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Railroad Newsline for Monday, May 28, 2007

Compiled by Larry W. Grant

In Memory of Rob Carlson, 1952 – 2006

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RAIL NEWS

CONGRESS CAN HEAL RAILROAD SAFETY ILLS

In Oneida, NY, it was propane. In Brooks, KY, it was methyl ethyl ketone. And in Macdona, 17 miles from downtown San Antonio, as residents remember, it was chlorine.

Each community has experienced freight train accidents recently, with chemical spills that killed or injured rail workers and residents. These and other accidents were not caused by bad luck. Rather, they are grim reminders of a rail industry that too often skimps on safety, training, staffing and technology and whose powerful lobby has derailed every attempt by Congress to update federal rail safety laws since they were due for "reauthorization" almost a decade ago.

The new majority in Congress appears poised to get serious about updating rail safety laws. The House is discussing comprehensive legislation that I hope will be passed soon.

With more traffic on the rails, the risks are getting higher -- 1.7 million carloads of hazardous material are transported by rail every year. Just one ruptured rail car of chlorine could kill 100,000 people in a densely populated area, according to a U.S. Navy study.

The Macdona wreck should have been a wake-up call. According to federal accident investigators, the probable cause of the accident was crew fatigue. At issue were Union Pacific's train crew scheduling practices, which had required the train engineer to work long hours in the weeks before the accident.

"Eleven of his workdays were 14 hours, with one day totaling 22 hours," the National Transportation Safety Board found.

At the time of the accident, UP "did not have a formal process by which employees could, without the risk of disciplinary action, decline a job assignment because of inadequate rest," its report says.

The good news is that Congress can fix some of these problems.

The rail corporations refuse to hire the workers they need and instead make employees work dangerously long hours. Workers often put in 12-hour days, wait on their train "in limbo" for up to six more hours until a replacement crew arrives and then must return to work 10 hours later.
Workers who maintain railroad signals can be forced to work 20 hours in a 24-hour period.

Better training is essential. Today, new rail employees commonly receive shortened, one-size-fits-all training. More than five years after 9-11, workers still have not been given comprehensive training -- other than a poorly produced 20 minute video -- to know what constitutes a security risk, how to respond when they see suspicious activity or what to do if an attack occurs.

Employees routinely face intimidation and harassment when they report accidents, injuries and potential safety and security problems. Strong whistleblower protections must be added to the law to ensure workers never have to choose between job security and the security of the rail transportation system.

There is too much nonsignaled track or "dark territory" throughout our rail system, despite the fact that signal systems are affordable, simple technologies that save lives. An accident in Graniteville, SC, in 2005 offers sad evidence. Had technology been installed, it would have alerted the crew that the track was not properly aligned. Signal systems that alert crews to incorrect positioning of track can cost as little as $20,000.

Congress must hold rail corporations accountable by increasing fines exponentially, making it more costly for them to violate safety rules. The average fine assessed to railroads for safety violations or "defects" is $39, according to the Federal Railroad Administration's Office of Safety.

Last, safety inspections currently cover only 0.2 percent of railroad operations, and the Federal Railroad Administration often doesn't follow up to make sure identified problems get corrected.

Our rail system is being pushed beyond capacity as the volume of hazardous materials increases.
The railroads are the only ones who will argue that updated safety legislation isn't worth the time and energy. We believe public safety and the safety of rail workers are worth the investment. It's time for Congress to act. - Commentary, Edward Wytkind, The San Antonio Express-News (Edward Wytkind is president of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, representing several million rail, mass transit, aviation, highway, longshore, maritime and other transportation workers.)

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THREE WILDFIRES HALT RAILROAD TRAFFIC

DENALI/FAIRBANKS, AK -- A wildfire possibly started by sparks from locomotives closed off the Alaska Railroad Friday, according to a news release from the railroad corporation.

Railroad traffic between Denali and Fairbanks was suspended because of three wildfires about 10 miles north of Healy. Travelers were bused between the two locales, the release said.

Northbound traffic is expected to resume today, but southbound traffic will likely be bused from Fairbanks to Denali, where the train was left because of the fires. Southbound passengers should report early for departure times, such as 07:00 for an 08:15 departure.

Passengers should check with the railroad by calling 1-907-265-2688. Press 1 for arrival and departure times.

The fires may have been started by sparks from two locomotives pulling an empty southbound coal train, the release said. No damage to the railroad track was reported. - The Anchorage Daily News

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BNSF EXECUTIVE LEAVES; RAILROAD NOT SAYING WHY

An upper-level executive at BNSF Railway Company left this week, but it's unclear why.

M. David Dealy, vice president of transportation, "left the company" Tuesday, said Pat Hiatte, a BNSF spokesman. The Fort Worth railroad declined to say how or why he left.

