The first thing is, if it did not happen, I think we'd all be extremely disappointed, to say the least, having spent literally years trying to get this through. In the case of West Coast Express, there would be no expansion considered when our number one complaint from our customers is they want more service.
The timing is also very important because these are not short-term projects. You have to work on these literally for years in the planning stage. The business cycle to actually put a new service in can take a lot of time, particularly with the capital. We also have to compete internally for the value of what we do. If it does not happen, our cost structure will be far higher than what potentially could be considered...to perhaps not even consider expansion.
In our case, if you look at abandonment, you look at costs. In the case of the Arbutus corridor, I think the railway was looking for $100 million. I think it was well profiled across the country, and it's a very strategic corridor. Part of this is also the strategy of long-term planning and protecting these corridors, and making sure that urban transit authorities get to put their oar in the water, if you will, about commitments and the long-term plans. If it's still unknown and the rules of the game are not known, they can get lost. We saw that with the Arbutus corridor case, which ultimately ended in the Supreme Court of this country.
You could be looking at somewhere between a difference of what a railway might see on Arbutus corridor, of $100 million, which I think was the advertised price...whereas somebody else might see half of that. The debt servicing on that is about $5 million a year just for the capital portion, let alone the operating cost structure. As other people look at other corridors--ultimately, in this case, the Canada line was put down--those get lost in the comparative, because people elect to move on in their conversation.
Part of this legislation will cost us in operating. I would estimate even some of our track rates, as our contracts expire, could go down as much as 80% plus, which is extremely significant in what our operating cost and our viability will start to look like. What's really important here is that the railways still make a reasonable return. It's critical they do, because if not, capital dries up and moves elsewhere. They have to be protected so that there's a reasonable return.
I think the challenge is, what is reasonable? Without checks and balances through legislation such as this, then you have to negotiate with a monopoly. Can there be negotiation with a monopoly? Yes, but it's defining what is reasonable in negotiations. If you look at the average contribution of a railway in this country, they're making something less than 30%. We are in the three to four digits in some cases, historically. There's a significant impact by not putting this in place quickly so we can get on with our long-term planning to serve the customer.