‘Some risk,’ says Gunn; tests to begin

If you ride the rails in the U.S., are you safe?

“I don’t think there’s any point in pretending there isn’t some risk,“ Amtrak President David Gunn said on Washington, D.C. radio station WTOP on April 14.

“There is a certain risk involved. If people are trying to do damage to you, there is no way you are ever going to be in a situation where you can be 100 percent certain that something can‘t be done.”

Gunn said commuters who take Amtrak are “as safe as the rest of the country.”

He admitted, though, an explosion like the one in Madrid could occur in the U.S., but said Amtrak has not received any specific threats.

Describing the nation’s busiest rail stations as being “like Swiss cheese” with its many stairwells and entry points, Gunn said it would be physically impossible to put in place a screening process similar to what the airlines use.

He said with hundreds of thousands of passengers taking Amtrak from suburban stations into New York and other cities, Amtrak doesn’t have the ability to seal its system as airports do.

At the same time, he said, Amtrak is not defenseless. Amtrak has its own police force and bomb-sniffing dogs at New York’s Penn Station, and is in close communication with the Transportation Security Administration.

“You have to build your security around the reality of the situation,” Gunn said. “You can sit here and scream for money, but the reality is you want to ask for money for stuff that’s real and can get done and can get results.”

Amtrak is seeking $110 million to improve security. Specifically, Amtrak wants to improve tunnel security. Amtrak wants funding so that its central command center can communicate directly with train operators around the country. It also wants to centralize its police and train communications operations.

With 500 stations, many of which are open but unmanned, Gunn said it would not be cost-effective to have Amtrak personnel staff them.

“Having people at an unmanned station, where you have one train a day with two people getting on, is not a wise expenditure of resources,“ he said.

Screening passengers and luggage along the commuter rail lines, including Virginia Railway Express, would add hours to the commute and would destroy the rail service, Gunn said.

Meanwhile, The AP reported last week, the feds plans to use a suburban Maryland station to test the feasibility of security checks for rail passengers, a response to last month’s deadly Madrid bombings.

The testing in New Carrollton, Md., is expected to begin by the end of May and last 60 to 90 days, Transportation Security Administration spokesman Darren Kayser said April 14.

Kayser said the TSA is looking at a range of technologies and hasn’t decided how many kinds of equipment to test or in what combination. An important question is how quickly machines can check people and luggage, he said.

The site was chosen because it presents challenges likely to be faced in screening railway passengers for weapons or explosives.

The platform is open to the elements and serves a mix of people, including rush-hour commuters and longer-distance passengers, Kayser said. The agency intends to screen Amtrak riders and is in talks with the Maryland Transit Administration, which operates the MARC commuter rail system, about participating.

Easy access to railways makes them vulnerable to terrorist attacks. In 1995, cultists unleashed nerve gas in a Tokyo subway, killing 12. Recently, the FBI and the Homeland Security Department warned that terrorists might strike trains and buses in major U.S. cities using bombs concealed in bags or luggage.

The key problem in screening railway passengers is doing it fast enough so the trains can still run on time.

Amtrak spokesman Dan Stessel said the railroad is pleased the TSA is turning its attention to ground-based security. The agency spends the vast majority of its budget on aviation security.

“We will continue to work cooperatively with them in their efforts,” said Stessel.

Jack Riley, director of the Rand Corp. research group’s public safety and justice research program, said he’s skeptical that the government could ever screen railway passengers to the extent airline passengers are checked.

“You have small stations, many spots for people to get off and on, and schedules don’t permit anything that introduces a delay,” he said.

Riley said it would probably be more effective and less expensive to run public awareness campaigns and rail employee education programs to alert people about things that could indicate a terrorist attack.

The Bush Administration is planning to scrap Amtrak.

The White House has asked the states for proposals and plans for the future “if Amtrak were dismantled and some or all of its routes were open to competition,” CFRA Ottawa correspondent, Kris Sims, reported April 14 from Washington. Amtrak President and CEO said that’s not a good idea.

USDOT’s regulatory filing also sought to determine which states or group of states would be interested in bidding out and overseeing privately run city-to-city service and which states would be best positioned to move forward.

Frustrated by Amtrak’s perennial losses, its failure to wean itself from government subsidies, and annual fights with Congress over rail funding, the Bush administration has proposed to dramatically overhaul the railroad’s operations.

The plan would dismantle Amtrak’s overarching responsibilities as a federal corporation over several years and turn over major oversight to the states, which could contract service to private companies or return the business to Amtrak.

Amtrak president and CEO David Gunn struck out at proposals to dismantle Amtrak, which has sustained substantial annual losses throughout its 33-year history.

“It is past time for Congress to come to terms with Amtrak’s problems and why it is largely a failure,” McCain said, but Gunn said talk of successfully privatizing some or all of Amtrak is fanciful, Reuters reported.

“All you have to do is look at the British experience. The British rail system is near collapse because they followed this idea that you could privatize a business that is basically unprofitable,” Gunn said.

Amtrak operates 250 trains in 46 states on an average weekday. Ridership topped a record 24 million in 2003 and current numbers show Amtrak is carrying more passengers in 2004. It has operated city-to-city routes without competition for 33 years. Rail travel is one of the most environmentally friendly modes of transportation, and is frequently used in Europe.

No one promised David L. Gunn an easy ride when he took over as Amtrak’s chief executive two years ago, writes Forbes magazine writer Andrew T. Gillies. The federally owned passenger railroad, which last year lost $1.3 billion on sales of $2 billion, faced financial and organizational disarray, outspoken enemies on Capitol Hill, and at least a decade’s worth of deferred maintenance projects.

Gunn – a Harvard Business School graduate who has headed up transit systems in New York City, Philadelphia, Toronto and Washington D.C. – has, on the whole, earned high marks for his focus on fixing Amtrak’s bookkeeping, thinning its bureaucracy and coming clean with Congress about the railroad’s needs for staying viable. Gunn, 66, seems also to have won the admiration of one of Amtrak’s most important business partners: the freight railroads.

“He has certainly tried very hard to improve relations,” says Thomas White, spokesperson for the Association of American Railroads.

“I think we’re all appreciative of that,” said H. Craig Lewis, vice-president for corporate affairs with Norfolk Southern.

“A lot of people from Amtrak and Norfolk Southern have had a part in improving this relationship, but the single most significant catalyst to it all has been David Gunn,” he said.

Said Gunn, “I would characterize our relationships as pretty good.”

“Pretty good” looks downright remarkable given the evolution of freight and passenger rail in the U.S. over the last few decades. Amtrak, or the National Railroad Passenger Corp., was created in 1970 when Congress, looking to save America’s intercity passenger rail network, gave the big railroads a chance to unload their money-losing passenger operations. To do so, however, the railroads agreed not only to let Amtrak operate anywhere it wanted, but also to give preference to Amtrak trains on their networks.

Today, Amtrak trains operate over a 22,000-mile network, 20,000 of which are owned by private railroads. The four largest are Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific.

It isn’t hard to see why these companies would chafe at being forced to set aside their customers’ needs to accommodate Amtrak’s passenger schedules. Similarly, however, Amtrak’s on-time record – and its image as a good way to travel – suffers when its trains are held up by freight trains.

Complicating matters, incentive programs set up by Amtrak to ease the situation don’t seem to work very well. In December, a memo from the USDOT’s Inspector General noted how one major railroad in 2002 found it more economical to pay $100,000 in fines for delaying Amtrak trains, while passing up $14 million worth of incentive payments to make sure Amtrak’s trains arrived on time. Amtrak’s on-time performance in that instance slipped below 70 percent.

