FEC and the Fort Lauderdale Airport Expansion

FEC big-wigs are currently negotiating a business contract to send trillions of tons of rock over from Medley to the future site of expanded Runway 9R/27L, an engineering feat, of Fort Lauderdale Hollywood Int'l (KFLL).

When I was on the mailing list, FEC fans and employees were talking about how the deal would work, and it was noted that Dave (ECH) put in that IF and WHEN the deal is done, that so-and-so figures of rock would be moved 6x a week for three years.

The current provisions are as follows:

• 300 carloads (30,000 tons) of rock to be moved
• 6x a week
• Would require two unit trains
• A spur track to be constructed in Fort Lauderdale 
• (Already) the double track is being expanded south of the airport

Why am I posting? To speak for the "IF" factor. Look at the numbers. 30,000 tons a day means that it would take, as cited by ECH, 1,000 dump trucks to do three round trips. For this, I simply do not understand why the deal is not done. It simply does not add up to know that businessmen are willing to fathom the clog-up of Interstate 95, Florida's Turnpike, and the like with gas-guzzling dump trucks.

Locomotives can run much more efficiently than dump trucks as well. Simply even on diesel engines, the triple round trip is not needed, even though I could see the function for two unit trains of 150 cars. But trains are not stop and go, and have more efficiency simply on steel wheel on steel rail. I am here to question why it is still possible with such a consideration that trucks do the job. We have trains for decent physics properties that allow the pooling of bulk material. Rock is a bulk commodity and shipping trucks around does not do the job. But I hope as time progresses people understand that this is a job for the train to do. Motorists would be happier to be stopped at a railroad crossing, a traffic control device, than a "freeway" that allows "free" motion.