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Railroad Newsline for Monday, 01/29/07
Author: Larry W. Grant
Date: 01-29-2007 - 00:47
Railroad Newsline for Monday, January 29, 2007
Compiled by Larry W. Grant
In Memory of Rob Carlson, 1952 – 2006
Rail News
BNSF ISSUES WINTER WEATHER DELAY ADVISORY FOR DENVER, COLORADO AREA
Continued winter weather conditions within the BNSF Railway Company Denver, CO terminal have had a negative impact on the normal flow of traffic throughout the facility. Ice, snow and cold temperatures are causing slow train movements and switching operations. BNSF personnel are continuing efforts to regain fluidity and minimize customer delays within the terminal.
Rerouting of traffic is ongoing and will continue as necessary. Customers may experience delays between 24 to 48 hours on traffic moving through this region. - BNSF Service Advisory
RAILROAD BACKERS HOPE FOR THE BEST
JACKSONVILLE, TX -- Some want the Texas State Railroad to remain state property. Others want to take a chance and give privatization a try. And many don't care one way or the other -- they just want the steam engines to keep running.
Judging by the turnout at Friday evening's town hall meeting in Jacksonville, the Texas State Railroad is not lacking local support -- it's finding champions of the trains among the Austin Legislature that remains the park's dilemma.
Approximately 150 supporters gathered at 17:00 Friday at the Norman Activity Center to hear the latest information from Austin regarding the railroad.
Freshman Sen. Robert Nichols led the meeting, focusing on the two principal options for the railroad — continued state operation and private ownership.
"I don't think it is any secret that the collective mission of everyone in this room is to keep the Texas State Railroad open and running," Nichols said. "I have heard some pieces of misinformation floating around, and I wanted to have this meeting to inform the public about what is going on and what needs to be done."
State Rep. Chuck Hopson spoke of the work he will be doing to ensure the railroad doesn't close.
"I really don't know what committees I'm going to be on yet, but I expect that I will be back on Appropriations. If I am on the Appropriations Committee again, the trains will be one of the items that I work the hardest on," Hopson said. "I cannot imagine a worse thing in my legacy than to have it said that during my watch they closed the Texas State Railroad."
According to Hopson, work is being done simultaneously to ensure the railroad is given the best possible shot at garnering state funding and to attract private companies.
"We won't know until the last two or three weeks of the session what is being funded, so we need to be prepared for whatever may come," he said.
Steve Presley, chairman of the Texas State Railroad Preservation Task Force, presented a timeline chronicling the work already being done to ensure the trains operate in some form. Task force members have made numerous trips to Austin to gauge the leadership's interest in running the trains themselves.
"Every conversation that we have had with legislators, the feeling is that the likelihood of the state funding the railroad long-term, at the level that it needs to be funded, is minimal or none," Presley said. "The likelihood of the railroad being funded, even at a level enough to just save it for a private partnership is not real good either, but they feel it is much better than the chance that the state will fund everything."
The task force has also worked to establish an interlocal agreement between the cities of Rusk and Palestine which allows for the creation of an entity to oversee the operation of the trains, should an arrangement with a private company be reached.
American Heritage Railways and two other private businesses have expressed interest in taking over operation of the railroad. Several protections have been established to protect and preserve the assets of the trains if they are privatized. The private operator will need to preserve the historical accuracy of the trains and will be required to maintain the tracks themselves and conduct regular safety checks. - Kelly Young, The Longview News-Journal
RAILROAD REBUILD: A DURANGO & SILVERTON NARROW GAUGE RAILROAD PHOTO ESSAY BY YODIT GIDEY
Photo 1: [www.durangoherald.com]
Caption reads: Benjamin Fearn, boilermaker’s helper with the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, checks for broken staybolts in the firebox of locomotive No. 478 in the roundhouse on Tuesday. After tapping about 1,000 bolts (and changing them if necessary) on one engine, he moves to another engine. After months of work in the shop, the 84-year-old engine is just days away from returning to the rails for testing and service.
Photo 2: [www.durangoherald.com]
Caption reads: Pete Mech, left, and Jarrette Ireland use a gas torch and a sharp blade to strip about five different layers of paint from car No. 410 in the D&SNG’s car shop on Tuesday. After the old paint is removed from the wood, the revamped first-class car will wear a fresh coat of Tuscan red paint.
Photo 3: [www.durangoherald.com]
Caption reads: Chris Nocé, above, a D&SNG car man and metal fabricator, welds a seat frame for gondola 410 in the car shop’s welding room on Tuesday. The transformation from seats holding three people to roomier seats for two should allow for a more comfortable ride. At left, car shop foreman Ray Ludwig demonstrates how the seats will look using a plywood pattern. A local upholsterer will create more comfortable cushions, Ludwig said, and tickets for the car will have a first-class price. The gondola was originally built for use on the D&SNG’s rail bus train from Rockwood to Needleton and Elk Park.
Photo 4: [www.durangoherald.com]
Caption reads: Jeff Ellingson, above, the D&SNG’s museum curator and painter, sands the gondola in the car shop’s paint booth. After being upgraded to a presidential-class car, the open gondola, which was built in the 1980s, will be paired with the Cinco Animas, a fancy 1800s business car, for a first-class experience. Another private car, the Nomad, is also expected to get the presidential polish for the 2007 season. In all, 45 cars will be refurbished during the off-season, Ellingson said.
Photo 5: [www.durangoherald.com]
Caption reads: Damen McCaddon, right, the D&SNG’s carpenter foreman, installs custom-fit stainless-steel countertops in car No. 64 on Tuesday. The 1800s post office car is one of four concession cars on the railroad. "It gets used more than any of the other concession cars," McCaddon said. With a furnace in the space, it is winter-worthy, McCaddon said.
- All photos by Yodit Gidey, The Durango Herald
RAIL PANEL HEAD HOPES TO SPEED UP WORK
BROOKINGS, SD -- A special committee set up to review an agreement the Brookings City Council reached with the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad last year has been urged to finish its work faster than planned.
Ed Hogan, the group's chairman, said he'd like to see it wrapped up in six months rather than an entire year.