AAR’s president, Edward R. Hamberger, complained before a Senate subcommittee last summer that fees received from Amtrak “do not come close to covering the full costs borne by the host freight railroads.”

Freight trends suggest the opportunity to step on each other’s toes will only increase in the coming years. By 2020, predicts The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, freight tonnage hauled by rail will grow by 44 percent, or 882 million tons, over 2000 levels.

During his tenure, however, Amtrak’s Gunn has played down the competition between the two forms of rail use and instead pushed the notion of a “community of interest.” Said he, “There’s a symbiotic relationship, and my own view is that the freight railroads should take more advantage of that than they do.”

To illustrate, Gunn mentioned how a passenger rail project attracted investment that doubled the capacity of an important BNSF line in California. A similar undertaking is the upgrade to high-speed capacity of a Philadelphia to Harrisburg Amtrak line, also used by Norfolk Southern.

The “community of interest” has particular significance for the latter, which alone among the majors depends on Amtrak-owned tracks to conduct its business, rather than the other way around. Still, Norfolk Southern’s Lewis has little difficulty making a broader case for why passenger and freight rail should work together.

“There is a growing reemergence of rail that has captured the interest of the traveling public, policy makers and those needing to move freight,” he said, “and the passenger and freight folks are much more likely to be more responsive to those constituencies if we are united.”

AAR’s White is a little more guarded, stressing that any expansion of passenger rail cannot come at the expense of freight, but he pointed out that his organization has rejected the notion of breaking up Amtrak into pieces, as some Amtrak foes have suggested.

“Inter-city passenger service ought to be run by one entity from an operational and safety standpoint, and that entity is Amtrak.”

As Gunn battles on Capitol Hill for the $1.8 billion in federal subsidies for fiscal year 2005 he says his railroad needs to stay alive, that kind of goodwill should come in handy.

Spurred by the railway bombings in Madrid last month, the Senate Commerce Committee, on April 8, unanimously approved spending more than $1 billion to protect railroads and mass transit systems from terrorist attacks.

The bill requires the Homeland Security Department to develop a plan within 180 days to improve rail security throughout the country, The AP reported. It calls for tightening security at railroad stations and tunnels and for railcars that carry hazardous materials.

Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), said the terrorist strike in Madrid showed “we need to pass this legislation as soon as possible.”

The committee passed a similar bill in the month after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but it never went any further.

Last week, the FBI and the Homeland Security Department warned that terrorists might strike trains and buses in major U.S. cities using bombs concealed in bags or luggage.

Since the bombings in Spain that left 191 people dead, lawmakers have criticized Homeland Security for focusing too heavily on protecting commercial air travel at the expense of other kinds of transportation.

The government has spent $12 billion on aviation security since the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Railroads and transit agencies were authorized to receive $65 million in security grants in 2003 and $50 million in 2004.

The committee approved a separate measure requiring the Homeland Security Department to develop a port security plan. Though the bill would have awarded $400 million a year in grants to protect the maritime industry, a proposal to impose a user fee to pay for them failed.

Also Thursday, the Bush administration backed a proposal by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., that would beef up federal penalties for rail attacks and end some decades-old discrepancies between punishments for targeting freight and passenger trains.

The proposal, which representatives of the Justice and Transportation Departments endorsed at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, also would make it a federal crime to release biological or hazardous materials on any mass transportation provider, including trains. Should anyone be killed in such an attack, the death penalty would apply.

The nine battered Amtrak cars that comprised a City of New Orleans that derailed in Mississippi a fortnight ago are back on the rails and were headed toward an undisclosed location for further inspection, but most likely Beech Grove heavy repair shops in Indiana.

Regular passenger traffic returned to the area on April 16, Amtrak spokeswoman Marcie Golgoski told The AP from Washington. She said a southbound passenger train left Chicago Thursday night and traveled the derailment site Friday without incident. The northbound No. 58 traveled the line later Friday. Freight traffic resumed a day earlier.

One person died and about 60 others were injured in the April 13 derailment near Flora in rural Yazoo County.

Mark Rosenker, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Thursday his 12-member team had concluded the onsite examination. A full investigation is expected to take about a year to complete.

Sources told D:F Amtrak’s damage assessment totals for the train’s equipment came to $6,896,000. Details showed P-42 locomotive No. 82 sustained $50,000 damage.

Other damage was assessed at $55,000 for baggage car 1223, and $2,000,000 each for sleeper 32036 and diner 38009.

Lounge car 33013 and coach-smoker 31592 were each estimated at $700,000. Coach 34069 was listed at $650,000 and coach 34087 at $350,000. Sleeper 32005 was assessed at $215,000, and coach 34135 at $176,000.

The first Amtrak train pulled into Oregon City, Oregon’s new station Friday. Service was supposed to begin last fall, but was delayed when Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the tracks, unexpectedly demanded that the city pay for $100,000 in track improvements.

The daily service to Portland and Eugene starts just as the city revs up its economic development efforts, which include trying to attract more tourists and jobs, and giving its downtown a makeover, writes The Oregonian. The city will be served by Amtrak’s Cascades trains, which make two daily round trips between the city pair.

“A train station is… a stimulus for economic development,” said Oregon City Mayor Alice Norris, one of several city and county officials who have pursued an Amtrak stop in Clackamas County for more than a decade.

City and county officials had to fight last year for continued state funding of the Cascades service. Norris worked with mayors from Eugene, Albany, and Salem to lobby the legislature and build support for rail funding. When Norris briefed city commissioners on the latest development, she often would punctuate her report by blowing on a train whistle.

Hopes are high that the train service will dovetail with a new tourism marketing effort that will promote Oregon City as a historical site and highlight the town’s significant role in the development of the West.

Amtrak Ink Operating Rules Manager Brenda Lettengarver demonstrates switching and signaling concepts to a group of new-hire assistant conductors using the new model train layout.

Amtrak’s Transportation and Human Resources departments are working to improve quality and consistency of conductor training for the railroad’s transportation department.

A new training facility in Wilmington, Del. is the home base for locomotive engineer training, and now also includes assistant conductor new-hire training.

Meanwhile, communications and signals training continues in Lancaster, Pa.

The new-hire conductor program began in March, reports Amtrak Ink, a monthly publication for employees.

While some classes will continue to be held in their respective regions to meet current staffing requirements, the railroad’s goal is to hold all new-hire assistant conductor classes in Wilmington by the mid-2004.

About 150 new assistant conductors will be in service by the end of the fiscal year, September 30.

Instructors will teach the conductors four key areas of responsibility – train operations and safety, revenue, customer service and leadership. The program includes courses in employee skills, operating rules, safety, and customer service over the seven-week program

The program includes the hands-on application of skills in a railroad yard environment where they learn how to safely throw switches, couple and uncouple cars, apply handbrakes, use hand signals to communicate with the engineer, as well as learning about mechanical and braking systems.

In the classroom, several days are devoted to revenue collection and remittance procedures, customer service and emergency preparedness.

After completing the program, the new conductors return to their home crew bases for additional job familiarization that includes activities such as shadowing experienced crewmembers and on-the-job training assignments. Each new assistant conductor – an “AC,” is evaluated periodically to determine his or her rate of progress and whether additional training is needed.

An unpowered HO model train layout is being used to help students understand the complex rules related to safely moving Amtrak trains. The custom-designed track layout simulates specific track conditions conductors may encounter on the road or in a coach yard.

Using HO scale Amtrak cars, the model train layout allows the instructor to demonstrate a wide range of complicated train movement concepts – reading switches, recognizing fouling points, understanding frogs, interlocking limits, spots and double-spots. Other topics include wyeing trains, making shoving moves, and placing blue flags when someone is working on, under, or inside a locomotive or train.

