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Railroad Newsline for Tuesday, 04/03/07
Author: Larry W. Grant
Date: 04-03-2007 - 01:05
Railroad Newsline for Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Compiled by Larry W. Grant
In Memory of Rob Carlson, 1952 – 2006
RAIL NEWS
WINTER STORMS, ROAD CLOSURES CURTAIL MINE OPERATIONS
OMAHA, NE -- Union Pacific Monday announced that recovery from extensive weather-related mine shutdowns in Wyoming could likely take as much as 10 to 14 days.
A series of storms that began on March 29 caused all ten mines served by the railroad in the Southern Powder River Basin to temporarily cease production. Severe flooding, more than two feet of snowfall and road closures forced the mines to take this action. On March 28, the State of Wyoming closed Highway 59, a major access road for Southern Powder River Basin miners. This closure prevented mineworkers, emergency services, and supplies from reaching the mines for several days. The impact of the severe weather on the mining equipment and the inability of workers to reach the mines made operations impossible.
As a result of the closures, approximately 160 trains were unable to load between the closure of the highway and this morning. Once Highway 59 reopened at noon on March 30, the mines were able to begin repair work and to eventually resume operations. One mine remains flooded and most others are operating at reduced capacity.
This complex supply-chain must balance mine production and loading capability with railroad capacity and unloading operations at the utilities. After an interruption, these operations must ramp-up together to avoid congestion or additional delay to the entire network. Union Pacific has begun increasing the movement of its coal trains as the mines resume production and will be working with the receiving utilities and other receivers to minimize the time it takes to cycle its trains between the mines and the destinations. - Gene Hinkle, UP News Release
MOVABLE BRIDGES KEEP GOODS MOVING
The BNSF Railway Company has 29 moveable bridges across the system and each one is heavily depended on by the rail and barge industries.
These bridges have to be in working condition at all times. BNSF operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and if bridges are not working properly, they may cause potential delays on the system.
So, how does Team BNSF keep moveable bridge reliability up? We look at the failures per availability for operation – meaning a failure is recorded any time a bridge does not operate as intended and causes, or may cause, delays to train or boat traffic. Reliability is reported as parts per million (ppm). In this case, we report the number of minutes moveable bridges are inoperative over a period of 1 million minutes or 1.9 years. This gives the Engineering Department the opportunity to analyze the conditions of various bridges and plan proper preventative and corrective work.
Last year, BNSF saw improvement in the reliability of moveable bridges. As of Oct. 31, the reliability of moveable bridges stood at 1,673 ppm; in other words, moveable bridges were available for operation 99.83 percent of the time. This represents a 60-percent improvement since 2001 and a 25-percent improvement from 2005 measurements.
These improvements are the result of more detailed inspections, regularly scheduled preventative maintenance and appropriate capital investments that have allowed BNSF to replace aged machinery and electrical components.
In 2007, BNSF is focusing on continuing efforts to improve the reliability of proximity switches by developing and installing strengthened mounting brackets and other connections to ensure they withstand vibration and impact of passing train traffic.
Photos here:
[www.bnsf.com]
- BNSF Today
A SAMPLING OF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FROM THE SACRAMENTO BEE RE: THE SACRAMENTO TRESTLE FIRE
All aboard for some initiative?
Re "Trains using new trestle 12 days after huge blaze," March 28: What's remarkable is that the trestle was completed so quickly, and as Chuck Baker of the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association said, "there aren't a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to jump."
No permits were needed from the city; for once, the state cooperated, and without federal interference. What does that tell you? The San Francisco Bay Bridge took less than 3-1/2 years to construct. It's been 18 years since the Loma Prieta earthquake, and far less than half of the new bridge is complete.
When will the regulatory powers that be, "sue-crazy" lawyers and an equally guilty court system realize that, at a huge cost to taxpayers and irredeemable time, they are killing off what was once the great American spirit of initiative and progress? - Ernest Abe, Sacramento, CA
Kudos to Union Pacific
As a daily trail runner along the American River Parkway, I have had to suffer through a number of projects, including Corps of Engineers levee repair and the fiasco that was the Arden Parallel Force Main Project sewer. (How many years was that behind schedule?) When I witnessed the Union Pacific trestle burn, my first thought, after learning that the fire was out and no one was hurt, was how bad will the repairs screw up the American River Parkway?
Well, it is two weeks later and the work is almost miraculously complete! If Union Pacific can clean up the site as efficiently as it completed the work, I would suggest that the county give it first crack at any other project that may be necessary along the parkway. I'd also suggest that UP change its motto to "Git Er Done!" They sure know how to. - Eric Milstein, Sacramento, CA
Cyclists get short shrift
Re "UP comes out smokin' on rail fix," March 23: What is the word on the restoration of Sacramento's crown jewel, the American River Bike Trail that is severed due to this project? As a cyclist, I'm completely frustrated to continually witness how the bike trail is used as construction access.
Besides Union Pacific and its construction crews as I write this, the Bureau of Reclamation is working at Folsom Dam using the bike trail as construction access. The Corps of Engineers uses the bike trail as construction access for its revegetation efforts.
Recently, the Arden Parallel Force Main Project closed sections of the bike trail for extended periods of time for construction access. Utility crews use the parkway as access to remove foliage beneath the power lines. The point is the bike trail is designed for bikes. It's not made for heavy, often overloaded, vehicles.
Construction equipment, water trucks and dump trucks were never part of the design criteria for the pavement or shoulders of the bike trail. These vehicles damage the bike trail with each use, whether the damage is immediately visible or shows up with the fall rains.
Who wants to ride in bike trail ruts? - Pete Conn, Sacramento, CA
TRAINS RUN BY REMOTE CONTROL
HALSEY, OR -- If as a child the thought of having a remote-controlled train set under the family Christmas tree kept you awake all night with anticipation, Ron Cuzick has what you might consider the perfect job.
