Dr. Michael Babcock, Kansas State University Researcher:

"Transportation and handling costs for wheat would be 21 million higher that it is now and that road damage would be about 58 million on an annual basis. So you add those two together and you get pretty close to 80 million dollars which is an annual benefit of having shortlines in place. So you can see the interrelationship between a healthy shortline rail system and the state's highway system health. The shortlines aren't there anymore then all that wheat has to be moved by truck on county and state roads and it produces a lot of annual damage."

Charles Swayze, General Manager Farmers' Coop of Isabel, KS:

"Most of our grain moves to the south to the gulf, through Wichita to the mills, so the railroad really works good for us. So it was so important for us to try to keep the railroads."