Back in my Caltrans days, we always scheduled at least 6 months to a year to get railroad SP at the time) approval for any work on a grade crossing. We had a project for rebuilding a left turn lane in Kern County, and had a field review for scoping the environmental and other work. A large ag processor was involved, and part of the project was to improve the intersection and turning movements for their driveway, which crossed a branch line. Project manager was flabbergasted with the local general manager for SJVRR (which had recently taken over the branch) showed up - nobody from SP would ever do that - and simply said that it looked like a great idea, consolidated all the traffic at one good crossing rather than 2-3 crummy ones, and where would he sign? Silence all around. Nobody knew, since the documents expected to be done on the normal SP schedule, and nobody knew how to deal with being able to deliver the project 6 months early. Yes, the documents did get sent over the next week, and yes, the project *was* delivered 6 months early (an environmental CE anyway).

Sounds like UP has taken the old SP schedule and expanded it...