The Brookings Railroad Safety Committee held its first meeting this past week.
In November, Brookings voters rejected the council's community partnership agreement with the DM&E. The committee could determine whether or how the agreement should be changed to improve safety.
Hogan said he wants to turn in his group's final report by June 29.
The DM&E is under no obligation to accept or negotiate any of the panel's recommendations.
The railroad is working on plans to improve its track so it can run up to several dozen coal trains every day.
The committee's activities could include field trips to other cities that have coal trains running through them.
"We're dealing with safety in Brookings," Hogan said. "We don't particularly care who the railroad is, whether it's DM&E, South Dakota state railroad, whether it's Union Pacific or Canadian Pacific. It doesn't matter who it is. All we're really concerned with is railroad safety."
He said if anyone joined the committee because they have a grudge against DM&E, they should perhaps think twice about serving.
"This is not any kind of a hunt against the DM&E," Hogan said.
During the 2006 general election, Brookings voters rejected the city's agreement with the Sioux Falls-based railroad 56 percent to 44 percent.
That agreement outlined what would be done on "safety and quality of life" issues such as fencing and street crossing barriers that could arise during the DM&E's proposed $6 billion expansion. It also said the city would support and promote the rail project. - The Associated Press, The Brookings Register, The Fargo Forum
TANKERS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Photo here:
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Caption reads: Rail tankers carrying hazardous materials sit near Highway 80 and homes in Richmond. (Laura Oda/The Oakland Tribune)
OAKLAND, CA -- To the thousands of residents and commuters who see them each day, the big steel tanker cars are ubiquitous features of the Bay Area's transportation landscape, parked on railroad sidings along with low-profile container carriers, steel-mesh auto carriers and bulging grain hoppers.
But to terrorism experts, emergency officials and chemical hazard researchers, they are lurking weapons of mass destruction, waiting for mishap or sabotage to set them off.
At a U.S. Senate hearing Jan. 18 the problem of highly hazardous chemical rail tankers in urban areas was listed as the Transportation Security Administration's second biggest threat to surface transportation, after direct threats to passenger rail systems that travel beneath the ground or water.
More than 100,000 tankers full of toxic inhalation hazard chemicals, such as chlorine and ammonia, are shipped through the nation annually out of a total of about 1.2 million tankers carrying materials considered hazardous in varying degrees.
On any day, one can see the tankers lumbering through communities such as Berkeley, Fremont, Redwood City or South San Francisco. Passengers at the Emeryville Amtrak Station often find the tankers sitting idle between the depot's platforms and a shopping mall across the street.
The side of the cars are often marked with taggers' spray-painted calling cards, exposing the extent to which the deadly cargo is vulnerable.
The juxtaposition of the Bay Area's densely populated Bay-side neighborhoods with pressurized tankers of poison gas like ammonia and chlorine and highly explosive chemicals like liquid petroleum gas used to be something officials could do little more than wring their hands over.
Photo here:
[extras.mnginteractive.com]
Caption reads: A woman walks along Hollis Street in Emeryville, Calif., past a rail tanker car containing anhydrous ammonia, Monday, Nov. 27, 2006. The neighboring city of Oakland, Calif. is joining a nationwide effort by cities to ban hazardous chemicals -- potential terror targets -- from sitting in rail tanker on sidings in the middle of populated areas. (D. Ross Cameron/The Oakland Tribune)
Now, however, they are looking to the nation's capital, to a politically shifted Congress and an executive branch under pressure to take action five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks transformed the issue from a safety and ecology debate to a national security imperative.
But five years later, the Federal Railroad Administration has only one full-time employee working on security for the nation's entire 142,000-mile passenger and freight rail network.
Anxious about the unabated threat posed by the potential chemical warheads in its midst, the District of Columbia city government defied the Federal Railroad Administration and passed its own safeguards for such shipments. Other, more industrial cities, such as Chicago, Buffalo and Baltimore, are poised to follow the district's example. The district ordinance has been tied up in federal courts since it passed in 2004, opposed by railroads and the Bush Administration.
But in December, two federal agencies proposed new regulations they say would better supervise parked tankers and for the first time consider re-routing hazardous shipments around potential terror target areas.
"This has been an issue of concern for us for many, many years," said Nora Davis, mayor of Emeryville, where chemical tankers often sit idle and unprotected next to shopping centers, hotels and apartment blocks. "Finally, people are taking a serious look at this. It's past time for a concerted effort to regulate this."
Long-standing issue
The issue has been around for decades, starting as a safety and environmental concern. Chemical plants and other facilities using hazardous materials were the main targets of this attention, culminating in the 1999 release of federally mandated "worst-case scenarios" aimed at preparing local authorities for toxic emergencies.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the specter of deliberate attacks on chemical tankers became the focus of regulatory efforts. Environmental activists armed with photos of 90-ton tankers of chlorine — used as a weapon in World War I — passing near the U.S. Capitol spurred passage of the District of Columbia ordinance, which required such shipments to be re-routed away from the city's center.
Bay Area officials are also concerned that the recent trend to focus new development in urbanized, formerly industrial areas will put even more homes and shops in harm's way.
"We have rezoned quite a bit of land along the waterfront, for housing, for transit-oriented development, which is supposed to be a good thing," said Martinez Mayor Rob Schroder, who envisions the new developments as a place where residents will have easy access to buses, Amtrak passenger trains and ferries to San Francisco.
And the freight trains that rumble through the town at all hours along the nation's first transcontinental railroad are so much a part of the town that they have become background noise for many residents.
"Every once and a while, we think about and talk about safety, but rarely to do we talk about terrorism because we know how much of a potential for a very bad incident there could be," Schroder said. "It's almost like we don't want to think about it."
Just outside of the Shell Oil refinery in Martinez, rows of liquid petroleum gas tankers regularly wait to be hitched to trains. Anyone — journalist, graffiti artist or saboteur — could get close enough to tamper with the parked tankers without railroad security or the thinly stretched Transportation Security Administration officers asking any questions.
