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Admittedly, I am a railroad nut. I grew up in a town where Union Pacific fed a good portion of the population and, through wise planning, covers retirements of that same population.

Railroads are the only transport for mega heavy loads, loads such as electrical grid super conductors. If the grid fails from solar flares (it has happened before) or God forbid, sabotage, the railroads will save the day. They need new bridges, not 100-year-old constructs waiting to fail. If that happens any load could cause great damage to the lake.

We need to look at the new bridge with eyes wide open as to what can without upgrades in infrastructure.The railroads respond quicker than any other entity to problems. If one removes the failed government-run Amtrak and other badly run passenger services, the safety record of railroads is amazing. It can’t be duplicated by any other transport service handling the tonnage and freight. Nothing can move the amount of freight a railroad can for fuel expended. As to the coal dust. Has anyone counted the particulates going in to the air or lake after the open coal cars have traveled twelve hundred miles from the coal fields in Wyoming?

We need the railroads to grow not lessen. With growth will come new modes of power for the locomotives, such a electro-magnetic energy. Think of Europe and Asia, how they move people and freight with great efficiency. We can’t keep up our highway system as it is. When its ten below zero with two feet on snow on the ground and I hear a train whistle in the night, I realize the trains are still moving with purpose, delivering the freight of commerce, including much of our food.

May that “lonesome whistle” blow forever.

L. SCOTT HANCOCK

Hope