Maybe it't time for Low-Track vers. 2.0, in combination with installation of key grade separations. If we are going to spend the big bucks on rail relocation perhaps there are less drastic, less costly, longer-term solutions. I wonder if in 25 years, the 'benefactors' of our efforts this year will be praising or cursing our decisions. Some have proposed leaving as spurs, Southern Pacific trackage from Hearne south to Bryan, and from the 'new' tracks back to the existing customers on the Missouri Pacific.
Spurs have short life spans.
Spur rail lines that serve only a handful of industries, have high fatality rates. The railroads soon complain that they don't pay their way so they start raising rates and reducing service. They make sure it is well above truck rates. This left several grain facilities high and dry. The remainder of the Rock Island Choctaw route out of Amarillo just got ripped up leaving the nation's only major helium plant without rail service.