Photo here:
[extras.mnginteractive.com] \
Caption reads: Rail tankers carrying hazardous materials sit near 680 in Martinez near the Benicia Bridge toll plaza. (Laura Oda/The Oakland Tribune)
Problem outside the gates
Since Sept. 11, access to hazardous chemicals at fixed facilities has been tightened, such as the installation of a new high-tech surveillance system for the Port of Oakland. The problem, security advocates complain, exists just outside the gates.
"What sense does it make to put guns, guards and gates around these factories, and then open the gates and ship their most dangerous poison gas cargoes in huge quantities right through the target cities?" asks Fred Millar, an activist with the environmental group Friends of the Earth. "Why don't we pre-position huge quantities of aviation jet fuel on the tops of all of our tallest buildings? That way, the terrorists wouldn't have to go through the inconvenience of flight training."
Millar has mounted a crusade to reroute chemical shipments, phoning fire officials, legislators and journalists in cities across the country, leading video forays into rail yards to document lax security around chemical cars.
Such activism has irritated railroads like Union Pacific, who maintain that their safety record, with hazardous freight arriving without incident 99.98 percent of the time, is a model for other industries. The industry's close regulatory relationship with the federal government makes them an ideal partner to help secure the nation against terrorist threats.
But they acknowledge that people can get near the tankers, which, unlike tanker trucks, can't be regulated by states or local governments.
"People do. We know they do. The key is having eyes and ears, to have people ... watch," said Mark Davis, a spokesman for Omaha-based Union Pacific, which owns much of the rail right-of-way in the Bay Area. "Trespassing on railroad property is dangerous. Reporters and the general public, unfortunately, after 9/11, to make a point, they would come on the railroad property and claim that the industry was not safe.
"If you're going to watch, do it from a public street," Davis cautioned.
Safety authorities, however, are unimpressed with the railroads' vigilance.
"If there were no security on-site, all you would have to do is walk up to one of these cars and disable a valve so that it was stuck in the open position and walk away," said Philip White, chief of the South San Francisco Fire Department. "You just need bolt-cutters." \
Safety officials from South San Francisco to South Carolina, where a chlorine tanker crash and release in January 2005 killed an engineer and eight factory workers, complain that the railroads often won't tell them what is going through their neighborhoods.
After discovering tankers in his city loaded with highly flammable solvent toluene, White supported an unsuccessful effort last spring to pass a state law requiring shippers to pay a hazardous substance fee that would help pay for the equipment and training necessary to deal with the consequences of a release, fire or explosion.
And those consequences could be catastrophic, said Ron Koopman, a chemical hazard researcher who retired in 2003 from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Liquid petroleum gas, also called propane, sits in strings of black tanker cars on sidings between the Bay shore's refineries from Richmond to Martinez and beyond.
A ruptured car could lead to something safety experts call a BLEVE (pronounced "blevy") -- boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion -- said Koopman, who actually ruptured chemical tanker trucks at a nuclear weapons test site in Nevada to record the results.
"A really big release outside can explode," Koopman explained. "The fire would heat the other propane cars until they explode, and that creates a huge explosion."
Koopman said he believes LPG is even more dangerous than the controversial liquid natural gas, which environmental activists have staged a high-profile campaign against bringing to California.
New rail couplers and steel plates have reduced the chances of an accidental rail car puncture, he said, but would not stop an act of sabotage.
Safer tankers?
On Jan. 16, federal railroad officials, freight, chemical and tanker manufacturing company executives announced a new partnership aimed at developing a safer rail tanker, one less vulnerable to crashes and perhaps even some forms of terror attacks. That very day, a derailment near Louisville, KY, confounded efforts to bring a cocktail of burning chemicals under control.
The freight line that derailed, CSX Transportation, was the same one suing to neutralize the District of Columbia ordinance.
While cities in the East have actively sought greater tanker car restrictions, Millar said the effort is just stirring in California.
"This is really a statewide problem, particularly in the Bay Area, where they're using the siding track" to store tankers, said White, who urged his counterparts in other Bay Area jurisdictions to inspect their local sidings. Many were surprised to find parked hazardous tankers, he said.
White and others who have confronted railroads have found themselves up against powerful railroad, chemical and oil interests with many allies in both Sacramento and Washington.
U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, decided against pursuing a legislative or regulatory solution to White's complaint, but instead convinced Union Pacific and its shipping customers to deal with the complaint locally, said Lantos spokeswoman Lynn Weil.
"Tom found a solution by just talking with the companies," Weil said, that included providing training and equipment for the fire department and working on alternate shipment routes.\
But with the Democrat-controlled Congress elected Nov. 7, that dynamic has already begun to change.
At the Jan. 18 Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing, senators chided federal security and railroad officials for using only a small fraction of security resources for protecting surface transportation, as opposed to air travel.
Among several bills being considered by the new Congress is a bill similar to one sponsored last year by Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., that would require such shipments to be re-routed around major population centers and any areas considered likely terrorist targets. That bill never made it out of the Republican-controlled Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee last year, but is expected to do much better this year.
Regardless of what may come with the new Congress, local emergency officials will continue to keep a wary eye on the hazardous shipments.
"Would it cause me concern? Yes. Would I make an inquiry? Yes," said David Orth, deputy fire chief in Berkeley, another city along hazardous cargo routes. "If I were getting on the train at the Emeryville station, I'd wonder about it." - Eric N. Nelson, The Oakland Tribune
REVIVING TEXAS' OLDEST RAILROAD: PROPONENTS SAY A HOUSTON-GALVESTON COULD ROLL AGAIN IN 5 YEARS, BYPASSING TRAFFIC CONCERNS
Photo here: [images.chron.com]
Caption reads: John Riordan, 8, of New Jersey, visits the railroad museum in Galveston, where the city is working on a blueprint for passenger service to Houston. Passengers from Houston would disembark at the museum, where they could catch a bus or trolley. (Carlos Javier Sanchez/Chronicle)
GALVESTON, TX -- A passenger train between Houston and Galveston, could begin rolling along the oldest rail line in Texas in as little as five years, according to members of a study group trying to make it happen.
The group is working on a blueprint for the city of Galveston, which it expects to complete in June, that will specify the costs and construction needs for reviving passenger service that ceased in 1967.