The company announced internally Friday that Greg Fox will replace Dealy. Fox was the company's vice president of engineering. Dave Freeman, who was regional vice president for north operations, fills Fox's old job. Jeff Wright, another BNSF insider, will replace Freeman. "These are the moves that fill positions that were vacant as a result of Mr. Dealy's departure," Hiatte said. - David Wethe, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS OVERPASS OVERHAUL WAITING FOR RAILROAD TO GET ABOARD

The property: The Union Pacific Railroad overpass in the 600 block of South Main Street in Rockford, Illinois.

The problem: It’s rusted, blotchy, ugly.

It wasn’t always that way. In 1974, the overpass was painted with a mural depicting early Rockford and the Pioneer, a steam locomotive that came here in 1852. Artists John Berry, Matthew Myhre and Grant Taylor did the work in a project coordinated by the beautification agency of the day, called Eye-Delight. The Chicago and North Western Railway, which owned the viaduct, cooperated and even boasted that Rockford’s mural was the only one in its territory.

Who’s responsible: The Union Pacific Railroad Co., which now owns the overpass.

What’s been done: Since January 2006, the city has been working on a plan to beautify the overpass and surrounding area. The plan calls for a metal facade over both sides of the overpass. The facades would be made of textured metal and overlaid, on the south side, with a graphic design of the Rock River and words welcoming motorists to the River District. A design for the north side of the overpass hasn’t been determined, but the facades would be constructed so that seasonal messages could be hung.

In addition, the sandstone buttresses would be cleaned, weedy areas cleared and the site landscaped in areas 50 to 75 feet on either side of the overpass.

The cost would be about $500,000, which the city has set aside for South Main enhancements. Because of the overpass’s condition, Public Works Director Bill Bittner said, simply painting it would not improve its looks very much.

“This is a very significant investment,” Mayor Larry Morrissey said. “It would make a major impression.”

The mayor sees the overpass project as the north-end complement of the cleanup and landscaping done around Clifton Avenue and the Klehm Arboretum farther south on Main.

When: The city is ready to go on the project, but it needs approval from Union Pacific. Plans were submitted to the railroad last November. In April, Morrissey wrote, asking for an answer. In a letter dated April 25, the railroad replied:

“Government Affairs will be working with other impacted departments on this issue. Our goal is to respond to your request before June 1, 2007. The city’s request concerns a very difficult issue for the Union Pacific Railroad that has to be reviewed at an upper management level.” - Geri Nikolai, The Rockford Register Star

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TEXAS BUDGET INCLUDES FUNDS FOR OUTSIDE RAILROAD AGENCY

AUSTIN, TX -- The $12 million requested to accompany the transfer of the threatened Texas State Railroad out of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and to a local public-private partnership appeared to be in the state's proposed budget unveiled Saturday to legislators, according to two East Texas legislators' offices.

However, money to allow it to continue to be run by the state did not appear to be included.

The proposed budget had yet to be finalized as of Saturday afternoon.

"Rep. (Byron) Cook, Rep. (Chuck) Hopson and I worked all session to find a way to keep the Texas State Railroad running," state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, said Saturday in a prepared statement. "This funding is a reflection of those efforts. I want to thank Sen. (Kevin) Eltife and Sen. (Bob) Deuell for their leadership on this issue, as well as Lt. Gov. (David) Dewhurst."

OPERATING AUTHORITY

Nichols authored Senate Bill 1659, which would create the Texas State Railroad Operating Authority, which is the entity the railroad would be transferred to from Parks and Wildlife.

The operating authority would be the local entity to oversee and lease out operations of the Texas State Railroad to a private operator -- in this case, American Heritage Railways, which runs the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in Colorado and the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in North Carolina.

SB 1659 has passed the House and the Senate and has been received by the governor's office, although not yet signed.

While the authorization for the transfer had passed the House and the Senate, the funding to accompany the transfer was dealt with in a separate process.

The request for the $12 million to accompany the transfer of the railroad is to help pay for repairs to the railroad and address costs associated with the transition.

STATE CONTROL

But it was not the only request for funding related to the railroad. State Rep. Chuck Hopson, D-Jacksonville, had also requested $7.6 million for the state to continue operating the train.

Those funds did not appear to be in the budget unveiled Saturday, according to Hopson's chief of staff, Daniel Mahoney.

"While I am disappointed we couldn't keep the train as a state park, my conversations with (Appropriations) Chairman (Warren) Chisum have led me to believe this was the best option to guarantee the train would remain a working, vibrant East Texas landmark," Hopson said in a prepared statement Saturday.

Hopson said he has worked with Nichols and state Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, who wrote identical legislation to Nichols' SB 1659, to get certain guarantees for the railroad. Those guarantees include that if the private operator cannot honor its commitments, the train comes back to the state parks system.

