The idea, which was since foolishly made into the EU plan, too, is to cut up the company into separate train and infrastrucutre operating companies for sale on the stock market, which take over different operations and run in competition to other private operators. The separation was partially achieved in re-organisations of the company in preparation for such a privatisation, on-going since 1992.

And already did lots of damage.

A big complex railway is no parallel to roads and the lorry and bus companies operating on them. Infrastructure and operation, what's more, freight and local and express train operation are much more linked: be it the wear & tear effects of wheel-rail (and pantograph-catenary) interaction, issues of technical compatibility or capacity; between different trains, wear vs. ride comfort, capacity and the issue of speed differences, economic use of locos and repair shops for different services; and so on and so forth.

And that's just the issue of coherence that calls for an integrated railway. Then there are the effects of profit push and the tricky assortment of externalities in competition. One effect is mad cost-cutting, also involving the elimination of reserves that -- surprise, surprise -- leads to cascading delays and angry passengers when there is some small operational problem or demand surge. Another is the cut-back of long-term investment, which is a basic necessity for a good railway. But the privatisers would be content with the closure of remaining branchlines...

So, if the privatisation of the German Railways would be buried at last, and some future transport minister and railway top exec would at last have some ideas about how to get DB to operate better rather than merely a financial machine, I would be very happy.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The historical railroad routes in the western U.S. were from east to west, because they were used to move manufactured goods to the undeveloped western areas (like Colorado) and raw materials and agricultural products to the big cites back east. Nowadays there is a huge amount of coal traffic ("death trains") that travel mostly from Wyoming to Texas.

A few lines ran north-south, primarily the old D&RG and UP lines that hug the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. They originally carried both passengers and freight. Nowadays there's no passenger traffic, and the freight trains carrying coal, chemicals, and general freight pass right through the middle of the big cites in Colorado, including Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Denver, and Fort Collins. Fort Collins is perhaps the worst case, because the city was literally built around the railroad line and the tracks still go right down main street.

Anyway, a proposal is out there to build some new tracks out on the dry, flat eastern Colorado prairie that would connect the required existing lines so that the freight traffic could be re-routed to avoid the front range cities. This would be good on several counts: Shorter freight trip, less hazard of accidents in populated areas, less noise, and the tracks through the cities would become available for passenger traffic.

The proposed financing system is to be a public-private arrangement. I can't judge whether this is good or bad in this case, but the real hangup is that the eastern farmers don't want to give up their land. Politically it's a mess. Here's a relevant website if anybody's interested...  :-)

http://www.dot.state.co.us/RailroadStudy/FAQ/default.asp