Cuzick is an engineer and conductor with the Portland & Western Railroad. The 45-year-old Albany resident spends much of his working day manipulating 3,000-horsepower diesel engines that pull more than a mile of railroad cars -- often by remote control while standing alongside the tracks.
Tuesday morning, as he does nearly every working day, Cuzick guided 109 rail cars from Albany to a sideyard west of Halsey on the old Oregon Electric line near the Georgia-Pacific and Pope and Talbot mills.
Shortly after he climbed out of the cab of the engine, the train was moving again. But Cuzick wasn't inside -- he stood away from the engine and guided it with controls mounted on a small box hanging in front of him.
After Cuzick unhooked the two engines and seven cars from the main train, he slid them forward slowly, then backed them up on the rail sideyard. Next, he guided the two engines back and hooked up the remaining cars before climbing back into the engine for the trip to Junction City and Eugene.
"It was strange at first to see the train moving and I wasn't on it," Cuzick said, as he pointed out the various buttons and levers on the control box. "It takes some getting used to. It takes a while to trust the box."
Virtually everything that Cuzick can control while riding the train can also be controlled with the box -- horn, lights, throttle, brakes, forward and reverse.
Remote-controlled trains can be operated only in special zones that meet Federal Railroad Administration guidelines, according to Portland & Western President Bruce Carswell.
"Typically, the systems are used at sidings and on industrial tracks," Carswell said.
Cuzick is one of about a dozen engineers -- out of 60 employed by Portland & Western -- who are also certified to operate remote-controlled trains.
Most are senior engineers, and they must complete classroom and hands-on training to become qualified.
"I've been running the remote controls for about two years," Cuzick said. "I like it. It doesn't bother me a bit to run it this way. There were some little glitches when we first started, but nothing major."
Cuzick said that, in effect, he does the work that in the past required two people. Company engineers earn about $65,000 per year.
"It's just part of my job," Cuzick said.
In the mid-valley, the Portland & Western also uses remote control when serving shippers in Corvallis, Philomath and in the Monroe area.
The company also operates similar units in Marion and Washington counties.
"We've had remote controlled systems in place for about three years," said John Cyrus, the company's manager of sales and marketing.
"We haven't had any safety issues or incidents," he added. "Our engineers seem to like it. We did not cut jobs when we added the remote-controls units. This actually allowed us to increase our work output without adding people."
It costs about $45,000 to add the remote-control units to the each engine, Cyrus said.
Remote-controlled trains are popular in Canada, according to Railway Age magazine. One company reported that accident rates were cut nearly in half after remote-control systems were put into place, based on one million hours of service.
A company in Germany has reportedly sold more than 6,000 remote control units internationally. Remote control systems have been used for years on overhead cranes and monorail systems. - Alex Paul, The Albany Democrat-Herald
GALESBURG RAILROAD HISTORY ON THE MOVE
Photo here:
[www.register-mail.com]
Caption reads: The Pullman car sits on the northeast corner of Seminary and Mulberry streets. The car will be relocated Tuesday across the street at the Galesburg Railroad Museum. (Bill Gaither/The Register-Mail)
GALESBURG, IL -- The first railroad train pulled into Galesburg, Illinois on Dec. 7, 1854. Shortly thereafter the city became a major railroad center and the population and trades prospered. The CB and Q Railroad became Galesburg's largest employer. The benefits of railroading to the community continue today.
In 1981, a group of dedicated railroad employees and interested citizens formed the Galesburg Railroad Museum to preserve the rich history of one of the area's richest commodities. The Burlington Northern Railroad donated to the group a retired Pullman parlor car called the "Meath." Built in 1930, it was refurbished by local working and retired railroad employees and became the first piece of rolling stock for the Galesburg Railroad Museum. The Meath car was filled with displays of valuable railroad artifacts and a simulated telegraph office.
Photo here:
[www.register-mail.com]
Caption reads: A Burlington Northern Railroad crew moves a 65-foot, 80-ton Pullman car to its current location at Seminary and Mulberry streets in 1982. The railroad donated the car and the labor to move for a museum. (Register-Mail photo)
The Meath car was one of a fleet of over 9,800 luxury, over-the-rail units designed and constructed by George Pullman. When Pullman moved from New York to Chicago in 1859 he revolutionized the passenger rail industry by constructing a sleeping car. By the mid-1920s Pullman also employed 28,000 conductors and 12,000 porters to serve customers on his fleet of popular rail passenger cars.
Pullman rail cars allowed for faster cross-country travel and eliminated the need to stop for meals. The Pullman cars offered freshly prepared gourmet meals in plush dining areas that included chandeliers, electric lighting, leather seating and advanced heating and air conditioning systems. One of the most famous Pullman rail cars to stop in Galesburg arrived on May 8, 1950, carrying President Harry Truman, his wife Bess and daughter Margaret. A crowd of thousands gathered at the Galesburg depot on South Seminary Street to hear President Truman speak from the rear platform of his special Pullman car.
Photo here:
[www.register-mail.com]
Caption reads: This photograph, looking west, shows President Harry S. Truman on the back of a Pullman passenger car during a whistle-stop tour at the Galesburg C. B. & Q. depot on May 8, 1950. There is a water tank in the background and the Ferris Storage, Swift & Company and Galesburg Novelty Company buildings are visible on Mulberry Street. (Photo courtesy the Galesburg Public Library)
The landmark Pullman Meath car served as the official Galesburg Railroad Museum at the corner of Mulberry and Seminary Streets for over 25 years. Before its donation to the Railroad Museum the car was used as a bunk and dining car for construction gangs traveling over the Burlington Northern system. A spacious building depicting an old railroad depot, located next to the Amtrak Depot now serves as the official museum. This week the legendary Pullman Meath rail car will be relocated adjacent to the museum to join Steam Engine 3006, a caboose and a railway post office car as the rolling stock continues to grow.