"The most important of these commitments is that the train continues to travel the tracks," Hopson said.

Steve Presley, president of the Texas State Railroad Operating Agency, a local group which has pursued the route of saving the railroad through a private operator, said Saturday he was pleased that the $12 million they requested was in the budget.

"We are pleased that the legislators did what they told us they would do," Presley said. "The committee chairmen, the Speaker and the Lt. Governor told us from the beginning they would not fund the state running it, and they did what they told us they would do."

Presley has said the agency has received support for turning the railroad over to this local public-private partnership from people across East Texas and the state and appreciates the support and efforts to help save the railroad.

But there are those who have been vocally opposed to the railroad leaving Parks and Wildlife and being operated by a private company.

Michael Banks, president of Save Texas Parks and a Jacksonville resident who opposes privatization of the railroad, said on Friday that he was holding out hope the request for the $7.6 million that would allow the state to run the train for two years was not yet off the table.

In the last week, his group had made its final push to change the tide -- sending out e-mails and faxes and making phone calls asking that the $12 million not be given to the operating authority and asking the governor to veto SB 1659.

While he was not giving up, Banks said Friday it was hard to be optimistic.

"I think we've played every card we had in our hand," he said. "We've done as good as we could do ... We were going up against the strongest people in the state."

Banks said Saturday upon hearing about what was in the proposed budget that he was not willing to concede yet, not until he knows where that $12 million is coming from.

He noted he would rather see the railroad funded by the Legislature than it become a static display, as has been threatened, but would rather see the funding go to continued state operation.

But the state senator who authored the bill that would pave the way for privatization released a statement last week making it clear that transferring the train out of Parks and Wildlife and allowing a private operator to run it is the "only option."

"At this point in time, to advocate against the transfer of the railroad is to argue for its demise," Nichols said in the statement.

Nichols explained that "from day one" he had pursued funding for state operation of the railroad.

"However, knowing what a challenge that would be, I also supported the efforts of local leaders to find an alternate operator for the train ..."

In that statement, Nichols thanked those who have worked hard to keep the railroad running.

"I encourage all those passionate about the train to come together and support those laying the groundwork to keep the train open for generations to come," he wrote.

Efforts to save the railroad began last year after Parks and Wildlife officials said that without additional funding or a new operator, the expensive railroad would be turned into a static display come September.

State Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, who sits on the senate finance committee, said via phone Saturday that he did everything he could to support funding for the railroad.

"When the budget goes to conference committee, you never know how the conferees in the House and Senate are going to end up with the final budget," Eltife said. "I'm very pleased that the 12 million is in there."

When asked which track he supported -- continued state operation or privatization -- he said he listened to both sides.

"My biggest concern more than anything was that we keep the railroad in operation," he said. "I was most concerned that it would become a stationary museum. First and foremost, I wanted to see that we kept the railroad in operation -- and how we get there, I didn't really have a preference. I just wanted to make sure it stays in operation." - Megan Middleton, The Tyler Morning Telegraph

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WHISTLES WHILE THEY WORK

OMAK, WA -- It's still dark at 05:00 hours when Ryan Lovelady and Aaron Stanley pull into the four-car parking lot next to the Cascade and Columbia River Railroad's two-room office in Omak.

It's a Thursday in mid-April, and Stanley arrives first. He unlocks the office, turns on the lights and heads outside again to Engine 1758, parked a few feet from the office door. Grabbing the metal railings, he hoists himself up a short ladder. Moments later, the north-facing locomotive roars to life, its four headlights cutting through the darkness.

Every weekday, this train makes a 274-mile round trip from Omak to Oroville to Wenatchee and back to Omak. Generally, it hauls empty cars going north, but once in a while delivers raw materials at U.S. Castings in Entiat and propane to distributors in Brewster and Okanogan. The full cars -- loaded mostly with wood chips, lumber and calcium carbonate -- are almost always headed south to Wenatchee, where they'll be hooked onto a BNSF Railway Company train to reach their final destination.

This stretch of railroad track has been used for nearly 100 years -- there are still several miles of the original steel track laid by Great Northern when it built the line in 1914 to connect its lines in northern Washington and British Columbia.

"My dad worked for Great Northern Railroad and Burlington Northern before he retired," says Buck Workman, who has worked for this rail line for more than 30 years and is now general manager.
"Historically, this branch line and the Kettle Falls branch line were the highest-paying branch lines on the Great Northern system. We had the timber and the apples," he says, and both industries relied heavily on railroads.

That was a time when roads were rough, and the trucking industry was in its infancy. Things have changed a lot since then. But the train remains a fixture on this Western landscape.

Today, the railmen who operate this train say some days they haul 20 cars, other days, 40.
On this day in April, it's considered a light day on the Cascade and Columbia River Railroad, with 25 cars ready to pick up and take to Wenatchee.