The passenger line is needed to ease steadily worsening traffic congestion on the Gulf Freeway and reduce automobile pollution that is contributing to the Houston area's failure to meet federal clean-air standards, proponents say.
The commuter rail line would cost far less than light rail or expanding the freeway, allow an increase in rail-freight service and offer an efficient evacuation route from Galveston when hurricanes threaten, they say.
"It has all the elements that would make it eminently possible," said study-group member John Bertini, chairman of the Galveston Railroad Museum board.
Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas says City Council support for passenger rail is
unwavering. "Trains could play a key part in an evacuation," Thomas said.
The line also is supported in principle by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (a Republican whose district includes Galveston), Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough and Harris County Judge Robert Eckels.
Everything depends on the plan being devised by the study group.
"The challenge for all this is how to fund it and the operating subsidy," Eckels said. "I'm anxious to see the results."
The blueprint is "essentially a cookbook that will take and show what the operation should look like and what it will take to get there in terms of construction and operating," Bertini said.
The group of consultants, engineers and planners envisions a train running from an as-yet-undecided station in Houston at 59 mph along the 140-year-old Galveston, Houston & Henderson Railroad, said consultant Barry Goodman, Goodman Corp. president.
The passenger line would make four to six stops before arriving at the Galveston Railroad Museum, housed in the former Galveston passenger terminal. Debarking passengers would exit through the museum to board a trolley, electric bus, horse-drawn carriage or cruise ship shuttle.
Goodman, whose company is leading the study, said Galveston plans to build a transportation hub next to the railroad museum to allow connections with buses and taxis.
Proposed stages
The passenger line might be built in two stages, the first running from League City to Galveston and later extending to Houston, Bertini said.
"For the leadership of the region to ignore the possibility to rebuild a rail corridor that has been there 100 years, that can be done at a fraction of the cost of building highway capacity and would reduce pollution ... it would be irresponsible for that opportunity to be ignored," Goodman said.
The Houston-Galveston corridor is better suited for passenger rail than other routes because it has heavy traffic in both directions morning and evening, Bertini said. Other routes have heavy traffic in one direction in the morning and the opposite direction in the evening, he said.
Unlike other traffic corridors, the Houston-Galveston route is heavily traveled on weekends as well because Galveston is a prime tourist destination for Houstonians, he said.
Consultant Rick Beverlin, a Goodman associate, said the only effort he was aware of to calculate the number of commuters in the corridor was a 2003 study on park-and-ride use by commuters living in League City and Clear Lake who worked in Galveston. That study showed about 10,000 commuters, he said.
The final study will include an estimate of commuters and potential rail ridership, Beverlin said.
"We're not at a point where we have any real cost estimates, but I think the money to pay for this will be a combination of funding sources," Goodman said. Sources could include federal money and debt financing, or taxes from a regional mobility authority or a railroad district, according to Beverlin.
Union Pacific Railroad, which operates the line from Houston to the Galveston Island bridge, is waiting to see whether the study group can devise a plan that won't interfere with its freight operations, said Joe Adams, special assistant to the UP chairman. "The project would be feasible, but it would take a very significant investment in rail capacity," Adams said.
Coordinating service
The most difficult challenge will be to coordinate the passenger service with freight service at the north end of the route and at the railroad bridge to Galveston Island, he said.
Only six to eight freight trains ply most of the freight line, making coordination easy, Beverlin said. But 40 or more freight trains a day use a 3- to 4-mile-long segment at the north end of the route, he said.
Adams said the bridge to Galveston Island, which opens a span for barge traffic, could be a choke point because barge traffic has the right of way. Beverlin and Bertini said trains would have the right of way if a scheduled train route were in place.
The study group is working on several solutions to those problems, including the construction of a separate track for passenger trains on some parts of the route or sidings near the bridge that would allow trains to wait, Beverlin said.
Adams said the railroad is cooperating with the study but will not support the plan if it hinders freight operations.
Bertini said keeping Union Pacific happy is an important part of the plan. "It's their railroad, and we've got to be sensitive to that and we've got to bring benefits to them," he said.
Upgraded freight line
Goodman proposes to offer Union Pacific upgraded track in return for use of its right of way, allowing it to increase the speed of its freight trains. Freight trains run at 25 mph to 30 mph now because it's more economical for the railroad to lower speeds than to upgrade the track, he said.
The upgraded rail would allow Union Pacific to carry more freight from the increasingly busy ports at Houston, Galveston and Texas City, Goodman said.
Officials in Galveston and Harris counties have been discussing a passenger railroad for several years, but the bump in gas prices has intensified interest, Goodman said.
The service ended in 1967 because more people were using cars and fewer were using rail. The Texas Limited, housed at the Amtrak station at 903 Washington, a privately owned enterprise that offered weekend rail trips between Houston and Galveston, ran on weekends from 1989 to 1994.
The passenger-rail study is an extension of several federally funded demonstration passenger runs done in cooperation with Amtrak on weekends in 2002 and 2003. The demonstration attracted enough riders to be deemed a success and led the Galveston City Council to finance the $350,000 study last year with a federal grant.
"I can't see how we wouldn't have the political will to move forward," Yarbrough said. "If we can agree on the concepts, good. People can wrestle down each issue."
Bertini said the study group will meet with representatives from all of the cities, counties and political subdivisions along the proposed route.
"There also will be one for the public, so we build in their input for the plan," he said. – Harvey Rice, The Houston Chronicle
'MOVIE STAR' TRAIN $15K SHORT OF GOAL
JAMESTOWN, CA -- Jamestown, California's movie star locomotive is nearing the finish of a long fund-raising drive, needing just $15,000 more by Saturday to meet a matching grant deadline.
If the remaining money is raised on time, $300,000 in state matching funds will kick-in, allowing restoration work on the Sierra Railway No. 3 to start as early as next month.
The total cost of the project will be roughly $600,000.
The goal is to have the 116-year-old locomotive -- now off the tracks at Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown -- riding the rails again by spring 2009.
"We're still about $15,000 away -- so we need every dollar," said Kathy Daigle, associate director of the California State Railroad Foundation, which is administering the project funds.
The foundation has been raising money for Sierra No. 3's restoration since 2000.