After George Pullman died in 1898, Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln became president of the Pullman Company and carried on its rich railroad history. Abraham Lincoln and George Pullman have been inaugurated into the National Railroad Hall of Fame. - Tom Wilson, The Galesburg Register-Mail
GROUNDS FOR REMOVAL -- CLEANUP OF POLLUTED SOIL BY RAIL LINE
YAKIMA, WA -- It's hard to miss the mound of soil that lies along the old railroad tracks by the Valley Mall Boulevard overpass.
The 32,000-cubic-yard heap of polluted soil excavated from property owned by the BNSF Railway Company is enough to fill more than 3,000 dump trucks and stretches the length of three football fields.
Photo here:
[img.yakima-herald.com]
Caption Reads: Contaminated soil is removed from BNSF Railway Co. property between Washington Avenue and Valley Mall Boulevard. (Photo by Andy Sawyer/Yakima Herald-Republic)
It's a sign of progress in the cleanup of the railroad area that has been polluted from decades of industrial and business use.
That process has advanced the development of new retail outlets, such as casinos and storage units, that many hope will stimulate economic growth in the Yakima Valley.
The BNSF site is the last major cleanup site in the railroad area for the state Department of Ecology, which has spent about 16 years cleaning up polluted sites along the railroad.
In this latest effort, the department expects workers to excavate about 48,000 tons of polluted soil that contain heavy metal byproducts of fertilizer manufacturing carried out by a former tenant of the BNSF property.
Once the cleanup is finished, the pollutants will be contained in a large enclosure covered with rock to be buried on the property, providing a foundation for a prospective road off Washington Avenue, said Tom Mackie, a hydrogeologist with Ecology.
Photo here:
[img.yakima-herald.com]
Caption reads: A berm of contaminated soil is covered after its removal from property along the BNSF rail line between Washington Avenue and Valley Mall Boulevard. (Photo by Andy Sawyer/Yakima Herald-Republic)
That road could provide additional access to Yakima Square, a 500,000-square-foot shopping center being developed on neighboring property owned by the Roche family.
Part of that property is polluted from spillover from the BNSF site, and will be included in this cleanup process, Mackie said.
"This is such a great location, that cleaning it up was worth it," he said.
The railroad has long been the center of economic development.
When the Northern Pacific Railway extended its tracks to the Yakima Valley in 1884, it gave away lots from its land grant to stimulate business growth. That led to an exodus of people --and buildings -- from Yakima City (now Union Gap) to the newly created town of North Yakima, which is now the city of Yakima.
For more than a century, the area housed a variety of business and industrial ventures, including dry cleaning, fertilizer manufacturing and carbon regeneration.
But those ventures produced polluting byproducts that seeped into the groundwater and soil. Over the past decade, several companies have spent millions to clean up what former property owners and tenants had left behind.
Cleaning up the BNSF site will cost the company $4 million to $5 million, according to the Department of Ecology.
It's the price of progress.
U-Haul, the Phoenix-based self-moving company, spent millions to clean up pollution at its site after years of pesticide formulation by a previous owner. But now U-Haul can use the reclaimed property to build additional storage units and expand its rental facility at 1122 S. First St.
"It's an investment in an area where we see growth happening," said Joanne Fried, a U-Haul spokeswoman based in Phoenix.
Del Matthews, a local developer, was able to purchase more than 14 acres of property that was cleaned up by former owner Cameron-Yakima, a defunct carbon-regenerator company.
Matthews redeveloped the site on South First Street and Nob Hill Boulevard, which is located in one of Yakima's highest traffic areas. It now houses several businesses that include Northwest Liquidators, Advanced Autosound, H&A Wholesale and the Indoor Mart.
Matthews, who owns several properties throughout Yakima, sold the 14-acre parcel to a local developer last month.
"Developing a new modern city around that area means you have to clean up that area and make it presentable ... (and) viable for retail and commercial use," Matthews said.
Just as the founders of the old railroad intended it. - Mai Hoang, The Yakima Herald-Republic
OPINION BY BONNIE HENRY: RIDING THE RAILS
TUCSON, AZ -- Not all graffiti is done by some punk kid with an aerosol can aimed at your back wall.
A lot of it is done with chalk or paint stick and rides the boxcars crisscrossing the country.
Hobo monikers, they're called, scrawled by men with names like Palm Tree Herby and Mournful Marvin, Frisco Jack and Bozo Texino.
"Kilroy was here"? Sure, probably to most of us. But not to Bill Daniel, who spent years hopping freight trains to document this type of graffiti and the hobos who do it.
Photo here:
[www.azstarnet.com]
The result is an hour-long documentary, "Who Is Bozo Texino?" which will be shown Friday night at the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum.
"I've always been interested in rail graffiti," says Daniel, 48, who lives in San Francisco and will be here for the presentation.
He hopped his first train in 1987 out of Houston, one that rolled all the way to California.
"It was beginner's luck," says Daniel in a telephone interview. "I started on a grain car. There was a little hole where you can crawl in and hide from the weather and the cops."
Asked if he ever ran into any "bulls," the railroad police, he answers, "Oh, sure. I've gone to jail a couple of times and was thrown off a whole bunch of times."
In eight years of riding, he traveled through 14 Western states, the longest trip from Seattle to Houston.
With him went an old Bolex, a hand-wound 16 mm camera used to shoot both the scenery and his fellow passengers.
"Most of the time I never even got out the camera. I sensed it wasn't right."
Asking a hobo to record his thoughts is a little like asking for a first date, says Daniel. "It's either yes or no."