When Lovelady arrives, he goes straight for the office fax machine, sets down his lunch and grabs a list of the day's work. "It takes a stack of paper like this to get a train moving," he says, holding his thumb and forefinger 2 inches apart.

He calls a private dispatch center in Vermont to get a track warrant, which gives them the authority to move the train onto the track.

Like every other day, theirs will be the only train on this isolated stretch of railroad track that runs through cattle pastures, past junkyards and across 173 private driveways and 34 public roads.

With permission granted, Lovelady closes and locks the office, climbs aboard the train, deposits his lunch and paperwork and hops back off. Stanley sits ready in the engineer's seat, and the two talk over a hand-held radio -- often in one-word sentences -- working through the morning routine of checking brakes on the engine and railcars, and hooking up empty cars before heading north.

Soon, Lovelady is back on board and the train with 15 empty cars ventures north.

Lovelady -- who is conductor today -- takes his seat on the left side of the cab and leans back in the well-cushioned seat, resting his steel-toed boots on the narrow door in front of him.
"It should be a pretty good day," he says, sipping coffee and looking at their workload attached to a metal clipboard.

By the time they pull away from Omak and pick up speed, it's nearly 06:00 hours. Dawn has turned from black to dark gray as the gentle click-clack, click-clack of metal wheels on steel track breaks the morning silence. At 25 miles per hour -- the fastest they'll go today -- the train rocks them from side to side, at a pace much too fast to lull a baby to sleep.

But Lovelady and Stanley are like sailors on this train, well used to the motion after 10 years on the job. Like the other two railmen here, they switch off every two weeks between the morning and evening shifts, and take turns as conductor and engineer. All were hired soon after RailAmerica bought the branch in 1996, and the change keeps the job from getting too monotonous.

"We've all had about a million schemes to get out of railroading, but the security's pretty hard to give up," says Stanley as the train rambles north. It's still chilly, but he's stripped down to his Omak Volunteer Fire Department T-shirt.

"When it comes right down to it, I have no college education, and I've made good money and full benefits for 10 years," he says.

"I'm a third-generation railroader," Lovelady says. "My grandpa was a railroader. My dad was a railroader. I've been around it all my life," he says, then adds, "It wasn't something I planned on doing from day one, really. I just kind of ended up here."

The train passes Colville Indian Precision Pine, a regular shipping customer. Outside Lovelady's window, a light morning fog rises off the Okanogan River, while Stanley's side offers up a view of white steam from the lumber mill and a dozen sprinklers wetting pile after pile of stacked logs.

"Wood chips are the No. 1 thing we haul. No. 2 would be calcium carbonate," Stanley says.

"We also haul tons of lumber out of Canada, and recently they started shipping wood pellets.
They truck it all to Oroville and load it onto train cars there," Lovelady says.

Just past Riverside, they travel through several miles of undeveloped countryside. They've seen cougars and bobcats back in here, Stanley says.

As the train rounds a corner, a dozen deer decide to cross the tracks. Stanley pulls a lever and the engine lets out a breathy, low-pitched, "toot-tooooooooot," and the deer scamper across the tracks. A hundred more are already on the other side, blending with the shaded hillside.

They've hit deer before, Stanley says, and horses. In winter they have to slow down for bighorn sheep below Oroville and near Rocky Reach.

But their biggest worry, by far, are the cars and trucks that race across the tracks at private drives and public crossings.

A near miss happens almost daily, both railmen agree. Fortunately, there have been only a few times when the train has actually hit a vehicle.

"If you've got 40 loaded cars, it can take a quarter of a mile to stop," Lovelady says.

"If you see it, you're going to hit it," says Stanley. "We've saved hundreds of lives by blowing the horn."

Five miles south of Tonasket, Stanley slows the train at Janis to drop one of the black cylinder cars next to the bright white piles of calcium carbonate, mined just outside of Tonasket. The mineral is used in dozens of products, including high-grade white stationery paper, antacids, toothpaste and paint.

"This is the second-biggest customer on the railroad, behind Weyerhaeuser," Lovelady says.

He slips on his leather gloves and hops off the train to detach the empty car as Stanley gets a wave from a man in the railyard.

A few minutes later, Lovelady is back on board. Just north of Ellisforde, Stanley slows the train to 10 mpg for several miles, but not for an animal or car. The original track -- called 68-pound rail because that's how much a yard of it weighs -- is still part of the system, he explains, and they have to slow down to keep from stressing this old steel.

"It's right up here," Stanley says. "It's stamped on the side of the rail - 1892. So we've got 110-year-old rail still running," he says.

Stanley is familiar with the track because they used to spend at least one or two days a week working on the track. That was back before business picked up.