"We're excited and we're making sure this happens," Daigle added.
Locally, the Irving J. Symons Foundation and the Sonora Area Foundation together have offered a $50,000 matching grant to aid the project.
The community has responded by sending in almost daily contributions, said Mick Grimes, SAF's executive director.
Grimes said he did not have a total for the local money raised, but added "our match is going to be made, I'm confident about that."
Between the state and local groups, about $230,000 of the needed $300,000 to trigger the matching grant has been raised. Approximately $55,000 in volunteer labor has been offered, Daigle noted, leaving the remainder at about $15,000.
She said calls for bids have already been sent out to restore the locomotive's boiler. Engine work and a new paint-job are also in line for No. 3 -- which was taken off the tracks eight years ago.
Built in 1891 in New Jersey, No. 3 has spent most of its life in Tuolumne County, hauling passengers and freight for the Sierra Railway in its early years.
It's also been a draw for Railtown, as the oldest of the park's three steam engines.
Its real claim to fame is its appearances in film and television.
Sierra No. 3's movie career began in 1919 with the silent film "Red Glove." It appeared in "The Great Race," "Bound for Glory" and "Unforgiven."
The engine has also been featured on many television shows, including "The Lone Ranger," "Gunsmoke," "Little House on the Prairie" and "Petticoat Junction," where it was known as the Hooterville Cannonball. - Chris Nichols, The Union Democrat (Sonora, CA), courtesy Coleman Randall, Jr
OPENING FOR NEW COAL MINE DELAYED
GILLETTE, WY -- Peabody Energy officials have pushed back a coal mine's planned opening date from late 2008 to sometime in 2009 or possibly later.
The reason is soft demand for coal from power companies.
But a spokesman for the St. Louis-based company said it's only a matter of when, not if, the mine will open 15 miles outside Wright.
''This mine, we believe, is the best undeveloped reserve block in the Powder River Basin,'' Vic Svec said. ''We are very optimistic that this is a winner.''
Peabody announced the mine early last year after a coal reserve swap with Arch Coal. The mine will employ around 300 people, including some current employees in the area.
It would be the Powder River Basin's third-largest coal mine.
Coal markets have softened over the past year as electric utilities have increased stockpiles. Despite the delay, Peabody officials expect to continue working through designing and permitting for the mine.
Peabody subsidiary Powder River Coal has an office in Gillette. - The Associated Press, The Billings Gazette
MILES CITY STUDIES RAILROAD QUIET ONE
MILES CITY, MT -- Miles City, Montana will look into establishing a Railroad Quiet Zone through town and the issue will be referred to the Public Service Committee, it was decided at the Miles City Council meeting this past week.
The quiet zone would stop whistle blowing at crossings in town.
Mayor Joe Whalen said Forsyth is reviewing the Federal Railroad Administration’s rules on quiet zones. Council member John Uden added that Hysham is also reviewing it.
The council meeting had to briefly stop a couple of times to wait for a train to pass, so everyone could hear the discussions, as is common.
Uden said that there are factors that must be determined to ensure the community will be safe if the whistle blowing were stopped. Items factored in include the speed of the trains, the number of crossings, barriers and warning devices and the history of accidents at a crossing.
Uden said there are more coal trains coming through Miles City. He noted that the process of establishing a quiet zone is a long one, but well worth it for those who find the whistles bothersome. - The Associated Press, The Great Falls Tribune
BIG CROWDS, BUT NO PHOTOGRAPHS CELEBRATED RAILROAD'S ARRIVAL
Please inform whether photographs exist of the historic events when the Thomas W. Pierce railroad (Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway) reached San Antonio, about Feb. 5, 1877.
The grand celebration lasted two days, Feb. 23-24, 1877, and was covered by the local newspapers. Were any photographs taken of all the military and political dignitaries -- including the railroad officials such as the president, Thomas Wentworth Pierce, and chief engineer/surveyor, Maj. James Converse -- at the celebration? - Pedro Zuñiga
You are right that the arrival of the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio, or GH&SA, Railway was a big deal, observed by some big wheels. The occasion was "a turning point for San Antonio, the last major city in the United States to gain a rail line," writes Hugh Hemphill in "The Railroads of San Antonio and South Central Texas."
A crowd of about 8,000 people turned out for the arrival of the first train, Feb. 19, 1877, and the event was covered at length in the next day's issue of the San Antonio Express -- without photos, since this was more than two decades before most papers began to use them.
The railroad's president, Thomas Wentworth Peirce (note the unusual spelling), acted as fireman for the run into the city, says Hemphill, later taking "everyone of importance" on short trips in his private car.
Later, John Hermann Kampmann -- a successful local builder who also served as mayor -- escorted railroad officials and Texas Gov. Richard Hubbard to the celebration in Alamo Plaza, in a procession heralded by marching bands. The mayors of Austin and Galveston were on hand, along with "huge numbers of people from Houston, Galveston and towns along the railroad route," says Docia Schultz Williams in "The History and Mystery of the Menger Hotel."
The evening celebration in Alamo Plaza was lit by "flaring torches" and Chinese lanterns in the street, as well as on the bunting-draped Menger Hotel, built and later owned by Kampmann.
If anyone took pictures of the daytime proceedings, Hemphill hasn't seen them, nor are they in the collection of more than 3 million Texas historical photos at the Institute of Texan Cultures, or ITC, library.\
"I cannot recall any early image of a train arriving," says Hemphill, manager and historian of the Texas Transportation Museum. "There are none of the arrival of the GH&SA in 1877, the International & Great Northern in 1881 or any of the subsequent 'first' trains." With exposure times of several minutes, he says, "Capturing a steam locomotive was beyond the camera technology (even) of the 1880s and 1890s."
However, it would have been possible to have photographed less-dynamic aspects of the 1877 festivities. Five commercial photography studios are listed in the San Antonio city directory for 1877-1878, says Tom Shelton, ITC photo curator. During that period, he says, local photographer Henry A. Doerr, visiting lensman Alexis V. Latourette and others "produced numerous views of the city in the 1870s that were sold in stores for viewing with the common parlor stereoscopes." These were photos of hotels, commercial buildings, churches, plazas and other landmarks.
