Pipeline infrastructure would diminish railroad profits.
Buffett won't be pleased...
Only if the pipeline goes the same places the trains do...and...the railroads aren't hauling raw wellhead gas anywhere, only processed fractions like ethane, propane, and butane.
Those fractions have to be separated from the raw gas, along with water, CO2, H2S (where present), and heavier hydrocarbon fractions.
The Methane (smallest of the hydrocarbon 'chains') is the Natural Gas people get when they turn on their gas stove.
Without that processing, there is little way to control the BTU output of any device, which makes using unprocessed gas difficult.
Gathering and processing infrastructure are under construction in the region, and existing processing facilities are being expanded, but to tie those expansions in requires plants be shut down for the tie-in, which means an increase in flaring in the short term before that infrastructure goes on line.
This is the last best gasp of the anti-oil people out there to attack the industry. They have tried attacking fracking, attacking visual impact, pipeline construction, rail transport, and now, flaring of gas.
If the industry is losing money by doing something one way, there is incentive enough to change the way it is done. Infrastructure development is beginning to catch up.
In the meantime, oil leases are perishable items. Either they are held by production or the clock is ticking, and at between 3 to 5 million dollars for the rights to drill and produce oil on an 1280 acre spacing, the wells will be drilled.
One more thing. Well pad setups with multiple wells drilled from the same location have cut down on infrastructure complexity, and the layout of wells is such that it simplifies that gathering system. Even so, every two miles, in general there will be another gathering pipeline going east/west in the area in McKenzie County I am working in, and there is a lot of pipe to lay, not counting the processing facilities and compressor stations needed.