In the last 50+ years, some 150,000 miles of railroad track have been abandoned. At 100 pounds/yard or more for mainline track rail, that's a lot of steel. As to who is paying for the scrapping, the railroad, or often a bankruptcy court, would bid it out to scrappers -- the same people (as a general class) who will take an old computer and cut the edge connector off a board in order to recover the gold. Might not seem like an economical thing to do, but these people can make a living out of it. Also, remember that in the 50's and 60's (and even earlier for most electric interurban lines) steel was worth more. When the railroads converted to diesel in the late 40's/early 50's, most of the steam locomotives were sold for scrap. Nothing sinister about it, just made economic sense at the time. The subsidies that went into highway construction and trucking are another matter, though, but that is too OT to go into. Still, we can't blame the interstate system for all railroad failures, as many began their decline in the 30's and 40's. Most electric streetcar lines and interurbans here in the midwest were replaced by busses by the mid 50's. Bob -----Original Message----- From: Brian Chase [mailto:vaxzilla@jarai.org] Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 5:35 PM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Suggestions for hauling Computer Garage from Beaverton, OR toYates On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Zane H. Healy wrote: This does beg the question... Who exactly is paying for this, and to what gain? I think someone's point of it not really being cost- effective (even for the scrap) is worth investigating. Maybe it is. I can't imagine it's more expensive to produce a ton of steel from salvaged rails than it is to do the same from iron ore. Still, it'd be interesting to know who's fronting the labor to do it, and what money is backing it. -brian.