The last stop before Oroville is at Weyerhaeuser. "These are all chips out of Canadian mills.
They must have a hundred carload of chips just sitting here," Lovelady says. The mounds of tan chips look like dozens of miniature pyramids in the making. They'll stop again on their way back to pick up several cars loaded with wood chips, bound for Longview and Weyerhaeuser's pulp mill.

It's 08:20 hours when they reach Zosel Lumber in Oroville to drop a few empty cars and pick up their first load for the southbound journey. The smell of freshly milled pine fills the air.
Shadows are still several feet long, and the sun hits the sides of the railcars and the roofs of mill buildings, revealing the necessity of the sunglasses propped on both of the railmen's baseball cap visors.

The last stop is at the Oroville yard, with its maze of side tracks for loading and unloading.
Here, they'll switch to the southbound Engine 1002, hooked directly behind the north-facing locomotive.

The railroad ends here. It used to continue north, to Canada, but those tracks were removed perhaps 20 years ago, Stanley says.

Outside, Lovelady is offering estimates by radio on how far to back up before the railcar knuckles bump and grab onto each other. He counts down by the number of railcars: "Five, four, three," then, "20 feet, 10, five."

Stanley says he can't move the train backward too fast. "If you went any faster than four miles per hour, you'd know it," he says, grinning as if he's done it before. The cars couple without a ripple in the engine cab. Lovelady reads off the numbers of the cars they pick up, and what's in them, and Stanley writes it down.

About half of what they do and say is for safety reasons, Stanley says. If they get in a wreck and are knocked out, someone can look at the log to make sure there are no hazardous materials aboard, he explains. Propane is the only hazardous material they ever carry, he says.

They continue to pick up loaded railcars on their way south, looking at the clipboard at each stop and writing down railcar numbers and their contents.

In between stops, they take bites of their lunches and make contact with the afternoon crew.

They're back in Omak by noon, but they still have to fill the train with diesel before handing it off to the next crew, which will take the loaded train to Wenatchee, the final destination of this short-line railroad. It takes 5,000 gallons of diesel a week to operate this train, Stanley says.

Workman, their boss, meets them when they stop at Colville Indian Power and Veneer, one of two mills owned by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation that ships veneer and plywood on this rail line.

"Last year we were on target to do 9,000-plus (carloads), but this mill burned," Workman says.
Still, they hauled more than 8,500 carloads of goods in 2006, the best year yet since RailAmerica bought the line from BNSF more than 10 years ago. The company is based in Boca Raton, Fla., and has 42 short-line and regional railroads across the United States and Canada, including Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad in Elma.

Workman says he could have stayed on with BNSF, but he wanted to stay in Okanogan County, where his roots are deep. He was the track maintenance supervisor then, and after a year, he knew he'd made the right decision.

"They had proven to me they were interested in the long-term viability of the rail line," he explains.

And despite the high cost of replacing track -- certainly needed on some stretches of the line -- Workman expects this short-line to be around for a long time. Looking up at a photo of his young granddaughter on a bookshelf in his office, he muses, "You're looking at our next general manager." - K.C. Mehaffety, The Wenatchee World, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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THREE RAILROADS DIVVY UP SHORT-LINE SYSTEM

Watco is still working on the railroad, but now so are U.S. Rail Partners and the Washington and Idaho Railway. All three will service what had been solely Watco's turf as part of Washington state's short-line railroad system.

With approximately 350 miles of track, the state-owned railroad is the largest in the continental U.S. Only Alaska's government-owned rail line is longer. The state purchased the short-line system over a number of years at a cost of about $18 million. The final purchase was finalized May 11.

Washington's short-haul rail lines, which were abandoned by Class I railroads like BNSF and Union Pacific as they concentrated on more-profitable coast-to-coast routes, primarily aid the wheat industry. It's not just about getting the grain to market. As an alternative to truck/barge, the presence of a working rail line keeps transportation prices in check.

For its part, the state's purchase allows it to support a traditional industry while maintaining the infrastructure that could one day be the linchpin of a rural revitalization effort. For the public's part, use of the railroad system reduces wear and tear on state highways by putting fewer grain trucks on the road.

Although Watco argued the lines weren't profitable, the state's call for companies to operate them found six bidders for each line for a total of five entities. Mike Rowswell, special initiatives manager for the Department of Transportation rail office, said the bidders were scored according to a variety of factors.

U.S. Rail Partners, based in Des Plaines, Illinois, will operate what is referred to as the CW Line from Coulee City to Cheney. The company will operated under the name Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad.

The Washington and Idaho Railway, based in Lewiston, will operate what is known as the P&L line, which runs from Marshall to Pullman and on to the Idaho border.