“The students are quick to grasp switching and signaling concepts. Visualizing the switches on the layout was much better than me just drawing on the board,” said Operating Rules manager Brenda Lettengarver.

Ideas from conductors and front-line managers in a team headed by Amtrak conductor-instructor Jeff Kocar designed and built the model train layout in Chicago. Other layouts are being installed at Amtrak’s regional training centers. Ticket agent training also takes place at the Wilmington and other places.

For the past three years, on average more than 100 Amtrak Brotherhood of Railway Signalman (BRS) employees learn how to be signal maintainers at Amtrak’s Bernard E. Britcher Training Center in Lancaster Pa. The center opened in 1980 to provide technical skills training for C&S employees from the Mid-Atlantic, New York, New England, Central, and Pacific divisions.

The facility features modern classrooms and training labs with various full-size working switch machines and track circuits. They learn how to keep switches and signal in good working order.

The instructors teach the kinds of circuitry Amtrak uses, provide hands-on experience, and allow them to demonstrate their ability to troubleshoot a range of simulated equipment failures.

Four modules – and each a four-week program –consists of both classroom and hands-on training. Following every module, signal trainees spend several weeks in the field applying the skills they’ve developed before progressing to the next session.

While the trainees are in the field, the training staff begins training the next group of signal trainees. The schedule allows the staff to cycle more than one group through the school at any given time, and fully uses the training facility, and in the long run, saving Amtrak money.

Once they’ve completed the four modules, the new C&S maintainers are tested to demonstrate their mastery of the skills to become qualified.

The center is also the home of Nida Corp. Computer-Based Training (CBT) Electronics Training Labs.

That program is a two-year, two-day per month, college-level program that prepares Maintenance-of- Way and Maintenance-of-Equipment employees for electronic technician positions – “ETs.” The program enhances skills they are able to troubleshoot problems quickly and efficiently, resulting in fewer train delays and increased on-time performance.

Amtrak Ink GateGourment employee Ruth Smith hands Coast Starlight sleeper attendant Thomas Gaughan a few of Amtrak’s new blue sleeper blankets. Coast Starlight, Southwest Chief and Sunset Limited trains are being equipped with new blue Amtrak blankets. The California Zephyr, Lakeshore Limited, Capitol Limited, and Silver Service trains are also getting new blankets as they cycle through periodic maintenance in Chicago and Miami. New towels, which are 40 percent larger and 30 percent heavier than the ones currently being used, will be phased into service as the old ones are replaced in time for the summer travel season, Amtrak says.

A group turning to trains to improve transportation in Snohomish County, Wash., has set its sights on a little-used rail line on its Eastside.

The group, made up of residents and elected leaders and backed by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Project, is trying to bring a new kind of high-speed rail car to the Puget Sound region, according to a Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News story of April 12.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway’s Renton-Snohomish line, which the railroad is interested in selling, would be a perfect place to demonstrate the technology, said Bruce Agnew, program director for Cascadia, a project focused on transportation involving Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.

“The Eastside line is an urgent situation; we need to keep it in public ownership,” Agnew said.

Using the line for the coaches, being built by Colorado Railcar of Fort Lupton, Colo., would be a way to “test their marketability and get people to talk about it,” he said, and it would be totally temporary.”

The Eastside line is used mostly by the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train, which makes up to nine trips a week during the summer. The tracks also are used for light freight.

The group, nicknamed the “Farmhouse Gang,” plans to apply for federal funding next spring that could help to place the train in a local pilot project, Agnew said. The temporary demonstration line would appeal to commuters and tourists, he said.

The group, whose members represent communities from Everett to Blaine, plans to work with Cascadia in the next year to shop the idea to residents and leaders of Eastside communities.

The idea, however, faces several hurdles besides funding, Agnew said. The group behind the idea would have to buy the track from BNSF or get the railroad to lease the line, or give it rights to use the line. The group would need an agency sponsor such as Sound Transit or WashDOT to get federal funding. Improvements might have to be made to the line and crossings, and the concept would need community support.

At a recent Everett meeting that brought more than 50 regional leaders together to talk about trains, Colorado Railcar representative and former Mercer Island resident Tom Janaky explained that the rail vehicle uses one-sixth the fuel of a regular locomotive.

It can run at up to 90 mph and, unlike a light rail unit, can use existing track. The Farmhouse Gang, formally called the North Sound Connecting Communities Project, also is planning for the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia.

Members hope to take pressure off Interstate 5 by expanding Amtrak Cascades service north of Seattle through work with federal, state, and local agencies, and perhaps through a partnership with Canada.

The group is not the only entity interested in the Eastside rail line. Regional leaders and transportation planners have long viewed the tracks, part of which wends along the east side of Lake Washington, as a potential location for high-capacity transit such as light rail. Private parties could make a bid for it as well.

Last year, BNSF approached DOT to gauge its interest in buying the 40-mile line. The state then asked the four-county Puget Sound Regional Council, which oversees growth and transportation planning, to spend six months researching future uses.

“So far, everyone generally feels that it would be a terrible shame to lose this right of way,” said King Cushman, regional strategy adviser for the regional council.

He said it’s too early to know specifics, such as what the line would cost, who would buy and manage it, and what it would be used for. One possible option would be to first convert the right-of-way into a trail under the federal Rails to Trails program, he said. Cushman said he hadn’t heard about the idea of demonstrating a Colorado Railcar train. The regional council board will probably receive a report about the research in June.

APTA opens commuter rail conference

More than 500 members of the American Public Transportation Assn. (APTA), representing commuter rail systems and suppliers, are meeting in Atlantic City today and tomorrow. The participants will focus on all aspects of the North American commuter rail industry, including security, planning new capital projects, new technology applications, and financing innovations. The conference also features a technical tour of New Jersey Transit‘s newest rail line, a product showcase, and a comprehensive equipment display.

Speakers at the Sheraton Hotel meet include U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, who will discuss current rail legislative issues before Congress.

George Warrington, New Jersey Transit executive director and former Amtrak CEO, and Jack Lettiere, Transportation Commissioner and NJT’s board chairman, will provide state and local perspectives.

An update on rail security initiatives and their impact on commuter rail will be led by David Solow from Metrolink in Los Angeles. Panelists include William W. Millar, APTA President; Ed Pritchard, FRA; and Mark Johnson, Transportation Security Administration today at 3:30 p.m.

Amtrak’s future of is the topic of the closing general session, and features FRA deputy administrator Allan Rutter on Tuesday at 12:15 p.m.

For as long as many commuters can remember, planners and politicians have dreamed of a fast train to whisk people across Southern California and points beyond. Now, supporters of two multibillion-dollar, high-speed rail projects are wooing the region: The state’s High-Speed Rail Authority wants to bring its San Francisco-to-San Diego line through Los Angeles, while the Southern California Association of Governments hopes for a magnetic-levitation system that would crisscross Southern California.

The Los Angeles Daily News reported, “What is happening in Southern California is our metro area is developing at such a rate, and it’s only a matter of a decade before Las Vegas and Phoenix truly are linked economically and socially with the rest of Southern California. We’re going to need the capacity to move people,” said SCAG Executive Director Mark Pisano.

“Now how they get built, how they get financed, that’s really going to depend on if the public’s willing to spend that much money or if we’ll turn them into profitable businesses.”

The California High-Speed Rail Authority will hold a public hearing today in Los Angeles on its draft environmental report. The $37 billion project calls for running electric trains at 200 mph between Northern and Southern California, connecting its major cities and airports.

The trains would carry an estimated 32 million passengers annually by 2020. For $59 one-way, travelers could go between Los Angeles’ Union Station and San Francisco in about three hours. A trip between Palmdale and downtown L.A. would take about a half-hour.