Although there were a couple of situations that "got a little crazy," says Daniel, "I managed to not be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"A lot of people I rode with, some were just out of jail. I also rode with people who were going to be in jail soon. I rode with a guy who was murdered in camp a few weeks after I rode with him."
During the time he rode the rails, he kept a day job to pay the rent. "I was a bike messenger, bus driver, I managed a film facility," says Daniel.
While most of the hobos he met were grizzled white males, more women are showing up, especially with young men who call themselves punks, though the hobos call them Flintstones.
"One of the Flintstones, a kid named Andrew, did the banjo song for the film," says Daniel.
After years of editing, he hit the road in June of 2005, peddling his documentary from city to city. "Now I'm a rubber tramp," says Daniel, who travels in a '65 Chevy van with a speedometer "that hasn't worked in 10 years."
It was the graffiti, however, not the hobos, that got him onto the trains. "I did not have a burning desire to become a hobo," says Daniel. "The graffiti hooked me in, and that led me into the hobo culture."
Much of the documentary explores the various hobo monikers, including one Bozo Texino, a Western-hatted figure whose real-life counterpart was a railroad man in the early decades of the 20th century.
Photo here:
[www.azstarnet.com]
"The name has been passed down from generation to generation," says Daniel, who also documents railroad workers who mark boxcars. "Their images travel; they don't."
Tucsonan Warren Doman, who worked for various railroads over 43 years, remembers seeing Bozo Texino's moniker here and there on the boxcars.
He also remembers when railroad workers had an easy rapport with the hobos. "We used to haul them from Eloy to Yuma and over to Phoenix. We'd slow down to 10 miles an hour to let them off."
Henry Mundrick, who rode the rails as a young man during the Depression, says it was like running away to join the circus.
In between runs, he'd knock on people's doors, ask if he could chop wood for a sandwich.
Long settled down in Tucson, Mundrick says he did have a moniker but can't remember what it was. Never mind. Daniel has captured plenty of others.
Reflecting on the history of Bozo Texino, he says, "There was just something in that image that told me, 'Make a film about me.' - Opinion, Bonnie Henry, The Arizona Daily Star
RAILROAD CROSSING REASON FOR 'EXTENDED GREEN LIGHT' SIGN
TUCSON, AZ -- A reader pointed out signs that he thought could be a potential safety hazard.
"I've noticed some signs at intersections with stop lights on the Southwest Side of town that read, 'Oncoming traffic may have extended green light,' " reader Danny DeBolt said.
'
"These signs are not particularly that big and it would seem to me that if people are unfamiliar with the area, they could be making a left-hand turn on a just-turned red light, thinking the oncoming traffic's light is red, too. Isn't this dangerous?"
He said the signs he refers to are on east-west streets that intersect with South Sixth Avenue or South Nogales Highway. West Bilby, Drexel and Valencia are a few of the streets with such signs, he said.
Those signs are required at intersections with traffic signals adjacent to railroad tracks, said Michael Graham, spokesman for the Tucson Department of Transportation.
The signs work as follows:
When the railroad traffic signal is activated, the arms come down to prevent vehicles from proceeding over the tracks. But to ensure no vehicles are stopped on the tracks, the signal changes to allow those drivers to clear that portion of the road. When a train comes, the eastbound traffic at these intersections will get a red light. But the westbound traffic is likely to have a green light (even when eastbound is red) so vehicles can get out of the way and off the tracks.
Graham said the trigger for the extended green light is the railroad traffic signal. The signs are posted so those who may have entered the intersection waiting to turn left are warned to use extra caution before proceeding to turn on a red light.
"Use caution; don't just assume that because you have a yellow that oncoming traffic has a yellow," Graham said. - Andrea Kelly, The Arizona Daily Sun
LAWSUIT SETTLED IN DEATH OF GIRL KILLED BY TRAIN
HAYWARD, CA -- The Hayward Unified School District reached a settlement agreement Wednesday with the parent's of a 14-year-old girl who was killed by a train behind Tennyson High School in February 2005.
According to the lawsuit filed by Roberto and Maria Castro, they believe the district was liable for the death of their daughter, Celedonia Jasmin, because it had abandoned its responsibilities to supervise the railroad crossing on Huntwood Avenue under a contract signed with Union Pacific Railroad in 1958.
In February, a motion by the district to dismiss the case was denied by Judge Winifred Smith, who ruled there was enough evidence "as to whether a lack of supervision by the district more probably than not caused Jasmin's death."
"The Castros were pleased, and the District is pleased as well," Tom Gundlach, attorney for the Castros, said of the agreement reached about 10:00 Wednesday.
"I really can't say much more about it," he said.
The terms and conditions of the settlement were sealed by the court, he said. But, before the trial was set to begin, Gundlach had said he was looking to find for the parents and hold the district accountable.
Celedonia Castro had been skipping class and was hanging out with friends near the railroad crossing outside the gate on Huntwood Avenue when another student began playing chicken on the tracks with an approaching high-speed Amtrak commuter train, according to news reports at the time. Castro ran onto the tracks, pushed the boy out of the train's path, saving his life, but was herself struck and killed by the train.
According to the contract, the Huntwood Gate should be closed during school hours and supervised by an adult when open. But there is evidence the school never closed the gate and had no supervision of students who hung out in the area during school hours. As of Sunday, the gate remains open.
When asked about the contract and supervision of the gate in the past, the district gave contradictory answers.
In the ruling to deny summary judgment, Judge Smith wrote, "The Huntwood Gate was clearly within the district's responsibility to control" and "the District was also plainly aware of the need to supervise the school grounds to look out for students who were skipping classes and potentially putting themselves or others in danger." - Alejandro Alfonso, The Fremont Argus
DERAILMENT CLEAN-UP CONTINUES: DM&E IN FINAL STEPS OF REPAIRING CARS DAMAGED IN ACCIDENT
PIERRE, SD -- Slightly more than two weeks after the derailment of a Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad train in central Pierre, some of the final steps of the clean-up are being completed.
