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Posted by MRR
on 11/2/2009, 9:03 am, in reply to "Re: Grand Elk still need both diamonds near BO tower today?"
174.124.236.129
Someone quoted me a cost of something like 1.3 million dollars to put down one mile of track. They said that did not include acquiring the land to put the new track on. If that is true, then, yes it truly is prohibitive.
Even in the grander scheme of things, trying to get people to turn loose land that is not in railroad ownership would be crazy in todays social atmosphere. The not in my backyard is not limited to trails. Prisons, industry, and the list goes on has people claiming territory.
To try to get someone to sell off a wisp of 60 feet thru their land would set off a firestorm of resistance.
It does make much more sense for a railroad, industry, or holding company to band land and do minimal maintenance, to maintain a leg of truth to defend against land abandonement, in hopes of one day using property to support jobs and manufacturing and or services then to let the real estate revert and close the door to that land ever being used again as infra structure to support industry.
In Agriculture, there is a program used to control crop production, which could flood the market and drive prices down, where farmers can enroll land and to sit idle called Public Act 116.
Although farmers in that program are compensated for loss of productivity for land that is enrolled in that program, if policrats really wanted to do something creative, to offer relief to industry and attempt to keep it here in Michigan, they could create an industrial land bank program where an industry could enroll land into dormancy and have taxes rolled back 80% while the land is in program. The land could have structures such as buildings, tracks, docks, pits, mines, etc., and would have to comply with established terms of suspension while in the program.
I'm sure this thread will really heat up now.
Gets out my hard hat and ducks under something solid for cover and waits for the explosion of responses. I do value the opinions of others although I might not always agree.