Watco did not bid, but the railroad will continue to operate the PV Hooper line, which runs from Thornton to Hooper and Colfax to Hooper because of a longstanding agreement with UP to use its track. The deal was not transferable. Watco also continues to operate the Blue Mountain Railroad. It is owned jointly by UP and the Port of Columbia and shuttles grain from Walla Walla to Wallula.

Rowswell said the state sees the short-haul rail lines as a collaboration that will involve the state, shippers and the new operators "to grow business and make it work." He said the state's role at this point is to oversee the process. Eventually, the state hopes to spin off its railway holdings to rail districts created by local government.

As a subcontractor for Watco, the Washington and Idaho railroad already has locomotives on the P&L track. U.S. Railway has purchased two engines in Montana and are the process of overhauling them. They should be on the CW line by June. - Scott Yates, The Capital Press

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LOOKING GLASS IS A WONDERLAND IN A FIERY RED CABOOSE

PORTLAND, OR -- After years of inner-city living, Karin Anna fell in love with the village feel of Sellwood and bought a home there two years ago.

"It's laid-back and friendly," she says. "Knowing your neighbors and being a part of your community is special."

Now Sellwood is proving a great place for her bookstore as well. She says business at The Looking Glass Book Store downtown was waning with the parking squeeze and constant construction. She found the ideal new location just a few blocks from her home -- in a cherry red caboose at 7983 SE 13th Ave.

At 1,500 square feet, the colorful railroad car was just big enough for Looking Glass to squeeze into. Anna culled her inventory focusing on quality children's books, contemporary literature, poetry, philosophy, psychology and social sciences.

The store looks out on a magnificent garden sanctuary -- including a towering Douglas fir, a small pond and fountain -- that Anna incorporated into the store with tables and chairs for customer use.

Bridget Davis, manager of nearby Grand Central Bakery & Cafe, was delighted when Looking Glass moved in. "Karin is a true neighbor, and it's very much a family bookstore. Our businesses complement each other, we both love seeing familiar faces and we're both into customer service."

Patricia Albarran lived in Sellwood since 1991 and buys books at Looking Glass for herself and her daughter. "It's great having a high-quality bookstore in our neighborhood," Albarran says. "With all the little shops and ethnic restaurants, along with a fantastic park and a great library and post office, it's got that small-town flavor." - John Rumler, The Portland Oregonian

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AT AMTRAK: DERAILED NEGOTIATIONS

Photo here:

[www.buffalonews.com]

PHILADELPHIA, PA -- Amtrak and its unionized locomotive mechanics, signal repairmen, track maintenance crews, conductors and engineers have to be setting some kind of organized-labor record.

Nearly 10,000 Amtrak employees have been working under a contract extension for more than seven years -- since their last collective-bargaining agreement expired Dec. 31, 1999.

“It’s a record in my lifetime,” said Thomas Roth, a labor economist who has consulted with transit unions for 30 years. “I haven’t seen it -- not in any industry, not in transit, not in freight railroad, not in airlines.”

An additional 5,000 or so Amtrak workers, including food servers, reservation clerks and station cleaners, have been on a contract extension for a mere 28 months, since Dec. 31, 2004.

To say that negotiations are moving at a snail’s pace might be an exaggeration, but not much.
Union officials count their meetings with Amtrak negotiators over the last two years on one hand, and most have not seen their federal mediator for more than 12 months.

“Not to be negative . . . but seven years. . . . It’s a little disheartening,” said Brian Bogarde, a union track-repair worker from Morrisville, PA, on a break from resurfacing track near the North Philadelphia train station recently.

“It just seems to be going nowhere,” he said.

But -- and here’s what’s unusual -- that might be a good thing for labor and Amtrak.

Why? It has to do with the confluence of three forces -- the declining ability of workers to negotiate generous contracts, particularly for health care; the general anti-labor bent of the Bush administration; and the complex vagaries of the Railway Labor Act, the federal law that governs railroad and airline negotiations.

Amtrak officials declined to comment on negotiations except to say, through spokesman Clifford Black: “We’re hopeful that we can reach agreements that are beneficial to Amtrak.” The National Mediation Board also had no comment.

One complication is the Railway Labor Act, enacted in 1926 with the prime economic goal of keeping commerce moving by keeping trains on track.

The long and cumbersome bargaining process called for by the act begins with negotiations overseen by a mediator. If the talks reach an impasse, the mediator can release the two sides from bargaining, leaving them free to strike or impose a contract or lockout, unless they choose binding arbitration.

Usually, before a strike or lockout, the president appoints an emergency board. The board investigates for 30 days and issues recommendations.

Those recommendations can be rejected, but often lead to a settlement. If not, Congress can impose a solution, or the sides can resort to strike or lockout.

To encourage bargaining and discourage strikes, the act provides a modest wage increase — half of the cost of living — during negotiations. Some track-repair workers, for example, have seen a $1.61-an hour raise over seven years.