Jafar Karim, public affairs manager for the company that owns DM&E, said workers took care of the major response and clean-up effort at the site of the derailment, but work still needed to be done on one car.
"Three cars had been addressed at the site, but they were on their sides and couldn't be moved," Karim said.
One other car that still needed attention was sitting on the rails, so it was moved to DM&E's property on the east edge of town by the Pierre Indian Learning Center to be worked on.
"We had to take the product out at our yards, and then we moved it to that site to be further dismantled and placed on to a truck," Karim said.
The sight of work being done on the train car after its wheels had been removed caused some residents to believe another derailment had occurred. This error was also reported in Friday's edition of the Capital Journal.
On the night of March 14, five cars of a DM&E train hauling bentonite clay from the Belle Fourche area to Chicago derailed a couple of blocks south of the state Capitol.
DM&E's president and CEO Kevin Schieffer said the derailment was caused by a broken rail, and that the damage was confined to railroad property, Schieffer said.
According to information provided by the Federal Railroad Administration, DM&E has been involved in 19 accidents in Hughes and Stanley Counties since the year 2000. The year with the largest number of accidents was 2004, with 92 crashes nationwide.
DM&E had applied for a $2.3 billion Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing loan to finance construction of a new 280-mile rail line to Wyoming's Powder River Basin coal mines and to reconstruct approximately 600 miles of existing track in South Dakota and Minnesota. The loan was turned down earlier this month by Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Boardman, who concluded the loan posed an unacceptably high risk to federal taxpayers. - Travis Gulbrandson, The Pierre Capital-Journal
AMTRAK MAY BE ROUNDING THE BEND
No one knew what to expect about a year and a half ago when the Amtrak board of directors unceremoniously fired David L. Gunn as its president.
Gunn had been a fly in the ointment to the Bush administration's plans to effectively dismantle Amtrak by severing its highly successful Northeast Corridor runs from the system, cutting its federal subsidy and doing away with its long-distance trains.
He tenaciously fought the Bush plans and successfully lobbied members of Congress to thwart them. He wound up getting fired.
Some 10 months later, the Amtrak board finally decided on his permanent replacement, a former Union Pacific Railroad freight executive named Alexander K. Kummant. Since the president of Amtrak's board, David M. Lamey, is a Bush appointee, the natural assumption was that Kummant was the proverbial fox in Amtrak's henhouse.
Kummant, however, has been anything but.
He has come down squarely against any dismantling of Amtrak's long-distance trains, likening the City of New Orleans and the Empire Builder (which runs across Wisconsin) to national parks.
"The cost of cross-country trains comes to about a dollar and a half per American per year," he told The New York Times shortly after his appointment last September. "I haven't had the opportunity to go to Glacier National Park since 1976, but I pay taxes every year in the hope that I have the option to go back."
He added that once you do away with long-distance trains, they'll be gone forever.
He strongly opposes severing the profitable high-speed Northwest Corridor from the national Amtrak system and he is sure Amtrak can work with its unions rather than privatizing some of its services, a welcome relief for many Amtrak workers.
Meanwhile, Kummant has presided over a lot of Amtrak success. Its ridership has jumped 11 percent this past year and the national train system is recording record revenues month by month. Plus -- and it's a big plus -- many of the trains have been upgraded and they are often actually running on time, as I can attest from personal experience.
Don Phillips, a columnist for Trains magazine, is as pleasantly surprised as anyone. He theorizes that Kummant has always been his own man and does not intend to be anybody's messenger boy. He also guesses that even Bush's appointees on the Amtrak board are starting to realize that passenger rail is a growth industry in America and rather than being dismantled, needs to revitalized.
Phillips believes that Gunn deserves a lot of the credit. While president, he streamlined what was a bloated management and stuck money into the Northeast Corridor to make it a viable alternative to air travel from Washington to Boston.
Regardless of who gets the credit, there's new hope that government leaders are finally taking passenger rail seriously. If they give it the support it needs, there's no question that rail will take off and provide the United States with a sensible and much needed transportation alternative. - Commentary, Dave Zweifel, The Capital Times (Madison, WI)
RAILROAD BRIDGE REOPENS AFTER 17 YEARS, $160M
ELIZABETH, NJ -- A railroad bridge across the Arthur Kill reopened this morning when freight train chugged through the fog on its way from Elizabeth to pick up a shipment of garbage in Staten Island.
After workers loaded 16 cargo containers of garbage onto the train, it is scheduled to head back across the refurbished lift bridge this afternoon and bring the trash to a transfer station in Elizabeth.
New York City and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey invested $160 million to refurbish the bridge, which had been closed for 17 years.
For the next several weeks, one garbage train per day will cross the bridge into New Jersey. If things run well, a second train -- this one hauling freight cars from New York Container Terminal - will also use the bridge every day.
Port Authority officials estimate that the rail bridge will divert more than 40,000 trucks from the Goethals Bridge during its first year of operation. - Joe Malinconico, The Newark Star-Ledger
ALL ABOARD! UP FRONT WITH A METRO-NORTH ENGINEER
WHITE PLAINS, NY -- Running a train is every little boy's -- and some girls' -- dream come true, but what's it really like sitting in that snug cab as you pull into and out of stations all day long?
Your eyes flicker from the track and signals ahead of you to the control panel before you.
Is being a railroad engineer the kick you imagined when you laid out the wooden tracks yourself and pulled a set of colorful trains out of the roundhouse?
Going Places spent four hours with Kevin Mahoney, an engineer with Metro-North Railroad, to get a taste of what it's like to run a commuter train.