Key for San Fernando Valley-area commuters is whether the Bakersfield-Los Angeles route should follow the I-5 freeway corridor or swing around to Palmdale.

Northern Los Angeles County is expected to swell from 500,000 residents today to 1.1 million by 2030, according to SCAG. Also, two major housing projects are planned along the 5 Freeway—the already approved Newhall Ranch and the proposed Centennial community at Tejon Ranch.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich supports both the SCAG maglev project as well as the prospect of bringing the state’s high-speed train through Palmdale.

“Antelope Valley residents could be shuttled to downtown in 26 minutes, faster than the freeways and with less pollution,” he said in a statement. “This would help free up the roadways and link important business centers in the Antelope Valley to spur economic development and create jobs.”

While many train enthusiasts support the high-speed rail project, detractors worry the Palmdale route would encourage growth beyond the Newhall Ranch and Centennial projects.

“Those are small developments compared to what you do when you have a train that can get you to downtown L.A. in less than an hour,” said Richard Tolmach, president of the nonprofit California Rail Foundation.

“If they were saying it’s not a commuter line, they shouldn’t have had a Palmdale alternative out there” –but the Rail Authority says high-speed rail wouldn’t necessarily provide a workday option for commuters.

“We don’t want to over-promise. It’s not going to be a commuter service,” said Mehdi Morshed, executive director of the authority.

The project has a spot on the November ballot for a $9.9 billion bond to begin work, but various laws to postpone that measure are pending in Sacramento.

Solons last week voted to delay a public vote on the bond issue until 2008. (See separate AP story – Ed.)

As the California project undergoes the environmental review, SCAG continues to pursue efforts to build a high-speed maglev system linking Southern California’s communities. The first leg would be a $5 billion, 55-mile route between West Los Angeles and Ontario Airport.

A separate maglev project by the 15-year-old California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission also proposes a route between Orange County and Las Vegas.

While the state project would be built with taxpayer funds, SCAG wants to have the maglev system built and operated privately. Detractors want the money spent on what they see as more practical transit solutions, like expanding Metrolink and MTA subway lines. Both the state and the SCAG projects support one another, hoping to connect riders of both systems.

“It depends what your goal is for the state. Their goal is to handle the intercity, our goal is to handle the commuters within the region,” said Pisano. “What’s more important? The people will have to decide that.”

The California Assembly Transportation Committee approved legislation by the Schwarzenegger administration to delay a public vote on nearly $10 billion in high-speed rail bonds until 2008 April 12. The $9.95 billion bond measure is currently scheduled to appear on the ballot this coming November. It would help pay for the first leg of a proposed 700-mile rail system linking the state’s major cities with trains running at top speeds of more than 200 mph – but even supporters of high-speed rail agree that the vote should be delayed because the state’s fiscal problems make passage unlikely this year.

– Associated Press

Route 128 station? What’s that?

A move currently underway by Massachusetts folks would eliminate “Route 128” from all maps and highway signs. Route 128, a circumferential highway that surrounds Boston and its immediate suburbs has, over the years, been taken over by other major route numbers which now concurrently share the same road surface.

The term “Rte. 128,” as it is abbreviated, is mostly known only to locals and to broadcast traffic reporters who need to reach their audience on the surfaces below, but to those traveling from outside the area, the “128” number is little known. Try I-93 (to Boston) or I-95 (around Boston).

Amtrak and the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad public and employee timetables still refer to the station as “Route 128.”

If the movement is successful, the remaining references and some old highway signs will come down. This could pose a small problem for Amtrak and the MBTA since the first major rail station outside of Boston is located right at the edge of Route 128 and is named after the soon-to-be-extinct highway. To some locals it is known as the “University Avenue” railroad station because of its street address, but the station actually lies in the small township of Westwood, Mass.

There are no educational institutions along the roadway that traverses industrial parks for several miles.

The Boston Globe conducted a survey among its readers in March over the name change.

The newspaper noted state officials had already deep-sixed plans to drop the Route 128 designation from the stretch of Interstate 95 that runs between Canton and Peabody, but judging from the e-mail they received, it's an idea that continues to rouse passion among local drivers.

The renaming plan was floated briefly as a means of resolving confusion on the beltway, but it was scuttled after state officials determined that local drivers are comfortable with the 128 designation, which, for many, carries both historic and economic weight, as well as a sense of local insider pride.

One letter writer noted, “Residents have become accustomed to Route 128 and want to keep it as is. If you work high-technology, you know that Route 128 still has cachet far beyond our state lines… It is a very important brand for our region."

Others believe the multiple highway names can be disorienting, especially for out-of-towners.

“One thing we seem to forget about this whole controversy is that highway guide signs are also for people who are not residents of the area,” wrote another reader, who added, “Many people who are not natives of the Boston area refer to 128 from Canton to Peabody as I-95. Continuing to refer to the road as Route 128 could be confusing to such people.”

For now, the Amtrak and MBTA station remains the Route 128 station, and only time will tell if it will be renamed. If life truly imitates art, or in this case the naming of a railroad station, this appears to be inevitable.

Backed by a $1.7 million federal grant, a nonprofit group plans to build a historically accurate replica of the Canaan, Conn. Union Station on the site where the original landmark burned almost three years ago, officials told the Hartford Courant on April 6.

The shell of the L-shaped building – complete with a three-story central tower – could be in place by Canaan’s annual Railroad Days festival at mid-summer. The building is expected to be completed by mid-2005.

Douglas Humes, the town’s first selectman and a leader of the campaign to restore the burned-out landmark, said, “That fire was a devastating blow to Canaan. We can’t wave a wand and make it all go away, but we are going to put that building back. From the outside, it’s going to look just the way it did.”

U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson (R), met with Humes and other local officials to announce that $1.7 million in aid for the project is in the federal transportation funding act that Congress is reviewing this month.

That will cover all but $500,000 of the budget that the Connecticut Railroad Historical Assn. believes the reconstruction will cost, Humes said.

“We’ll be looking for other grants and donations. Hopefully they’ll come in as people see we are on the road to total restoration,” he said, adding, “Now we can do it, and we will do it. We’ll restore that building to what you saw there before the fire.”

An October 13, 2001, intentionally set blaze destroyed the tower and the east-west wings of the building, and badly damaged the north-south wings. The 134-year-old station stood at the junction of the New York, New Haven & Hartford branch to Lakeville, Conn. The main track lay between Pittsfield, Mass., and Norwalk, Conn. Canaan was a transportation hub during the heyday of steam passenger railroads. In recent years, it housed professional offices, a restaurant and office space for a freight railroad company – and it was still the town’s architectural centerpiece.

“This was right in the center of the village, and it was the most significant building in town with architecture from that time,” said Fred Hall, municipal historian. “Everybody felt the loss of it.”

Former owner Paul Ramunni tried to rebuild, but ran out of money and halted the work in mid-2002. Chain-link fence was put up around the site, and many townspeople feared a developer would clear the property and erect a standard commercial building, but the nonprofit railroad historical association bought the land and slowly continued Ramunni’s rebuilding work in the north-south wing. The grant money will ensure the job is done, said Humes, an officer in the association.

The organization plans to design office space for much of the two wings, and a railroad museum in the tower. Volunteers have spent the past two years gathering historic photos of the station, old timetables, conductor’s caps, and other memorabilia for a museum.

The association also plans a restaurant for the building, and will offer that business to the Keilty family first. The family ran the popular Keilty’s depot restaurant at the station before the fire.

