I think it's an issue of the railways themselves becoming more competitive, more efficient--and more competitive with trucks specifically. Better operations through technology will make their costs lower so they can be more competitive with trucks.
The two areas there are freight rates and speed of service. The railways have always been able to compete with the trucks on price, but being able to compete with them on speed of service has been a running battle throughout history, since trucks became competitors to the railways. There's a lot of technology that will help them, as Mr. Nordenstrom mentioned, like GPS tracking of trains and locomotives and better record of movement of products. Our ability to track the movement of freight items, containers, and freight cars has been around for almost forty years now. Canadian railways were almost world leaders in that. They were right up at the top with the best of the U.S. railroads when the application of computers to the railways started.
So there is a future in being more competitive, and the government can perhaps help with support on technology and research. That would have the most effect in the long run.