"You're your own person," Mahoney says, explaining why he enjoys the job. "You don't have anyone standing over you telling you what to do. It's a lot of responsibility, but as long as you do what you're supposed to do. ... You try to make it a smooth and comfortable ride."
Mahoney, 48, awakens in his Yorktown Heights home at 05:30. An hour later, he arrives at the North White Plains rail yard and clocks in by computer. He greets the operations manager, signs for Train No. 514 and reviews the paperwork that shows a mechanic checked the brakes and signal system. Then he walks through the yard to claim his train. After climbing up the ladder, he unlocks the door to the engineer's cab at the front of the 10-car train.
Today, with company tagging along for the ride, he's operating an M7, which has a door that opens up the cab. Usually, though, he rides solo, alone with his thoughts and the changing seasons beyond the window of his tiny compartment.
Once inside and cleared for departure, Mahoney's the boss. Although the gentle swaying along miles of track does get monotonous, he must stay alert. An energy shake keeps Mahoney going for his first run of the day. Later, he has coffee at Grand Central before making another trip to and from the Crestwood station.
As the M7 picks up speed, an insistent beep-beep-beep-beep alerter sounds every 23 seconds. This safety precaution requires the engineer to pull a lever to signal his presence and ability to brake if needed. If he doesn't pull the lever, the brakes will automatically be applied. He's got to keep his eyes on the track ahead and watch out for animals, people, downed trees or other obstructions.
Understandably, what irks him are people who make his job more difficult: passengers who stand inches from the platform edge, reading a paper or peering down the tracks, those folks who walk on the tracks and riders who block the door to his cab.
Mahoney must give a short pull of the horn as he approaches each station. Platform lengths vary and he must line up his train one way or another, depending on his total number of cars.
With just a dozen years as an engineer, and 22 with the railroad, he's not senior enough to grab one of the coveted runs on the Hudson Line, with its views of the river, the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Palisades. Mahoney still finds it difficult to schedule a summer vacation. He gets to choose his schedule, or pick, only after 159 of his co-workers have already snapped up some of the choicest assignments. But he's still ahead of 200.
Still, Mahoney just finished a good six-month ride on the Harlem Line, with a schedule that he couldn't complain about. During that time, he had weekends off and about five hours of swing time during the day. With three children, ages 11, 4 and 2, you can bet he doesn't do much idling during those off hours, other than an occasional game of golf with some railroad buddies.
Most days, he drives home to give his wife, Eileen, a hand with the kids. If he's not dropping off his son, Matthew, at nursery school, then he's probably keeping toddler, Caitlinanne, out of trouble while his wife runs errands. He reports back to work at 15:52 to take the 16:17 train from North White Plains down to Grand Central. Then he drives the 17:49 train back to North White Plains, ending his day at 18:30. Arriving home about 19:00, he helps 11-year-old Ryan with homework. He often attends a team meeting and finally sits down to supper about 21:30.
Long gone, thankfully, are the days when he reported to Grand Central, which added a two-hour commute to his day. Starting tomorrow, after taking Ryan to Opening Day at Yankee Stadium today, Mahoney will finish work earlier, working 50 hours a week instead of 61. He'll earn less money, but he'll be around to cheer on and maybe help coach Ryan's Yorktown travel baseball teams. It's his choice, his trade-off.
But when the railroad calls, as it did during the last snowstorm of the winter, on March 16, Mahoney answers. He was home at 19:00, but went out again at 03:00 to work in the cold railroad yard.
"With three kids in Westchester." Mahoney says, explaining why he volunteers to work every holiday, except for Christmas eve and Christmas morning, for the double-time pay.
Mahoney started with the railroad in 1985 as a mechanic. He met his wife, Eileen, during a brief period when they both worked in the railroad's Human Resources Department. But office life wasn't for him, so after 18 months he went back to being a mechanic. Two years later, the railroad needed new engineers and Mahoney passed the qualifying exam. He's never looked back.
Checking his watch, Mahoney gives a short pull on the horn and approaches the North White Plains station. After conductor Celeste Urban gives the all-clear signal, with two short buzzes, Mahoney eases his train back into the station. He's on time.
"It's the most important part of the job," he says about punctuality. "In 12 years, I've only missed one train. I had an ear infection and I slept on my good ear. I slept through two alarms. It was the worst thing that happened to me."
In his first month on the job, Mahoney reacted like a civilian to bad weather. During the Blizzard of January 1996, he called his boss to say he might not make it to work. That didn't go over too well, so in he went. He learned fast to be the first on his block to dig out of every snowstorm. When thousands of riders depend on you to get to their own jobs, skipping work because of bad weather is not an option.
Now, he keeps one ear tuned to the weather reports and a Jeep in his garage to stay on track. In rough weather, he rises an hour earlier to get to work on time and toughs it out when he's not feeling well.
"You have trains to run," he says. "You have to do what you have to do." - Caren Halbfinger, The White Plains Journal
TRANSIT NEWS
CAPITOL CORRIDOR TRAINS ROLLING ON NEW TRESTLE
AUBURN, CA -- Amtrak's Capitol Corridor trains are back on track.
On Monday morning, train 529 pulled out of the Auburn station in Placer County on its way to the Bay Area.
The move was a big relief for commuters, who had to catch buses in recent weeks as workers rebuilt a section of burned train trestle in Sacramento.
The trestle, which burned near Cal Expo on March 15, is a key thoroughfare for freight and passenger trains.
Freight trains began using the newly rebuilt steel and concrete trestle last week.
The trestle opened well ahead of schedule after Union Pacific had crews work around the clock. - KCRA-TV3, Sacramento, CA, courtesy Coleman Randall, Jr
EAST VALLEY RAIL STUDY TO SHED LIGHT ON ROUTES
TEMPE, AZ -- Transportation planners have started to study a light-rail spur in Tempe that might reach Chandler -- and maybe even within a stone's throw of Scottsdale.Tempe also has taken at least a cursory look at a trolley system that would serve downtown and part of the central city.
