[Shady]

I am not sure if BammyWhammy is whacking the railroads to further collapse America and blame it on the GOPeahens or if everyone in DC is totally stoned.

[CedarDave]

Lots of commodities will shift to highways if relief is not forthcoming from Congress. For example think about chlorine used to treat water for drinking, chemicals used in making plastics, pesticides, refining crude oil, etc. However, I believe that the transportation of crude oil is exempt (not compressed gas).

[Alberta's Child]

This is all the result of a Federal mandate dating back to 2008 that required railroads to have automated safety systems in place by the end of 2015. The railroads couldn't possibly meet that deadline because the technology to allow these systems to function for railroads operating on track owned by other railroads didn't even exist at the time the mandate was passed.

In addition, the FCC permitting process is delaying the whole thing because the railroad industry needs to construct 30,000 new cell towers across the country in order to support the technology.

Oh, and this was all signed into law by some @sshole named George W. Bush.