Comparing Escanaba and Lake Superior Railway and Swedens Hector Rail timber / pulp operations - Trains Magazine

I suscribe to YouTube TV (instead of Cable) and have been watching the series "Mighty Trains" on the Smithsonian Channel.    You can buy or rent the episode on Hector Rail if your interested via You Tube.   Anyways understood that Swedens operation is probably subsidized that being the case and on the table I noticed several differences mostly in efficiency on the Swede side of the fence.......

Sweden Hector Rail:

Cuts and ships the full length log....up to say 20-30 feet and loads the logs parallel to the rail into the log cars.    The saw contraption is on one tractor and cuts the tree or log in just a few seconds as well as strips off all the branches

Log carrying rail cars are new and all built to same standard.

New batch of new Electric Locomotives but on spur lines they use all Diesel so they have to change locos at the spur line (less efficient then E&LS).

Employ a high pressure rail head washer that cleans the rail head of falling leaves or bark from the cars that runs prior to the train, that makes the rails less slippery.   The limit here is it is electric powered from overhead lines and so cannot operate on spur lines.

Core route track outside of spurs is in decent condition for 40-50 mph travel, looks like the spur lines are approx 10-15 mph less and require more sand usage for traction as there is no track washer.

E&LS

Very hold and mostly home made timber cars logs cut so they fix crosswise on the car but have also seen them loaded lengthwise but in the case of lengthwise they are stil short lengths and none greater than 4 feet it seems.

Leased Locomotives, older models but they seem to have limited loco issues.

Fairly crappy track uneven in places resulting in what seems like a somewhat slower speed for the trains.    The Cars rock a lot on the track and there are a lot of derailments.

No track cleaner or washer.

So the biggest question I have here is what determines the length of the logs?    Is it the logger or the recieving pulp wood mill?     In the case of Sweden they haul to one giant pulpwood mill.    In the case of E&LS, my guess would be several mills are shipped to.

Second question is what is the profitability of this traffic?   My guess in the case of E&LS the mills are in either Green Bay or Appleton so the haul of the timber is probably shorter than Sweden.

Third question is, why hasn't E&LS applied via state of Wisconsin or Michigan for funds to fix it track so the trains can run faster and smoother?