andrewjw wrote:Does Amtrak have to let any freight carrier in the nation run over the NEC 100 times a day?
Freight carriers routinely run over the NEC to serve customers who are only accessible through rails attached to the NEC tracks. Its mostly scheduled in off-hours, but to say that NEC tracks are truly dedicated to passenger ops is simply not true. 100 times daily might not be that far off of the truth, BTW.
Absolutely not! I don't see why they would be 'entitled' to some kind of reciprocal trackage.
For access to shippers and industry that will inevitably exist or already exists along the proposed VIA corridor, for example.
There's no such agreement today: I'd expect today's agreement (in which VIA gets to use CN/CP tracks for, presumably, cash) to continue indefinitely, perhaps even cheaper since they will send fewer corridor trains.
VIA doesn't really have any tracks of their own to share, so the railways really have no leverage to obtain the use of VIA owned facilities (because there are none!). But if they start building infrastructure, then there almost certainly will be demands to use, much as VIA has imposed the burden of their operations on the freight railways over the years.
Why would CN/CP invest more in Corridor infrastructure development if they could, for example, simply pay VIA for incremental access at below market rates, much like VIA accesses CN/CP facilities at beneath cost as well? Could VIA really get away with denying CN/CP access to their high speed property, while demanding access to CN/CP's lines outside the corridor on below-market terms? Just doesn't add up to me.