Letter from Dave Skinner
Transportation – January 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
With United’s debt mess making the headlines, I had to go back and re-read George Sibley’s “let’s federalize everything” piece about the Gunnison airport subsidy.
What struck me THIS time, however, was George’s incidental whine about track conditions. Sibley obviously hasn’t been around railroads much lately, otherwise he’d have gotten an eyeful of Union Pacific’s three-track main in Nebraska, the Powder River main in Wyoming, the GN main up here, and just about every railroad that hasn’t been tore up.
Track today is the best it’s ever been. Ribbon rail, concrete ties, high ballast…a long way away from spalled rail worn down to the tops of the angle bars, all supported by rotten ties sinking into mud.
The funny thing is … it was government regulation that had the railroads on the brink back then, more of which George wants for the airlines?
Dave Skinner
Whitefish, Montana
