Also ask yourself why Union Pacific is imposing these restrictions?
Maybe it might have something to do with the latest rage in the world financial markets? Blackrock and the WEF set up ESG certifying companies that award ESG ratings and punish those that don't comply. So you have companies forced to push for completely bonkers restrictions and policies because they're mandated to top down:
Union Pacific is acting to try to improve their "operating ratio" according to the current management fad that they've fallen prey to.
CF Industries is begging the administration, not because the administration is in a plot to cause this, but because Union Pacific isn't listening. (And also because the government just had hearings about the incompetence of railroads under the current management fad.) CF is just looking for some lever that will keep UP from damaging CF's business.
No, I don't think Blackrock or the WEF have anything to do with it. It has to do with Canadian National, and then Canadian Pacific, adopting Precision Scheduled Railroading, and improving their operating ratios by doing so, and every other major railroad (except maybe BNSF) jumping on the bandwagon. But in doing so, UP is driving away some traffic (not just food- or fertilizer-related), in the hope that net profit will go up.
This has all been building for a decade or so. It's nothing related to the current geopolitical and economic situation.
Wasn’t there an HN discussion recently about how rail operators were running extremely long trains which are more economically efficient for the operators, but much more likely to derail (causing physical and pollution damage to communities)?
Or because the government didn't prevent a stupidity from a private company?
Never attribute to malice...