In those years, Amtrak has been able to keep wage hikes low. Meanwhile, the unions have kept health benefits negotiated in 1997 that look generous by today’s standards.

The current contracts limit Amtrak’s ability to hire nonunion workers. Amtrak wants complete latitude to change that and won’t budge.

Meanwhile, the 13 unions in mediation limbo are not in agreement on the best strategy for moving ahead.

Jed Dodd, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, would like to move out of mediation and into binding arbitration, avoiding a presidential emergency board.

“We’re looking for a fair shake, and we couldn’t get a fair shake from a presidential emergency board under this president,” Dodd said.

The International Association of Machinists, which represents 487 mechanics who fix locomotives and repair trains, is willing to gamble that even a presidential emergency board appointed by President Bush would find in favor of the employees. If not, the union still could strike, said spokesman Joseph Tiberi said.

The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen also is willing to gamble.

Earlier this year, a presidential emergency board appointed to oversee a contract between workers and Metro North, a suburban New York commuter system, made reasonable recommendations, said David Ingersoll, general chairman of the signalmen’s union.

Those recommendations could provide a pattern in an industry with a long history of pattern bargaining, he said.

A presidential emergency board also could follow the pattern set by a new contract between union workers and freight lines, which went to the same unions for ratification this month — or it could follow the pattern in contracts signed by some of Amtrak’s unions earlier in the decade, said Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney partner Robert S. Hawkins, who represents railroad companies in labor negotiations. Those contracts, which were less favorable for workers, have since expired.

Absent any movement at the bargaining table, the unions are agitating to keep up workers’ spirits and to set the stage for a change in the White House in 2008, while moving a Democratic Congress to action.

On March 14, 38 signalmen picketed outside an Amtrak board of directors’ meeting in New York. They later were threatened with discipline for taking off from work, though Ingersoll said they had done so in accordance with Amtrak policies.

On May 5, Dodd led a group on a leafletting tour of the upscale Washington neighborhood where Amtrak CEO Frank Kummant lives. On May 17, workers rallied in front of Washington’s Union Station.

“Part of the problem,” Tiberi said, “is that Amtrak has to beg for funding.”

In fiscal 2006, the White House suggested giving Amtrak no funding. For fiscal 2008, Bush has proposed $900 million, far short of the $1.5 billion Amtrak seeks. A bill sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, DN. J., would provide for enhanced funding, although not enough, Tiberi said, to cover adequate new contracts.

Meanwhile, Amtrak’s business has picked up. Ticket revenues increased 11 percent, to $840 million, in the seven months between October and April. Ridership rose 5 percent, to 14.32 million, Black said.

Operating losses have been narrowing, and Amtrak has been paying down its debt, but the railroad is still $3.4 billion in the red, Black said. - Jane M. Von Bergen, The Philadelphia Inquirer

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PARK POISED FOR SUCCESS: TRANSPORTATION OPTIONS MAKE GALESBURG GOOD LOCATION

GALESBURG, IL -- CenterPoint Properties, along with GREDA and Mercantile Companies Inc., is marketing Logistics Park-Galesburg. A spokesman for CenterPoint said Galesburg is "well positioned" for the park to succeed.

Matt Tramel said the tremendous amount of imports is driving the growth of intermodal transportation in the country, much of it in the Midwest.

"Galesburg, it's well positioned next to (Interstate 74)," Tramel said. "There's quick access to I-39, 80 and 88 and your true asset is the frontage of the BNSF line. Those are the main components of an intermodal, logistics park."

Logistics refers to warehouse and distribution operations, while intermodal operations involve the carrying of containers of goods by ocean-going vehicles. Containers are unloaded by cranes onto trucks, transported to logistics parks where lifts put them onto trains, which haul the containers to their destinations.

While some members of the public have questioned whether Galesburg is too far from Chicago for the park to succeed, Tramel doesn't see that as a problem.

"I think we're seeing a lot of places where a town like Galesburg, it is an historic railroad town," he said. "The attributes that brought the railroad to town in the first place still hold true. It's the most cost-effective way to transport freight across this country."

Galesburg Regional Economic Development Association Executive Director Greg Mangieri agreed as to the importance of the railroad.

"The BNSF rail line, from the BNSF yard to Peoria, runs directly parallel to the south property border of the facility. You could just swing in a couple of yards and have an east-west track through the facility. We could swing it into the property and out of the property without crossing a public road. To do that, you have to build a couple of switches and a couple of turnouts," Mangieri said.

Tramel said the U.S. economy is making a transition from manufacturing to transporting goods. He used the logistics park in Elwood, at the former Joliet Arsenal, as an example. He said that during World War II, Korea and Vietnam, the arsenal employed thousands of people in a manufacturing environment. The Army closed the facility in 1995. BNSF bought it in 2000.