Professional photographers "could have documented the arrival of the first train," says Shelton. "Photographing a crowd watching a train coming to a halt would have been comparable to taking a picture of a market scene."
He also notes that photos were taken of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad and published in an 1868 book and that there were pictures taken the following year at the joining of that railroad and the Central Pacific.
"Was the arrival of the first train in a community too commonplace by 1877?" Shelton speculates.
Given that the first train in San Antonio was about the last such event in a large city, maybe commercial photographers and the shopkeepers who sold their work deemed the occasion of little interest to a stereoscope-viewing public for whom railroad travel was no longer a novelty.
Now researching San Antonio's roads for a forthcoming book about the next phase of transportation, Hemphill is looking for photos of early bicyclists here during the "original bicycle craze from 1895-1905." To share stories or images of family members who were two-wheel pioneers, contact him at Hugh@satx.rr.com. - Paula Allen, The San Antonio Express-News
KCS INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT BEGINS AGGRESSIVE SLATE OF IMPROVEMENTS
Last week, the Kansas City Southern board of directors approved $150 million in 2007 capital for the international engineering department. Of this amount, $113,000 will be invested in track maintenance, including the replacement of approximately 600,000 ties and installation of 70 miles of rail. The remaining $37 million will be spent on capacity improvements -- notably $10 million for Shreveport, Louisiana yard improvements and $17 million in siding improvements between Kansas City Southern Railway and Kansas City Southern de Mexico.
In addition, the international engineering department continues work on the Meridian Speedway. In 2007, KCSR will install an additional 185,000 ties, 40 miles of rail and complete major capacity improvement projects at Rankin, Stevens, Simsboro and Meridian, Mississippi. Project updates will be provided in the KCS News throughout the year. - KCS News
RAIL TRAIL'S CLEARING PAVES WAY FOR COORDINATION; IMPROVEMENT PROJECT WILL INCLUDE RAILROAD'S NEEDS
SANTA FE, MN -- When a Santa Fe Southern Railway worker spent several days in November with a backhoe tearing out vegetation and rearranging soil along the railroad spur between Santa Fe and Lamy, several users of Santa Fe County’s rail trail thought the railroad meant to destroy the primitive hike-and-bike path.
Hikers and bikers need not worry, said Santa Fe Southern general manager Carol Raymond. Santa Fe’s local railroad company wants some of the state right of way it leases to be used for a recreational trail, Raymond said.
Santa Fe County has plans in the works to improve the public hike-and-bike path along 11.5 miles of the 18-mile route between Santa Fe and Lamy. Until Santa Fe Southern’s November maintenance work upset hikers and bikers, though, little coordination had occurred between the county and the railroad company about their sometimes conflicting purposes for the trail.
“It seemed like they were butchering the trail,” said Michael Schneider, who frequently commutes by bicycle along the trail between Santa Fe and his Eldorado home.
“What they’ve done is they’ve taken a front-end loader and they’ve made mini speed bumps along the trail,” Schneider added.
Santa Fe Southern operations manager Rob Fine said the company needed to remove vegetation and soil that restricted drainage of rock ballast supporting the wooden ties under railroad. In other places, he said, a backhoe was used to restore the company’s access road, and to close some unauthorized trails carved out by all-terrain vehicles.
Fine, Raymond and Santa Fe County project manager Colleen Baker agreed that they had not coordinated their plans for the shared right of way. At the time the railroad company was clearing vegetation along the railroad, Baker was developing a plan for
a $400,000 trail-improvement project.
Much of the county’s plan, currently in preliminary format, focuses on trail head improvements. Baker said the county will review needs for grading and improved drainage along the trail, but the result will not likely involve continuous surfacing of the dirt path.
Missing from the county’s initial plan, until trail users complained about the railroad’s maintenance work, was consideration of the railroad’s needs.
“What it has done is it has brought more awareness on the part of both parties what our needs are,” Baker said.
In some places, unapproved rail crossings had become the main route for trail users. Federal rail authorities have never authorized a foot path that crosses the railroad at the Nine-Mile Road trail head, for example.
“One of the good things that has come out of this whole thing is bringing to the surface an awareness of that particular crossing,” Raymond said.
The county could begin the process of getting approval for a rail crossing at Nine-Mile Road, but a legal crossing is already available under a trestle a hundred yards along the tracks toward the east, Raymond said.
After meeting with railroad officials Jan. 11, Baker said she plans to meet Wednesday with the contractor compiling the rail-trail plan to discuss how to integrate railroad concerns.
“We need to talk more about things we encountered on the railroad before we can move ahead with the rest of the plan,” Baker said.
Following a meeting with contractors, Baker said, a public meeting will be set, possibly in February, to get more input about the direction of the plan. The rail-trail plan is being prepared by Design Workshop in Santa Fe and Research Technology Inc. in Albuquerque under a contract with Santa Fe County.
Santa Fe Southern acquired the Santa Fe Rail Line from Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co. in 1992, then sold the 18-mile railroad to the state of New Mexico in 2005. The New Mexico Department of Transportation has explored the possibility of using the spur for an Eldorado-Santa Fe commuter line, but Santa Fe Southern continues to lease the line for freight and excursion runs.
During its tenure as rail owner, Santa Fe Southern sold Santa Fe County an easement for a trail within the right of way that is from 30 to 300 feet in width. Raymond said the county retained that easement when Santa Fe Southern sold the rail line to the Department of Transportation.
Baker said the county might hire a contractor, before the start of the planned improvement project, to repair damage caused by railroad maintenance. Raymond said additional efforts by railroad crews to clean up after the recent right-of-way maintenance should forestall any need for county work on the trail before the trail plan is finished. - David Collins, The Santa Fe New Mexican
A 'CHUNNEL' FOR SPAIN AND MOROCCO
TANGIER, MOROCCO -- From the bustling waterfront of this African port city, Europe appears tantalizingly close: The coast of Spain shows on the horizon just nine miles away.
Despite decades of dreaming, no one has been able to bridge the physical divide that opened between the two continents more than 5 million years ago, forming the geological bottleneck to the Mediterranean Sea.