Both transportation projects are in the beginning stages of planning, but the efforts show how regional planners and Tempe are hoping mass transit can provide some relief to the Valley's increasingly congested roads and freeways.
Valley Metro rail will begin the first extension of a 2-mile light-rail spur on Rural Road.
Metro officials thought at first that the extension would turn from the original light-rail line -- now under construction on Apache Boulevard -- by going south on Rural to Southern Avenue. But Metro wants to expand the study area from Chandler Boulevard in Chandler to north Tempe, and perhaps even south Scottsdale. The study doesn't necessarily mean light rail will be built in the entire study area, said Wolf Grote, Valley Metro Rail's director of project development.
Grote said the study will explore everything from light rail to streetcars to various levels of bus service. "I'm telling you where our starting point is but I don't know where we're going to end up," Grote said.
The study will also look at routes parallel to Rural Road. The study will attempt to predict ridership for various transit system options and estimate how much each would cost. That could result in just two miles of rail with bus service feeding into it, ditching light rail in favor of bus service or a longer rail line than originally envisioned. Rail officials have funding for just two new miles of rail in this area, which is supposed to be built by 2015, so an additional rail would require cities to pay for the rest.
Chandler is eager for the study to start so it can eventually have a Metro line within its boundaries, said Mike Normand, a Chandler transportation planner. The Rural Road/Scottsdale Road corridor is one of the East Valley's most popular bus lines, he said, which makes it a good place to consider light rail. Normand hesitated to say light rail is inevitable in Chandler. But he noted Chandler became the fifth city to join Metro's board of directors this month, a sign light rail is likely. "It's probably 15, 20 years out but we do anticipate that eventually it will be extended," Normand said.
That Rural Road plan does contain a potentially fatal flaw. The light-rail line would need to cross a railroad line south of Apache Boulevard, which requires a lengthy bridge that could prove to be cost prohibitive. Another potential problem is ridership, said Glenn Kephart, Tempe's public works director. A 2-mile line would serve the city's library but no other major destination. "There's some merit but we're not sure that the demand for that short of a segment is going to have a good enough cost/benefit ratio," Kephart said.
Those problems have already triggered suggestions the Rural Road spur should instead head north. The two miles would fall just short of Scottsdale's border but some business leaders there have advocated bringing light rail at least to Arizona State University's SkySong.
Light rail has triggered heated debates in Scottsdale, which is already studying transit systems on Scottsdale Road that could include light rail, a streetcar system or buses. Scottsdale's transportation officials had just learned about the Metro study when contacted last week and haven't had time yet to see if the City Council wants Metro to include Scottsdale in its study. "We're still sort of trying to sort out what kind of role we could play," said Mary O'Connor, the Scottsdale's transportation director.
The Scottsdale Area Chamber of Commerce has urged the city to explore rail or a streetcar but the City Council is sharply divided. The council is waiting for the results of citywide transportation plan before taking a position on light rail. The Metro study could take up to two years, officials said.
Meanwhile, a trolley proposal has emerged in Tempe that has triggered some enthusiasm in the business community. Stan Nicpon, owner of Pizzera Uno, has spent the last several months pitching a trolley plan as a way to get more people downtown without building more parking lots and further clogging roads. The trolley would run on Mill Avenue from the Phoenix Zoo to Kiwanis Park and on University Drive from the Price Freeway leg of Loop 101 to the Phoenix border.
Another trolley line could run on Rio Salado Parkway. The trolley would let people park in distant lots and reach downtown quickly, Nicpon said. The trolley system would cost one-third as much as light rail, which runs $60-$75 million a mile. And the construction would be far easier and faster than light rail, he said. Nicpon said he got the idea by seeing how trolleys work in places like Portland, Oregon. "They are so slick, they are so sassy," Nicpon said. "They're just wonderful."
The trolley plan received good reviews from the Downtown Tempe Community, which counts Nicpon as a member. Community group members haven't taken a formal position but members thought it would help the area's parking problems, said Kate Hastings, a community group spokeswoman. "The linkages the trolley system would make are really phenomenal," she said. "Generally speaking, I think everybody has a feeling that it's a pretty good idea."
Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman said an initial city review confirmed Nicpon's view that trolleys are far cheaper, and the mayor said the idea should be researched further. But other issues have to come first before the trolley plan gets a full-blown study, he said. Part of the downtown congestion is from drivers who don't take U.S. 60 or Interstate 10 because of the bottleneck at the Broadway curve. The city needs to know what improvements are in the works there so it knows whether downtown will still have lots of drivers passing through on long trips, Hallman said.
Also, Hallman said the city needs information from the larger Metro study to see what kind of transportation system that will produce. Even proposals for a regional commuter rail system need to be considered as part of the downtown issues, he said. "The smaller, spot solutions don't work very well unless we address the bigger picture traffic problems throughout Tempe, and that means dealing with the bigger picture across the south East Valley," Hallman said. - Garrin Groff, The East Valley Tribune, courtesy Marc Pearsall
TRANSIT COULD LINK OPPOSITES TOGETHER: UTA STUDY IS LOOKING AT LINKING SOUTH SALT LAKE WITH SUGAR HOUSE
Photo here:
[www.sltrib.com]
SALT LAKE CITY -- A future transit line, under study by the Utah Transit Authority, could one day link two very different Salt Lake Valley communities. At one end of the 1.8-mile route, a few blocks west of State Street, there is an area of South Salt Lake that some folks hesitate to frequent after dark.
At the other end, several blocks to the east, there is the charm of Sugar House's retail district, a combination of sought-after franchises and unique mom-and-pops.
In between -- the dividing line between South Salt Lake and Sugar House is 500 East -- the residential neighborhoods run together.
