With improvements in petroleum and petroleum product shipping offsetting coal volume losses over the last two quarters, the railroad industry is capitalizing on the current natural gas boom.
During Lady Thatcher's tenure as Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990 she oversaw the closure of dozens of coal mines - leading to thousands of job losses - and the year-long miners' strike.
When combined with other restrictions on coal ash and cooling water EPA is planning, capacity losses will more likely be somewhere between 3.5% and 7%.
And 20 years ago, the utility industry, warnings of huge losses from the Clean Air Act, won concessions greatly reducing their obligations to install scrubbers on coal-fired power plants.