21^st Century monorail trains will soon be converging with traditional 20^th Century rails in the oldest part of Seattle – but can they peacefully coexist? A Seattle Monorail Project spokesman says getting ready to build the 21^st Century variety, says running its new elevated trains a few feet away from the vintage King Street rail station should work out fine, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on April 10.

Running the new trains between the old red-brick station and a newer office building to the west, and setting up a monorail station south of the old rail station, should create a well-used transfer point near not only the rail lines but the city’s two sports stadiums, monorail officials say.

“We think it’s going to look great, that it’s going to be an enhancement,” said Kevin Raymond, government-relations manager for the Seattle Monorail Project. Moreover, he said, that segment of the route was specifically approved by voters, and can’t be changed.

The Oregon DOT, which is leading the effort to renovate the old King Street Station, is not pleased with the idea of having the elevated monorail guideways passing a few feet away from the station’s grand old facade.

The state also worries that support piers for monorail tracks south of the older station will block expansion of the ground-level rail tracks that is needed if conventional rail passenger traffic keeps expanding.

The state has been unable to change the monorail project’s mind so far, but it has carried its objections to the City Council, which must grant its approval to the monorail alignment before construction can begin.

Placing the monorail a few feet from the old station’s door will complicate and perhaps “stymie” efforts to renew and expand the old rail station, said Ron Sheck, the state’s urban rail program manager.

“It would be damaging to access to our front door at Third and King,” he said. “I think there is a concern that we would be boxed in.” He said the monorail has changed its route in at least two other places due to neighborhood questions. “There’s precedent.”

The station is one of 128 historic properties along the 14-mile monorail route that would be affected and that the monorail agency must deal with. It is now writing a federally required plan that assesses the new line’s effects on historic buildings and specifies measures to deal with them.

Raymond says the costs of dealing with construction impacts alone are expected to top $1 million. That doesn’t include the costs that could be incurred where construction unearths valuable archaeological sites.

“Moving Sacramento’s train station and tracks will be a curse for transit, a boon for UP’s real estate values,” wrote Richard Tolmach, writing for The Sacramento Bee’s April 11 edition.

Sacramento taxpayers may wonder why they are being asked to pay as much as $160 million for a transit terminal project in the downtown rail yards, with tracks 800 feet farther away from downtown than the current Amtrak station. Why should the tracks move at all, now that the station finally has a solid roof and Regional Transit is extending light rail to a cross-platform link on Track 1?

The answer is this is not a depot project anymore. It’s a major real estate project involving significant toxic remediation needs and over five miles of track removal and replacement – all of it masquerading as a transit project in an effort to get government funding. Union Pacific wants the tracks to move for development reasons, even though it is likely to make things worse for transit users and only hurt Amtrak ridership.

Sacramento’s City Council voted 8-1 on March 16 to move the station north toward tracks to be relocated 800 feet farther away from downtown.

Over the past four or five years, city-hired consultants have trotted out a variety of dubious reasons for moving the tracks. At various times, taxpayers have been told the station must be moved because the tracks curve after the 14^th car, because of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements, because of other undocumented safety issues or because the existing station “just doesn’t work” operationally.

Rail passenger activists have effectively rebutted each one of these claims.

“The obsession about the Sacramento curve by Capitol Corridor bureaucrats was laughable,” said Dan McNamara, former president of the Train Riders Assn. of California (TRAC).

“They never could show anyone a picture of a Capitol Corridor train that didn’t fit on the straight track, since they never have more than six cars. We ended up having no respect for their position, because it was clear they had no valid safety issue and were just helping UP manipulate Sacramento’s City Council.”

“UP and the Capitol Corridor have given us new curved platforms at Davis, Suisun, Martinez, Richmond and Fremont, so we see a discrepancy between words and actions,” said TRAC Executive Director Alan C. Miller.

“Union Pacific says it is interested in safety, yet it removed ‘Station Occupied’ signals at Davis, where freights zip around a curve through the station at 60 mph and have repeatedly endangered passengers. Sacramento, which has a long section of straight track, grade-separated access and safe operating speeds, is not much of a safety issue compared to the rest of the corridor.”

Railroad operating unions say moving the track northward produces a bigger, not a smaller, safety problem, because it requires a new curve just east of the swing-span bridge. “That’s been our position all along,” said James P. Jones, United Transportation Union legislative representative. “The farther north they move the track, the more difficult it is to have a safe crossing of the river. I think you have to do an operational study before you conclude that moving the track is prudent.”

Others say the 1991 accident at Cantara Loop, near Dunsmuir, that dumped chemicals into the Sacramento River, raises environmental concerns about the proposed new Sacramento curve, where toxins could affect a dense urban area.

Another train went into the drink near Cantara Loop last year, but the tank cars didn’t rupture that time.

UP’s lapses in safety practices have become the focus of statewide groups critical of the railroad, including California Trout.

Advocates of the track move also repeatedly cited ADA as a reason station tracks had to be straight but, under direct questioning by a skeptical City Councilman Dave Jones, were forced to admit that there was no ADA statutory or regulatory language mandating straight station tracks.

UP claims by its allies that there is inadequate traffic circulation at the depot raised retorts that UP had created those problems itself by closing automobile routes and auctioning off the station’s parking to other users.

The push to move the Amtrak station and track continues without a demonstrated operational need, at the same time that budget crises have all but dried up transit capital funding. Most rail supporters think there are much better uses for any scarce public dollars than moving the station or the tracks. A multimodal terminal project that costs as much as $160 million starts competing with needed light rail extensions.

There is a community consensus that the depot should be saved and improved, but that work is underway, and it shouldn’t cost more than about $20 million to separate buses from passenger paths and build needed parking expansion.

City officials taking the side of the railroad have pressured citizen groups to accept a move of the station to preserve its proximity to the tracks. Sources said the primary force behind the track move has never been forced to step forward from the shadows, let alone make any real compromises.

Meanwhile, passengers have constantly felt the squeeze from a misbehaving railroad. Paths they once used to the depot get blocked, lights required for safe access are extinguished, free parking becomes pay parking with Sterling and then Platinum prices, as conditions become unsafe for the disabled and able-bodied alike. Amtrak commuters are frustrated and angry at each decline in convenience. All fingers point back to UP, and local officials concede that Union Pacific has blocked needed station improvements yet again.

Streetcars play a part in transportation plan

Trolleys could be on their way back to Minneapolis, 50 years after the Twin Cities streetcar system reached the end of the line. City Council Member Gary Schiff wants the council to study a $53 million proposal for a streetcar line along the Midtown Greenway, a bike and pedestrian trail that cuts across South Minneapolis along a former railway. The city won’t be able to pay for the project alone so officials expect to work with Hennepin County, though no financing plan has been drawn up.

– Pioneer Press, April 6

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority took the first steps on March 11 to extend the Green Line from Lechmere to West Medford, a $375 million expansion of the transit system that the state promised as a condition for undertaking the Big Dig. A $391,000 study to be conducted by the firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin of Watertown will spell out the possible routes and station stops of the 4.2-mile extension through Somerville, approved by the board of the MBTA directors. The study should be finished this year.

– Boston Globe, March 12

For NCI: Rolf Stumpf New Albany & Corydon is a typical shortline that could benefit from federal aid. In Corydon, Ind., S-3 No. 86 basks in the sun on June 25, 1999.

More heavy freight cars are coming

Outside Alan Barnett’s office sits a 40-foot boxcar of the Louisville, New Albany & Corydon Railroad, a survivor from a fleet the Corydon, Indiana-based short line leased decades ago to other railroads for carrying freight all over the nation. Now the car stands among other rolling treasures from bygone days preserved at the Indiana Railway Museum in French Lick.

