Originally posted by Inkwolf
Although they may have dismantled the railroad system, they have made apoint of keeping the right-of-way, and it's likely that the rails will be rebuilt at some point, perhaps in a more modern form. In which case, removing the antiquated rails is a good head start.
Roadbed and ties are at least as much of the expense of railroad right-of-way construction as are the actual rail. In most cases the rail removed from a right of way is installed in a lower class of track. The current track and road system is quite modern, even though it may appear to the uninitiated not to be much different from its older predecessors. Further, one of the most significant recent developments is the Gage Restraint Measurement System, which measures actual defletion of the rails under load, enabling railroads to be muh more effective in their tie replacement programs. Technology is not always about having something new, sometimes it is about doing something new with existing infrastructure.
Another issue is using the existing infrastructure more efficiently. The railroads, through improved operating practices and through mergers which reduce redundancy, have made the rail network amazingly efficient. We move as much freight in a day in this country as Europe does in a year. The more dismal news is that while the amount of freight carried by railroads continues to grow each year, it is not growing as fast as the amount of freight moved by motor carriers, so that now only approximately 5% of the surface freight in the US is moved by rail.