For South Salt Lake's part, the city aims to revive its west side with transit-oriented development near the light-rail station at 250 W. 2100 South. That transition has begun, and a direct rail link to Sugar House could be part of that community's revitalization.
Map here:
[www.sltrib.com]
Also sandwiched between these two destinations are South Salt Lake's city offices and Salt Lake County Government Center at the corner of 2100 South and State streets. Most of the county's 4,000 employees work there.
A few blocks northeast of the corridor, 2,500 students attend Westminster College - about 900 live on its cozy campus.
"We're the biggest employer in the Sugar House neighborhood, and we have a regular flow of commuters," says Gary Daynes, director of Westminster's Center for Civic Engagement.
Daynes estimates that 200 employees and 1,500 students make their way to the liberal-arts enclave each weekday.
At Salt Lake City and South Salt Lake's request, the Utah Transit Authority launched a study of the corridor to determine the best east-west route, somewhere between 2100 and 2700 South, and the most appropriate mode of transport.
Vehicle choice could be anything from light-rail, jazzed-up bus service, state-of-the-art streetcars or vintage trolleys.
Stacey Liddiard, president of South Salt Lake Chamber, views the study - and today's open house - as an opportunity.
"South Salt Lake residents can have a voice about what goes in there that they can actually use, rather than something that wouldn't benefit them at all," Liddiard says.
From that perspective, she believes that rubber-tire transport that travels at slow speeds and stops at every other block would best service the neighborhoods east of State Street.
Some residents whose homes border UTA's right-of-way favor rubber-tire transit on 2100 South rather than trains zipping through their backyards along UTA's rail corridor, Liddiard says.
As a business advocate, Liddiard acknowledges the advantages this east-west connection could bring.
Construction on South Salt Lake's mixed-use Market Station development is scheduled to start this summer and Liddiard views it as a future valleywide draw.
"We're hoping we can share customers with Sugar House, that people will want to stop and shop at both ends," Liddiard says.
Lynne Olson, vice chairwoman of Parley's Rails, Trails, and Tunnels Coalition (PRATT), said her nonprofit organization favors a single-track transit system along UTA's right of way.
"That would work best for us," Olson says, as it would allow for an adjacent bicycle-pedestrian path that would become part of the eight-mile Parley's Creek Corridor Trail.
In the most narrow portions of UTA's right of way - currently a former Union Pacific rail line overgrown with weeds - additional land acquisition for the rail-trail would still be required.
While homed in on the route, PRATT is less picky about the mode.
"We've been told TRAX could run on a single track in that corridor," Olson says. "Also a rubber-tire or neighborhood trolley would work just as well."
For six years, Trolley enthusiast Doug White has examined the idea of refurbishing old-time streetcars and reviving their use along this corridor.
"I'm a big fan. That style of operation and look would be a perfect fit for the community," White says.
However, his idea lacks financial backing and "the ball is in UTA's court now," he says. "I'm in standby mode right now."
Steve Hurlbut, who teaches management at Westminster, credits White as the "spark plug that got us all talking and studying this."
In late 2005, a team of Hurlbut's students analyzed White's concept and concluded it was feasible. But without an influential board of directors and serious fund-raising, it likely would go nowhere.
"I would love to see them do some kind of trolley, some slow touristy thing, and stick a bike trail on one side," Hurlbut says. "It would get rid of the blight along the corridor, provide transportation and give Sugar House one more unique feature."
Wish lists aside, Hal Johnson, UTA's engineering and construction manager for Bus Rapid Transit, says the process of defining a "locally preferred alternative" is rigorous, combining regional travel data with area demographics.
"We connect all that in a mathematical model and see what mode fits it best," Johnson says.
The cost to bankroll a project can elevate one mode or route above another. Most of the cost to operate a transit system lies in labor, not rubber and fuel, Johnson says, noting that a single operator can drive an 800-seat train or an 80-seat bus.
Unseen factors can also drive up costs - "like underground utilities you have to protect or move," Johnson says.
Once a preferred route and mode are selected, a more detailed environmental study takes place. After that, the search for funding begins.
"This is a starting point," Johnson says of the current study. "And we encourage early involvement from the public when they can have the most impact." - Cathy McKitrick, The Salt Lake Tribune
TOAD TALE DOES LITTLE TO DERAIL RAIL PLAN
HOUSTON, TX -- Jack Douglas had already written the headline for a story explaining why the Metropolitan Transit Authority's planned University light rail line should stay on Richmond -- or at least not cross over the Southwest Freeway to Sunset Terrace, where he lives.
"Metro Westpark rail project may croak over endangered Houston toad," he suggested.
At a Metro open house on the line last week, Douglas said, he "provided them with formal notification of the existence of an extensive breeding ground of the endangered Houston toad (Bufo houstonensis)."
Douglas said he and his 6-year-old son, Jackson, "avidly search for and find dozens and dozens of these endangered toads at night, and enjoy watching them and listening to their wonderful sounds."
His alleged toad hot spot is a damp, grassy strip of land that runs from Edloe to Weslayan between Westpark and his backyard fence. Metro owns right of way in that strip, a former freight rail route, and plans to build part of its line there.
Nice try. But wildlife biologists say they don't know whether any Houston toads remain in Houston. They were listed as endangered in 1970, and most of the known survivors are thought to be concentrated in the piney woods of Bastrop County.
So toads in Houston are a different animal from Houston toads. Douglas took the news philosophically.
"I wake up every morning by the croak of toads," he said. "The rail might actually be better." - Rad Sallee, The Houston Chronicle
THE END
| Subject | Written By | Date/Time (PST) |
|---|---|---|
 Railroad Newsline for Tuesday, 04/03/07 |
Larry W. Grant | 04-03-2007 - 01:05 |