From his desk inside the old depot along Indiana 56 in French Lick, Barnett, 56, runs two railroads. He is president and general manager of the museum, where the old depot is a backdrop in harmony with a nostalgia-tinged excursion train that runs April through October on a scenic, 20-mile round trip out to Cuzco, Ind.

Besides overseeing a museum line that is about “then,” Barnett also runs the for-profit Dubois County Railroad, which must be about “now,” the Louisville Courier & Press reported on April 13.

It’s a line that hauls freight loads from the Norfolk Southern yard at Huntingburg to two customers in Jasper, Ind., and one in Dubois, Ind. The excursion line and the freight railroad manage to break even because they share facilities and employees.

Running an excursion train on infrastructure as old as the 1907 French Lick depot may be a selling point for the museum, but roadbed, track and bridges originally built for steam locomotives could be a death trap to Barnett’s and other freight-hauling short lines nationwide, a few in Southwestern Indiana included.

Here’s the problem: Heavier rail cars are coming. Actually, they’re here. To grasp this huge issue for railroading – and for highway congestion, maintenance and expense, since it’s about transporting bulk commodities – try this:

Imagine you’ve gotten a fantastic deal on enough furniture to equip your entire new house, but you must transport it to Evansville from Louisville, Ky. You own a good pickup truck, but you’re going to be making three or more trips if you use it.

You could rent a larger truck. It would be more costly off the top, but with the added capacity, you could haul everything in one trip. A third the mileage, a third the time – you’d save money. Who could resist? Ah, but there’s a complication: You live at the end of a long, dirt lane. It’s spring. The ground is soft. Interstate and state roads will bear up easily under your big truckload of furniture, but will the old, creaky wooden bridge across your deep drainage ditch survive? If it collapses, truck and furniture are damaged, maybe destroyed. Will your big rental truck get stuck in your squishy lane? Getting a big truck pulled out of the mud is not cheap.

The Interstates, in the highway network, are the equivalent of the high-traffic, high speed, Class I American rail lines, but your driveway is like the typical short line – adequate for low-speed travel, low-volume traffic and relatively light duty, but unequal to loads much heavier than your pickup can carry.

In the 1950s and ’60s, when the 40-foot Louisville, New Albany & Corydon boxcars still were riding the rails, such 100,000- to 120,000-pound capacity units were a mainstay in railway shipping.

In those days, it must have seemed roadbeds built to withstand the heavier steam locomotives would be adequate forever. Weights edged up to 200,000 pounds during the 1960s – no problem. Most of them accommodated even the 263,000-pound car, which up to now has been standard. Now, though, the track structure isn’t adequate for 286,000-pound cars. That’s 143 tons.

The high-volume, Class I carriers – CSX, BNSF, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific among them – already have upgraded. Virtually all new covered hopper cars are being built to 286,000-pound specifications.

Dubois County Railroad’s biggest customer uses covered hoppers exclusively. Nonetheless, Barnett still is keeping his fingers crossed. A Jasper oil company, the line’s second-biggest shipper, is likely to continue using tank cars whose weights fall beneath his line’s current weight limit. If Barnett can continue to get older covered hoppers to serve the expanding needs of the elevator at Dubois, he will, even if that means the Dubois County Railroad would acquire and maintain its own fleet.

“We’ve looked into that. As long as the supply of older cars remains available, we’ll be all right,” said Barnett, hoping to stave off 286,000 pounds as long as possible. Barnett and other short-line operators are used to employing that kind of creativity.

Norfolk Southern abandoned what now are the Dubois County and the Hoosier Southern railroads in Southwestern Indiana, while Conrail, later carved up by the Norfolk Southern and CSX, abandoned the Indianapolis-Evansville line that now is the Indiana Southern, part of the RailAmerica shortline network.

“They were not cost-effective for the major railroads – low density, high maintenance, old bridges, light weight of the track,” Barnett explained. “We make them work.”

Without the short lines that took over some of the routes, many communities and businesses would be without any rail service. Costlier and highway-clogging truck transport would be the only other option. That not only drives up the cost of goods, but also is a safety and public-policy issue, since trucks travel roads built and maintained with tax dollars.

Many short lines, with a longer and more diverse customer list, don’t have Barnett’s options in postponing 286,000-pound (and eventually heavier) cars. That’s why Dick Neumann, chief executive of the Port Authority of Tell City, Ind., is joining Barnett and a host of short-line operators nationwide, pushing Congress to pass the Local Railroad Rehabilitation and Investment Act of 2003. The port entity Neumann heads operates the Hoosier Southern Railroad’s 18-mile stretch from Lincoln City to Tell City and controls tracks which stretch upriver to Cannelton, Ind. Nature had virtually reclaimed the abandoned roadbed until the port authority gained control of it in the mid-1990s. That move immediately led to Waupaca Foundry’s decision to locate in Tell City, illustrating the rail line’s worth to the community.

Neumann said existing customers as well as new industries being courted by Perry County officials “are demanding 286. If we don’t find a solution, then there could be business lost by the small railroads. If you figure four trucks to every rail car, that’s going to create more pressure on highways and local roads. Plus, the railroads are a lot more fuel-efficient than trucks.

“We’re trying to make the case that short-line railroads are vital to the continued economic viability of the state and the country as a whole.” said Neumann. He added, “Once you’ve lost a railroad, it doesn’t come back.”

Neumann said the local railroad rehab measure, also known as H.R. 876, is supported by 8^th District Rep. John Hostettler, and the companion Senate legislation is co-sponsored by Indiana’s senators. It would provide a tax credit of $10,000 per track mile to short lines from 2004 to 2008. As the bill is proposed, the lines don’t have to apportion the money by the mile, but could spend the allotment anywhere on the right-of-way. Where the tax credit would be larger than the railroad’s tax bill, the railroad could sell the credit to other railroads or the suppliers and contractors used in their upgrades. That’s especially significant for the Hoosier Southern, which is owned by a public entity.

It would remain only part of the solution.

An Indiana DOT study states it’ll take $100 million to upgrade all the state’s short lines to handle 286,000-pound rail car traffic. The state’s annual contribution to 30 Hoosier short lines is about $1.2 million, on average.

Neumann vision of upgrading doesn’t stop at 286,000. Within a decade, most rail experts think the AAR, which approved “286,” within a decade will boost car capacity to 315,000 pounds. Neumann says it won’t cost that much more to go to 315,000.

Arthur Miller has staged flashy rail crashes in several feature films, including the blockbuster thriller The Fugitive – but even Miller, now managing director of Alabama-based Rail Transportation Management Specialists, couldn’t have planned what happened this week.

While Miller guided members of U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor’s staff along a track in Clarke County – explaining the need of federal money for rail line repairs – a chunk of mainline railhead broke off and fell to the ground.

“There were a lot of dropped jaws and raised eyebrows when that happened,” he said. “Hopefully this drives home the urgency of the situation. It wouldn’t hurt if this story was told a few times in Washington.”

Fredie Carmichael of The Meridian Star in Mississippi wrote on April 9 that officials from Taylor’s office met with economic development officials, business leaders and residents two days earlier in two separate meetings about the railroad’s condition.

Miller said both meetings were well attended.

A team of East Mississippi economic development officials has said 2,000 jobs held by Clarke and Wayne county residents depend on the repair and upgrade of the 55-mile stretch of railroad track.

Officials with the East Mississippi Business Development Corp., as well as economic development districts and boards of supervisors in Clarke and Wayne counties, are hard at work on the project.

Their goal is to get federal funding to repair the Meridian Southern Ry. line that links Waynesboro and Meridian – where it then connects with Kansas City Southern Ry. and other carriers.

Miller was recently hired by Wayne County to investigate the line’s problems and locate funding for repairs. Miller said the rail line has been neglected for more than 30 years.