In recent months, however, the governments of Morocco and Spain have taken significant steps to move forward with plans to bore a railroad under the muddy bottom of the Strait of Gibraltar. If built, the project would rank among the world's most ambitious and complex civil engineering feats, alongside the Panama Canal and the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.
A Gibraltar transportation link has adorned official drawing boards for a quarter-century. After years of slow-moving studies and geological tests, Spain and Morocco gave the project fresh momentum last fall by hiring a Swiss engineering firm to draft blueprints for an underwater rail route. Numerous obstacles remain, and a final decision on whether to build is still a few years away, but optimistic engineers say the project could be completed by 2025.
Government officials on both sides of the Mediterranean say the tunnel would give the economies of southern Europe and North Africa an enormous boost. But the project is being driven at least as much by intangible benefits: the prospect of uniting two continents that culturally and socially remain a world apart despite their geographic proximity.
"We've already done a tremendous amount of work to make this dream come true, to go from an idea -- a concept that is just philosophical -- into something we can transform into reality," said Karim Ghellab, Morocco's minister of transportation. "It's not easy to predict a date yet, but it is a project that will happen."
Ghellab envisions a day when commuters will board a high-speed train in Seville, in southern Spain, at 08:00 and arrive at their workplaces in Tangier by 09:30.
Next stop, 90 minutes later: Casablanca, followed by the bazaars of Marrakech slightly more than an hour after that. Today, such a trip by ferry and rail would take at least three times as long. "It will completely change our world," Ghellab said.
Like the Channel Tunnel, the Gibraltar project would consist of twin tracks in parallel tunnels, with a service tunnel in between. But engineers said the technical challenges would far surpass those encountered in constructing the "Chunnel," which opened in 1994.
For starters, the water is exponentially deeper: nearly 3,000 feet at the shortest route across the strait, compared with just 200 feet in the channel. As a result, engineers have mapped out a different path, from Cape Malabata, Morocco, to Punta Paloma, Spain, that would run twice as far across the strait but through shallower water -- a still daunting 985 feet below sea level.
Compounding the problem is that the seabed around Gibraltar is much more permeable than the hard-chalk rock under the channel, which would require engineers to push the tunnel down by another 300 feet or so. The water pressure at that depth means the tunnel would leak heavily, no matter how well it was constructed, said Andrea Panciera, chief project engineer with Lombardi Engineering Ltd., the Swiss firm that is designing the Gibraltar link.
"This is the biggest difficulty," he said. "We have to go deep into the seabed, which is very, very soft, with a lot of water pressure on top of that."
Officials in Spain and Morocco said their governments are committed to the tunnels but acknowledged that engineering and cost hurdles won't be easy to overcome.
"The engineers will always tell you everything is possible, it's just a question of more money," said Ricardo Diaz, secretary general of the Spanish government agency that oversees the project with its Moroccan partners. "But there is one very important piece of information: the geology, which on this land is a tormented, very difficult geography, not like the Channel Tunnel or other tunnels."
Also looming large is the red ink incurred by the Chunnel. Private investors, who paid the bulk of the $20 billion price tag, have suffered heavy losses; the operator, Eurotunnel, has verged on bankruptcy for years.
While neither Moroccan nor Spanish officials have given a bottom-line estimate for their project, private analysts said it could cost $6.5 billion to $13 billion. The two nations said that they are a long way from resolving financing details but that they hope to rely heavily on the European Union and the private sector.
In some ways, a tunnel would mirror changes that are already taking place in the form of increased trade and immigration between Europe and North Africa.
The number of Moroccan immigrants in Spain has soared in recent years; more than 500,000 live there legally, according to official statistics, while many more are undocumented residents. At the same time, droves of Europeans are rediscovering the charms of Morocco, a former Spanish and French colony that won independence in 1956. Morocco hopes to attract 10 million tourists by 2010, up from the record 6 million who visited in 2005.
Crowds pack the passenger ferries that shuttle between Tangier and Algeciras, Spain, especially in the summer, when seasonal workers travel back and forth. Mohammed Chatt, who runs a travel agency outside the port's gates in Tangier, said he doesn't expect the tunnel to be built quickly but has no doubt that millions of people would use it.
"Obviously, it would be very successful," he said. "If there was a tunnel, you could get on the train and just go. And if you consider the tunnel under the English Channel, well, lots of people said that would never be built, either." - Craig Whitlock and Jennifer Green, The Washington Post
TRANSIT NEWS
LIGHT-RAIL EVENT SOFTENS A SKEPTIC
MESA, AZ -- About 25 folks showed up Saturday morning for the groundbreaking ceremonies at Sycamore Transit Center on Main Street in Mesa. Depending on your orientation, the station will either be the end of the Valley’s 20-mile stretch of light-rail line or the beginning.
I suspect I was easily the least enthusiastic spectator in the gathering.
In my mind, light rail was the result of a meeting of government bureaucrats trying to find the answer to this question: What is the least efficient, most expensive way to serve the transportation needs of the fewest number of people?
In my mind, light rail was simply a ploy used by Phoenix to maintain its position of influence in a Valley that has grown far beyond its borders. In fact, there are a lot of people who never set foot in Phoenix and manage to live happy, productive lives.
The whole thing smelled like hardball politics to me and -- judging by the turnout Saturday -- I suspect I was not alone in that sentiment. I thought of the crowds in excess of 10,000 who regularly flocked to the ceremonies for the opening of freeway segments in the East Valley and compared that to Saturday’s gathering.
I did a survey of those attending and found only two people -- Greg and Corrine Miller of Mesa -- who did not have ties to some government or commercial entity associated with the project.
So, yes, I was pretty skeptical.
But as I listened to the speakers and asked a few questions, my attitude about light rail began to soften. Like most projects, light rail won’t be the disaster that its critics suggest nor will it be the success its proponents proclaim. It will take a long time for the jury to return a verdict, and it’s likely to be a mixed ruling at that.
All along, I viewed light rail as transportation money that could have been used better by improving bus service. What I did not realize, though, is that Valley Metro’s bus system will benefit from the project, too -- $3 billion over 20 years, which will almost quadruple the number of buses in the system.
