Prove it. An article in the June 2003 issue of TRAINS magazine with an accompanying map showed that between 1979 and 2001, traffic (ton-miles) handled by Western railroads increased 65% (while the population increased only 25%). And no, it was far from all being coal. NAFTA was cited as one of the main contributors with routes in Texas as well as CP and CN interchange locations along the northern border, as well BNSF's route from Portland to Sandpoint as one of the over-performers. DOT tonnage maps published in 1980 shows the ex-GN route in Western Montana handling between 20 and 30 million gross ton-miles of traffic, while the ex-NP route handles between 10 and 20 million. By 2003, the ex-GN route was handling over 40 million, and the ex-NP between 20 and 30. Things change over the years, so I challenge you to prove your "higher prices" claim. That would be proving that the tonnage handled in loose box car traffic was moved at a cheaper rate than lading handled in today's stack container trains (because that's how many consumer goods move today). Likewise, prove that single car movements of grain were cheaper than today's unit trains.
This is vague at best, but it appears to be a good argument for doing away with the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension. Since it couldn't compete with the competition due to its inferior profile and circuitous feeder route structure, you appear to be understand that it would not be a railway that should have been kept.
Who would pay for the subsidy?
Highways are also not beholden to stockholders like freight railroads are. Hating railroads has been popular since the turn of the 20th Century. But doing so also ignores that governments provide the infrastructure for the competition. This is the problem. We have no national transportation policy nor do we invest in our railroads like we invest in highways, airports, and waterways. So, it's no surprise that freight railroads look at things a little different when it comes to infrastructure additions or rationalizations. It's unfortunate that railroads are discriminated against as they are in the country, but that's the reality. The real competition for railroads are the other modes of transportation, and that's why the best chance to win back business lost to the subsidized competition is to focus on routes that are the most efficient to operate. There have been many questionable abandonments in the U.S., but the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension was not one of them. With 5 major grades between Chicago and Portland versus one for the competition, the cost of rehabilitating and upgrading, and the perpetual cost of subsidization to create a tariff even remotely comparable to the competition would have been/would be enormous - a continuing albatross.