Couple that with last spring’s round of flash floods in East Mississippi, he said, and some people fear the line could become impassable.

The biggest plant that could suffer from the condition of the railroad is Waynesboro’s Marshall-Durbin grain storage and blending plant, a chicken hatchery business dependent on rail. The plant is responsible for about 1,200 high-wage jobs in Mississippi and Alabama. In Clarke County, about 650 workers could be affected if the railroad had to close.

Miller said federal and state money wouldn’t be the only place the group would look to fund the repairs. He said officials from Meridian Southern Railroad would be sought to commit funds.

“We’re going to meet with Eric Lee, the railroad owner, next week to examine his ability to provide additional capital,” Miller said. “There is unanimous belief that additional investment from the railroad’s owners is essential.”

Miller said the rail line between Waynesboro and Meridian was built in 1905. When the 99-year-old piece of railhead broke off, Miller said it proved the line was in dire need of attention. He said he plans to keep the piece of railhead handy as he touts the funding efforts.

“I plan on taking it with me to the state capital next week,” Miller said.

Ask Chief Executive Matt Rose how high energy prices affect a railroad like Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., and he likens the effect to “a knife fight.”

“We benefit some from higher oil and gas prices, but those higher prices hurt our customers too,” said Rose, now in his third year steering the Fort Worth-based rail giant.

Star-Telegram Matthew Rose

Rose will obviously be careful not to chortle about the positives that high energy prices bring to a railroad, but history – distant and recent – clearly indicate that BNSF will be a winner as long as energy prices stay high. The Houston Star-Telegram reported on April 10 higher diesel prices cause more shipments to move from trucks to more efficient railroads. BNSF, already with a 20 percent increase in truck container shipments last year, stands to increase such loads by as much as 25 percent this year. BNSF’s mainstay coal business, stagnant in recent years as many utilities switched to natural gas, is on the upswing as natural gas prices hit record highs. With a ban on the emission-controlling additive MTBE, California depends on corn-based ethanol to clean the gasoline burned there. BNSF is transporting 95 tank cars a week filled with ethanol from the Midwest to California, adding $200 million to revenues. Rose says the carrier plans to hire 1,600 employees, primarily train crewmembers, this year. BNSF reported 36,500 employees at the end of 2003. The railroad will also buy 350 new locomotives, the second-largest annual purchase in company history. BNSF increased its earnings per share last year, to $2.10 a share from $2.01 in 2002, and Standard & Poor’s analyst Andrew West is looking for $2.38 this year. “We believe the company will benefit from above-average revenue growth, driven by its outsized exposure to intermodal transport, coal and grain,” West wrote in a recent report. West and other observers note that BNSF has emphasized intermodal shipments in recent years. The carrier’s Los Angeles-Chicago route has become the major highway for Asian goods imported through the Los Angeles port.

BNSF’s vice president for marketing, John Lanigan, a former trucking executive at Schneider Transport, said the two industries have learned to work together.

“We have a new generation of executives in both rail and trucking. The days of open warfare are over,” he said.

BNSF has even taken out advertisements in transportation trade journals proclaiming, with a red heart, that it “Loves Trucks.”

“Those advertisements have caught a lot of people’s attention,” said Thomas White, director of communications for the Association of American Railroads, who, like most in the industry, is well-versed in the long-standing antagonisms between highway and rail transport.

Before World War II, railroads accounted for at least two-thirds of intercity freight shipments. In the last half-century, particularly after the advent of the interstate highway system, that ratio was reversed; but in the last decade, railroads have seen their share of intercity ton-miles of freight shipments climb from 37 percent to 42 percent. Rose and Lanigan both think that rail can continue to gain.

“The U.S. is now ready for a transportation system where railroads and trucks work together, rather than fight each other all the time,” Rose said.

BNSF and other carriers have been working hard in recent years to advance business with the trucking industry.

The 1995 merger of the Burlington Northern Railroad with the Santa Fe Ry. was predicated on folding Santa Fe’s burgeoning intermodal business into BN’s longtime powerhouse coal and grain franchises.

After dipping in recent years, BNSF appears to be benefiting from a comeback by coal, seemingly consigned to the energy dustbin a decade ago when utilities rushed to build natural gas-fired generators. Coal’s share of the electricity generating business dropped from 57 percent in 1991 to 51 percent in 2003.

Policy-makers in Washington, increasingly concerned about tight supplies and high prices for natural gas, are taking a second look at coal. The Environmental Protection Agency has relaxed some of its clean-air standards, and the coal industry has asked Congress to give new emission control technology a chance.

That would greatly aid BNSF, the nation’s largest coal shipper. Rose said, however, that what he called “environmental scare tactics” must be countered.

“The environmentalists have totally controlled the debate over clean air,” he said. “The result has been to de-emphasize coal and bring about high prices for natural gas.”

The high prices for natural gas already have caused several utilities to change fuels, driving up coal shipments almost 3 percent this year for BNSF after several years of stagnant or declining volumes.

Another promising area is agriculture. Strong demand in China for American corn has caused a healthy increase in shipments from the Midwest to Pacific Coast ports.

The real payoff to BNSF in the Far East is the cornucopia of Asian goods shipped across the Pacific to California ports. Rose says shipments in and out of China now account for as much as 25 percent of BNSF’s revenues.

“We plan to open an office in Shanghai later this year,” said Rose, who visits China at least once a year to drum up business.

For NCI: Peter Furnee CSX Q415 traverses the Magnolia cutoff on the B&O Cumberland Subdivision in West Virginia. Furnee says “The first sign of spring is the daffodil patch.” He snapped the photo on March 27.

CSX has suffered chronic problems with highway crossings, according to an investigation by the Rochester, N.Y. Democrat and Chronicle.

Employees and union officials say cuts in the work force over the last decade have drastically reduced maintenance crews, leading to more accidents. Federal regulators have criticized CSX repeatedly in recent years for shortcomings in maintenance and staffing, the newspaper stated.

CSX officials said the company has not cut maintenance staffing since taking over the former Conrail railroad four-plus years ago. They said equipment failures are rare and that CSX is stepping up efforts to boost crossing safety.

“This is an issue that CSX takes very seriously,” said John Casellini, a CSX regional vice-president. Casellini said last week that the company is working to rebuild highway crossings in the Rochester area this year. “We are focusing on the future and what can be done.”

CSX’s plans come partly in response to the public outcry over a February 3 crash outside Rochester that claimed the lives of John and Jean O’Connor. The accident has been blamed on the train’s crew, which failed to follow an order to stop at the crossing because the protective gates and lights were not working.

Law enforcement officials are investigating the incident as a possible case of negligent homicide. CSX said the accident was attributable to human error, but critics of the railroad say ballast that supports the tracks and provides drainage on the line where the accident occurred has not been replaced or cleaned in at least five years.

That can contribute to the kind of equipment malfunction that set the stage for the fatal accident, experts say. Maintenance shortcomings also have been cited by the attorney for a San Francisco man who was electrocuted in 2003 by a power line that had fallen off a pole alongside a CSX track outside Rochester.

The lawyer, Matthew Belanger, said the railroad has cut back on preventive maintenance and makes repairs only after problems appear. He filed a wrongful-death suit on behalf of the man’s family in March.

“The railroads are in a deferred-maintenance mode, rolling the dice,” said Eldon Luttrell, an official of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen union.

“It seems like 99 times out of 100, the railroad wins when they play this game of deferred maintenance. Every once in a while it comes back to haunt them.”

The Monroe County 911 center said there were 190 calls reporting equipment problems at Rochester area crossings in 2002, 2003 and the first three months of 2004. The list is not complete, and could include reported problems that railroad officials found to be inaccurate, the newspaper said.

