time? I'm much more skeptical. It's not a matter of the rates and regulation, either - it's a matter of building track and other infrastructure at the AFB.

[chmod775]

Railroads are literally a textbook example of a natural monopoly. In fact they're typically somewhere near the top of the list in any textbook.

[AnimalMuppet]

For any particular industrial customer? OK. For a medium-sized town? Maybe. For hauling containers from LA to Dallas, or even from LA to an air force base 100 miles away. in a world where interstate highways exist? No.

[chmod775]

> For hauling containers from LA to Dallas, or even from LA to an air force base 100 miles away. in a world where interstate highways exist? No.

Moving the same amount of containers that a train can carry from LA to Dallas with trucks will require you to pay for than more 200 truck drivers/trucks for a 2 day journey. The cost compared to using a train will be ridiculous. And that's only if you're lucky. Due to trucks being able to carry much less weight, you may need to up that number (and split the contents of containers) or switch to heavy transport vehicles.

In fact you've got that reversed. The costs for moving that stuff to an air force base 100 miles away will be much closer. You usually need some trucks to go the last miles anyways, and the logistics involved in loading/unloading a train is going to make it less efficient compared to the longer journey.