Big rig trucks isn't any part of my proposal. Conventional rail in the US is horribly crippled. Shoot me an email and you can look at my data. Then we can have a discussion. I am very interested in having a discussion from a common frame of reference.

Then why not write a blog article about it or something. I don't see why such discussion should happen "off list", because it would in fact restrict the discussion to one-on-one's between you and whoever emails you, without anyone benefiting from the extra eyes.

I can understand his position. I would guess he wants to refine the idea privately a bit before presenting it to a larger more public audience.