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Roadside Wire

Freight trains show path for people, too

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Published on Monday, 09 November 2009 21:21
By Brian O’Neill, Pittsburgh Post-​Gazette

Legendary investor Warren Buffett made a $26.3 billion bet on America’s future last week. He plunked it down to buy the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, acquiring all of the great Western freight railroad that his company didn’t already own.

Mr. Buffett is 79 but isn’t thinking short-​term. He’s looking 10 and 20 years down the road. He’s betting that higher fuel costs will give railroads an ever greater advantage over trucks, and the American freight rail system is already the best in the world.

Our generally pitiful passenger rail service is its direct opposite.

I was thinking about this Friday as I walked from Downtown across the Smithfield Street Bridge to Station Square for lunch. As I reached the South Side, a long CSX freight train rumbled along the Monongahela River as another long Norfolk Southern train hugged the lower slope of Mount Washington, hauling coal.

Click here to read the rest of Brian’s article.

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