CSX recently checked its records for six local crossings and reported 68 verified equipment problems over a two-year span. During that same period, gates and lights activated without any known problems about 131,000 times for a success rate of 99.95 percent.

However, railroads do not have to report false activations, the term for gates and lights activating when there is no train. Such instances pose a danger as drivers often ignore the signals and try cross the tracks when no train immediately appears.

FRA data indicates there were 7,377 accidents nationwide between 1999 and 2003 at crossings protected by gates. Railroads reported only about 200 cases in which the gates were proven or alleged to have been down longer than a minute, suggesting they activated falsely. Critics say those records are inaccurate, because there often are no objective witnesses.

The Center for Political Accountability (CPA) is urging Union Pacific Corp. (UNP) shareholders to support a resolution that asks the company to disclose and explain the business purpose of its political donations.

A press release from the center reported it wants UP to make the disclosure “As part of a campaign to bring transparency and accountability to corporate political contributions.”

UP, the nation’s largest railroad company, currently does not make public its political contributions or tell shareholders how it decides on donations made with corporate assets. The disclosure resolution will be voted on at its annual meeting last Friday (April 16) in Salt Lake City.

“Corporate political giving runs the risk of using a company’s assets for objectives not disclosed to or approved by its shareholders,” according to CPA Co-director Bruce Freed.

“If companies choose to make political gifts, it is critical that their shareholders are aware of where that money is going and what is the business purpose of the contributions. Making a contribution through a conduit does not absolve the company of its responsibility to know how its funds are ultimately used.”

UP made $1,032,022 in corporate contributions in the 2002 election cycle. The company gave to conduits that, in turn, contributed to controversial groups like Texans for a Republican Majority (TRM), an organization that played a key part in underwriting the change in control of the Texas House of Representatives in 2002, and to extremist groups such as the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC).

“Union Pacific should be cautious about making contributions that could expose it to possible criminal violations and that could harm its reputation with customers, employees, and shareholders,” said Freed.

UP’s contributions have entangled it in a Texas investigation into the propriety of some of TRM’s fundraising practices. According to press accounts, areas of interest include the relationship between the railroad and TRM and whether the company’s contributions may have influenced state house races and the contest for Texas House speaker two years ago. Texas law severely circumscribes the use of corporate money in state campaigns and legislative leadership races.

Led by the Rev. Louis Sheldon, the TVC bills itself as the largest church lobby in the United States. It pushes a strong socially conservative agenda that includes opposition to gay and lesbian rights, a woman’s right to choose, and the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Kansas City Southern said on April 12 it was sticking to its guns in a disputed deal to take over Mexican transport company TMM’s stake in railroad operator TFM. KCS and TMM said last week they had agreed to a truce in a quarrel that started after TMM pulled out of a deal to sell TFM to KCS last August, but both interpreted the ceasefire differently.

TMM said the truce meant the acquisition deal was off while KCS said it still applied, Reuters reported from Mexico City. On Monday, it threatened to take the dispute back to arbitration.

“If all of TMM’s obligations under the acquisition contract are not quickly met, KCS intends to return to the next round in the arbitration process,” KCS said in a statement faxed to Reuters.

Cash-strapped TMM agreed in April 2003 to sell KCS its 41 percent stake in TFM, Mexico’s top freight railroad, for $412 million, but called off the deal after TMM shareholders rejected it last August.

Analysts have said TMM’s rejection of the sale might reflect an increased belief that it can win a $950 million claim against the Mexican government for tax rebates, which would allow the company to cover looming debt.

KCS has said TMM is obliged to follow through with the agreement because Jose Serrano, who is TMM’s chairman and main shareholder, signed it.

Freight traffic on U.S. railroads rose during the week ended April 10 in comparison with the corresponding week last year, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported Thursday.

Intermodal traffic totaled 201,330 trailers or containers, up 6.4 percent from last year. Trailer traffic was up 9.0 percent and container volume rose 5.5 percent from last year.

Carload freight, which does not include the intermodal data, totaled 326,519 cars, up 0.7 percent from last year, with volume up 1.5 percent in the West but down 0.3 percent in the East. Total volume was estimated at 29.7 billion ton-miles, up 2.1 percent from last year.

Good Friday, which is observed as a holiday on many railroads, was included in the 2004 week but not in the comparison week from last year.

Eleven of 19 carload commodity groups were down from last year, with motor vehicles and equipment off 11.0 percent and food and food products down 9.0 percent. On the positive side, lumber and wood products were up 8.2 percent; grain increased by 5.9 percent and coal rose 4.6 percent.

The AAR also reported the following cumulative totals for U.S. railroads during the first 14 weeks of 2004: 4,624,181 carloads, up 3.0 percent from last year; intermodal volume of 2,786,375 trailers or containers, up 7.2 percent; and total volume of an estimated 414.7 billion ton-miles, up 4.3 percent from last year’s first 14 weeks.

On Canadian railroads, carload traffic was flat while intermodal freight was down during the week ended April 10.Carload volume totaled 66,607 cars, up less than one-tenth of one percent from last year. Intermodal traffic totaled 41,462 trailers or containers, down 4.5 percent from last year.

Cumulative originations for the first 14 weeks of 2004 on Canadian railroads totaled 929,291 carloads, up 6.2 percent from last year, and 556,848 trailers and containers, down 1.5 percent from last year.

Combined cumulative volume for the first 14 weeks of 2004 on 15 reporting U.S. and Canadian railroads totaled 5,553,472 carloads, up 3.5 percent from last year and 3,343,223 trailers and containers, up 5.7 percent from last year.

The AAR also reported that originated carload freight on the Mexican railroad Transportacion Ferroviaria Mexicana (TFM) during the week ended April 10 totaled 8,335 cars, down 7.5 percent from last year. TFM reported intermodal volume of 2,595 originated trailers or containers, down 30.9 percent from the 14^th week of 2003. For the first 14 weeks of 2004, TFM reported cumulative originated volume of 116,187 cars, down 7.9 percent from last year, and 47,910 trailers or containers, down 8.5 percent.

Railroads reporting to AAR account for 88 percent of U.S. carload freight and 95 percent of rail intermodal volume. When the U.S. operations of Canadian railroads are included, the figures increase to 95 percent and 100 percent. The Canadian railroads reporting to the AAR account for 90 percent of Canadian rail traffic.

Iran’s railroads to link with Europe

The Iranian News Agency reported on April 11 a “new railroad is under construction in the Astrakhan region of Russia, the completion of which would connect Iran by rail to Europe,” said a visiting official from Astrakhan region in Bandar Abbes on April 10.

Speaking at a banquet given in his honor by the governor of southern Hormuzgan province, Anatoli Guzhvin, the governor of Astrakhan region of Russia said the new railroad would link the region to the main Russia-Europe railroad network.

Guzhvin arrived in the provincial capital city of Bandar Abbas last Thursday at the head of an economic and political delegation on a two-day visit.

Noting that the new 27-mile railroad that is currently being constructed in Russia’s Astrakhan region would provide Iran access to European countries’ railroad networks. The governor optimistically said the first train traveling the Astrakhan route will soon be heading for Iran from Europe. He did not state the exact date.

Guzhvin also said that the Iranian consulate will open soon in the Astrakhan region.

Guzhvin, after inspecting a number of provincial facilities in Hormuzgan, signed several letters of understanding with its officials.

Dear Editor:

Perhaps you might note in D:F that Gary Young’s “W.F.P.T.” reward offer has no connection to Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts. Same for Chris Tirone – no connection to Mass Bay RRE. They’re on their own.

John W. Reading
Mass Bay RRE