That’s important because I still believe bus service is the best answer for the Valley’s transportation needs. Having used that service, I believe its main flaw now is the long waits for transfers. There aren’t enough routes, either, and many routes don’t run in the evening.
What I did not take into account is light rail’s impact on business. There’s reason to expect that the trains will enhance business opportunities, especially those businesses close to the tracks. As much as I am a fan of bus service, I can’t say improved bus service, even on a massive scale, would achieve that.
So while I still have some reservations, my attitude toward light rail is a bit more charitable.
After all, those trains will run in both directions. - Slim Smith, The East Valley Tribune
LET'S GET MOVING ON TRANSIT PLANS; METRO NEEDS SUPPORT, FUNDING TO PICK UP THE PACE
HOUSTON, TX -- Since the 1980s, the citizens of Houston, Texas have voted twice in support of a viable mass transit system. Numerous polls indicate that traffic and congestion continue to be major concerns for Houstonians. But, just like traffic every morning on any freeway, Houston's mass transit plans have moved at a snail's pace. It's time to get them going.
Quality mass transit means affordable transportation to get to work, school, the doctor and daycare. It opens access to our cultural arts and museums. It contributes to an environment that attracts skilled professionals. Moreover, we must have quality mass transit to manage our projected population growth.
Houston's population is expected to grow by more than 2 million by 2020. Two million new Houstonians means more homes, offices, schools, medical facilities, shops, restaurants, and cultural and entertainment venues. But where will we put them? And how will all of us move about? How could we possibly absorb a million more cars on our roads and freeways?
We must act now to expand the rail component of our comprehensive transit system to capitalize on this extraordinary growth while simultaneously enhancing our quality of life, green space, air quality and neighborhoods.
The Metro Solutions expansion plan, approved by voters in 2003, will cost an estimated $2 billion, half of which must come from federal sources. When compared to Boston's federal funding of about $15 billion for its "Big Dig," it sounds very reasonable.
But without funding from the federal government, Metro cannot proceed with the type of integrated, diverse mass transit system that Houston requires.
In order to secure this critical support, Metro must show the Federal Transit Administration a viable investment plan with routes that will attract maximum ridership and are cost-effective to build. Transit routes must run where the most people live and work; they must translate into reduced congestion, improved air quality and, when feasible, tie into our already very successful park and ride system.
There has been exhaustive public discussion of all imaginable options; including elevated rail and routing the University Line, all or partially, along Westpark instead of Richmond. Elevated rail, which is prohibitively expensive, does not meet the federal requirement for cost effectiveness. Similarly, the Westpark route by itself does not meet the projected maximum ridership requirement.
Growth is difficult and progress always means temporary inconvenience for some. Ultimately and regrettably, a few must endure temporary inconvenience for the benefit of all. Metro must do its part to ensure that change is managed wisely and compassionately. We all know construction was difficult along the Main Street line, and Metro has now acted in good faith to design a mitigation plan to assist business owners and residents impacted by the expansion with a minimum of down time.
As it turns out, our Main Street rail has proven to be the most successful new light rail line in the nation, with daily ridership exceeding 40,000, far in excess of original projections. It is serving as an economic development catalyst as it connects business, medical, educational, cultural, entertainment and sports venues along an enhanced streetscape. And Metro's expansion along the additional five corridors, which will all feed into the Main Street rail line, will provide a needed boost to other areas of our city as well.
Metro cannot build this system alone. We urge the Metro Board to demonstrate decisive leadership and vision and choose options that will serve our future needs and provide the best opportunity to secure federal funding.
It's time for our elected officials, city, county, state and national, to come together in a unified effort as they did during the hurricanes to do what is right for the people of Houston for today and tomorrow. We deserve our fair share of federal funds.
And we urge the public across our community once again to make your voices heard. Let your elected representatives hear from you. This debate has been limited to a very few, but all Houstonians can benefit from a transit system that works, and all have a stake in the outcome.
Great cities have great transit systems, and it is no exaggeration to say that Houston's future depends on available public transportation.
The Citizens for Public Transportation is a political action committee formed in 2003 to support the Metro Solutions referendum. It is committed to Houston's future and understands that public transportation is a critical part of that future. - Commentary, Ed Wulfe, The Houston Chronicle (Ed Wulfe is chairman of Citizens for Public Transportation)
MADISON MAYOR: VOTERS MUST GET ON BOARD FOR STREETCARS TO ADVANCE
MADISON, WI -- Hoping to derail a critical issue in his re-election campaign, Madison, Wisconsin Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said Thursday he wants voters to decide whether the city should move forward with any plan to install a streetcar system.
Cieslewicz has formed a committee to propose a plan to install miles of tracks downtown for electric-powered streetcars.
He has argued the transportation option would encourage development in aging neighborhoods, fight urban sprawl and reduce vehicle congestion in his fast-growing city built among lakes that restrict traffic routes.
Cieslewicz appeared well on his way to winning a second four-year term in April but his opponents have hammered him in recent weeks over the idea and alleged he was trying to force it on the public. Even some of the mayor's allies say the idea is extremely unpopular and has hurt his re-election bid.
On Thursday, Cieslewicz said he would introduce a resolution at the next City Council meeting requiring a binding referendum before the city could begin a project.
Cieslewicz faces three opponents in a Feb. 20 primary. The top two candidates will advance to the April 3 general election.
Two candidates -- businessman Ray Allen and Latino leader Peter Munoz -- have been particularly critical, calling the streetcars a boondoggle that would drain resources from other programs.
The mayor did not set a date for a potential streetcar referendum. The study committee is expected to release a final plan on how to fund the system and where to lay tracks this summer and the mayor said the public would have to evaluate it first.
"I won't go ahead with streetcars unless they make sense for Madison and have the support of the public," Cieslewicz said in a statement. "One thing is for sure: with 100,000 more cars on the horizon we can't rule out any option right now." - Ryan J. Foley, The Associated Press, The St. Paul Pioneer Press
THE END
| Subject | Written By | Date/Time (PST) |
|---|---|---|
 Railroad Newsline for Monday, 01/29/07 |
Larry W. Grant | 01-29-2007 - 00:47 |