Dm&E / Hold the Mayo.... - Trains Magazine

Excellent topic!!

Someone mentioned the other day, that CP might try to get the FRA loan ($2+ billion) that was ultimately denied to the free standing DM&E.  Which gives me mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I feel a lot safer with a deep pocket (potentially) being on the line in promise, than some stick and tin can outfit. On the otherhand, I'm not sure how safe such a bet might be, considering that CP is not a US company. What would be to prevent them from insulating themselves behind some shell corporation, and in the event of a default simply retreating from our jurisdiction.

From the info on the sale that has been given, I take it to mean that CP has an A and a B game plan, with, or without the PRE.  That being the case, they've decided that DM&E without PRE is a viable purchase.  I would have to doubt, that they wopuld try any shenanigans with an FRA loan.  That would impact too much of their other railroad business and holdings in the U.S.

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For this Chicagoan, the big issue (well, one of the biggies, at least) is that Illinoisans and

other Midwesterners are not going to trim their energy consumption at least one-third per

household.  (This the average family can do by a) getting a high-efficiency refrigerator; b)

going to compact fluorescent light bulbs and c) shutting off the computer if nobody is

going to logon to it in the next two hours.  This has been well thought-out, I am told).  But

if we don't trim consumption (and neither Exelon/ComEd nor the fed gov't has done much

of anything about the fridges), the region will have to support more households also using

status-quo or more amounts of elec.  It's from those statistics that Exelon says that in 20

years time Chicagoland will need half again as many kWh. 

So it's nukes or coal.  If a Republican majority said "No" to a former lobbyist who wanted

three billion to make the DM&E fully functional for coal, what chance has CP, to many

citizens inherently "furrin', " to get two billion.  When you look in the December TRAINS,

you'll see some of the most logical combined systems and who will compete against whom.

From that, part of me also wants to send some money the CP's way on the theory that

BNSF/UP were paid to shore up their PRB-entry lines so why not another economically

necessary act.  Part of me doesn't want to see it happen because Congress knows little

about economics and almost always makes poor market choices (I'm not a Libertarian

Party member so I'll say "almost always" instead of "always."

However, all of me wants to see it happen if it will sway people to nukes, the quality of

which has improved noticeably since the 1970s.  Today, GE and Westinghouse do a pretty

good job of selling their nukes abroad.  As for the conservation, our household has gone

incandescent-free except for the living room fan/chandelier; the compact fluourescents

last at least three to five times longer, they cost little more than an ordinary bulb and emit

much less hean that would require extra electrically-driven A/C.  We usually shut off the

PC if it is not going to be used forthwith.  What is ComEd, the Energy Dept or EPA doing

to promote the super-insulated, highly efficient refrigerators?  Zip.  Neither does GE;

they'd rather make ironic in-jokes on "30 Rock" than take real action building some.  So

all of me hopes that conservation will pull the rabbit out, with our ace-in-the-hold new

nukes.

The worst-case scenario is what the Midwest may (may, I say) just be beginning to

experience:  overstrained power capacity followed (in the future) by rolling blackouts and

then (even further in the future) electricity rates powered by price, not market saturation. 

How would you like spending 15-20 cents per kWh?

Gee whiz, I'm a rant today.  Home some of it got thru!   - a. s.

PS:  Sorry for the "non-matching quotes]; I don't know what if anything, I did.