First, let's make sure we are clear what open access means — what it is and what it is not in a railroad context in America.

Generally speaking, an open-access railway is one that sells slots on its track for trains operated by other companies. In its purest form, these other companies are called train-operating companies (TOCs), and they own trains but no tracks. This is essentially the original U.K. model for open access.

In a strictly non-U.K. variation, a TOC can also be a railway, and universal open access can mean that any railway can operate its trains on any other railway's tracks. The giant elephant in the engine house for this concept is the proviso that the railway or railroad has track slots to sell and can do so without hindering its own trains running on its own tracks.

The socially progressive version of open access has the local, state or federal government owning the infrastructure and no trains. A degree of fairness would have any government-owned trains such as passenger or transit agencies bidding on equal footing with private TOCs. Fairness suggests this variation of open access would need a civilian watchdog agency to monitor operations.

Early Amtrak was another form of open access, where the TOC was Amtrak and the various railroads were required to move Amtrak's trains over their tracks. In this early example, only Amtrak had open access. Those railroads carrying Amtrak trains did not have to allow other entities to run passenger trains.

The subject of open access comes up most often today when private shippers served by the tracks of only one railroad demand that the Surface Transportation Board order that railroad to allow the trains of other railroads to serve the shippers. The concept of "reciprocal switching" is a form of open access.

What seems to be right about open access is what most Americans see as right in the matter of other forms of transportation.

Any truck can use a highway. Any airline (subject to permission from the FAA) can use any airport, and all aircraft duly registered can use the air traffic control system. Any barge can use navigable waterways. All of the uses must be within statutory or regulatory limitations. So why not any train on any track?

The wrong side of open access can be seen through two different sets of eyes.

The first eyes are those of the railroads. Sans the pre-Staggers Act regulations, railroad corporations are making profits today that were once thought impossible for railroads, and are doing so with less infrastructure and fewer employees than in those times before Staggers.

They are lean and mean and don't want anything to upset the temperature-controlled boxcar full of apples that serves as their applecart. Legally requiring the railroads to carry TOCs' trains opens up a magnificent puzzle of how to prioritize access without destroying that bottom line and all the careful contingencies corporations like to keep on the back burner.

Though I'm sure most of the Class I railroads have some of those contingency plans addressing mandatory open access.

The other eyes though which we can see the wrong side of open access are the constitutional ones. How can we institute such a system without unlawfully forcing the owner of property — in this case the tracks — to relinquish control or actual ownership of said property and still honor the sacred American right to property in all its forms? I'm not a lawyer and don't know the answer to this one.

Last, but not least, there is the practical side. It would be a mess!

Imagine all of the railroads suddenly merging into one big system and having to address access requests from anybody with a boxcar and a locomotive to pull it. The worst nightmare of congealing systems, gridlocked track, crashing computers, clashing cultures and incompatible signal systems (for example: Union Pacific/Southern Pacific merger) is probably nothing compared to what will actually happen.

Perhaps an incremental approach to open access is what's needed. Reciprocal switching and Amtrak are a good start.

Maybe the next step it just firmly telling the railroads, if they like their profits, they shouldn't be that closed-minded about running other people's trains once in a while.