"The same attributes that made it great for manufacturing made it great for logistics," he said. "The railroad infrastructure and the interstates are just critical and they don't go away."

CenterPoint also is involved with two intermodal facilities in the northern Illinois community of Rochelle. It, too, has prime interstate and railroad access. And, while closer to Chicago than Galesburg, certainly is not in the suburban area.

Rochelle, with a population of about 9,500, is about 25 miles south of Rockford, 70 miles west of downtown Chicago and 35-40 miles west of Aurora. It is the home to the 1,230-acre Union Pacific Global III Intermodal facility and CenterPoint Intermodal Center, which contains 365 acres. Logistics Park Galesburg is a 350-acre facility.

The main lines of the Union Pacific Railroad and the BNSF Railway go through Rochelle, as do interstates 39 and 88.

Although Rochelle is much closer to Chicago than is Galesburg, the community feels it almost ran into the problem some residents here are worried about.

"They (UP) were under the impression it was a little far out," said Jason Anderson, executive director of the Greater Rochelle Economic Development Corp. "The reality was (for) what they were spending in one month in Chicago for rent (for Global I and II), they could buy the entire 1,300 acres" in Rochelle.

Anderson said there was another factor. It also is one that could help Galesburg.

"Global I and II (in Chicago) are at 125 percent capacity," he said. "The city of Chicago is no longer the industrial mecca it once was. They really don't want those noisy trucks and trains in Chicago. There's a lot of pressure to move some of that business to this part of the world." - John R. Pulliam, The Galesburg Register-Mail

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TRANSIT NEWS

PROPOSED LIGHT-RAIL EXTENSION HEADING FOR BALLOT

Map here:

[seattletimes.nwsource.com]

SEATTLE, WA -- The numbers might be enough to make voters dizzy: a full 50 miles of light rail, to be built over 20 years, at a long-term cost of $23 billion.

Sound Transit is betting that when citizens say they want light rail, they mean it.

The agency's governing board Thursday approved asking voters in November to extend the system south to Tacoma, east to Overlake and north to 164th Street Southwest at Ash Way in Snohomish County.

The transit plan will be paired with a regional highway proposal as a single ballot question in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties, where sluggish commutes are a perennial irritant.

Sound Transit proposes a sales-tax increase of a nickel for every $10 purchase, or $125 a year for the average household. For the highways, sales taxes would increase a penny per $10 purchase, or $25 a year per household, and a car-tab tax would add $80 per $10,000 of vehicle value, or $68 for the average car.

The campaign has begun.

Standing in front of a shiny railcar Thursday, transit-board members stressed that light rail offers reliable travel times instead of the crapshoot of driving.

"People will get to spend more time with their families instead of staring at brake lights at 05:45 in the morning," said Tacoma City Councilwoman and board member Julie Anderson. Microsoft has said it will help the "yes" campaign.

Meanwhile, the pro-roads Eastside Transportation Association has aired radio ads that criticize spending so much money to provide transit for a fraction of travelers. Michael Ennis of the conservative Washington Policy Center says: "Sound Transit is not really going to relieve traffic congestion."

The Sierra Club likely will oppose the "Roads & Transit" measure because new highway lanes would worsen global warming, said local chairman Michael O'Brien.

A rail line under construction from downtown Seattle to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is to open in late 2009, and Sound Transit says it can afford to tunnel north to Husky Stadium without the ballot measure.

In this year's ballot measure, Sound Transit's share amounts to $23 billion in year-of-expenditure dollars through 2027, plus additional debt payments for 30 more years. The agency on Thursday announced a figure of $10.8 billion, in 2006 dollars, which excludes inflation, financing, operations, overhead and cash reserves.

The highway side is worth $14 billion total, or $9 billion excluding inflation, cash reserves and financing.

On Thursday, the final highway plan is due from the Regional Transportation Investment District, made up of county council members. The big question is whether they will yield to environmentalists' demands to drop a proposed Cross-Base Highway in south Pierce County.

The Cross-Base Highway would link Interstate 5 to the booming Spanaway area, with an east-west route between the Fort Lewis Military Reservation and the McChord Air Force Base. Opponents say a new highway there would damage marshes and oak prairies.

The three county councils would each need to approve the roads package.

Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, who chairs Sound Transit, said that if Cross-Base is removed, he'll veto the highway plan, and perhaps resign as transit-board chair to campaign against the entire ballot measure. - Mike Lindblom, The Seattle Times

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STALE TRANSIT IDEAS KEEP US GETTING NOWHERE

MILWAUKEE, WI -- I have seen the future of transportation in Milwaukee. Frankly, it could get a lot better.

Part of my revelation came after returning to Milwaukee from vacation. That's where I took note that, unlike in other medium-size cities, there's no way to get from the airport to downtown without a car or a hefty cab fare.

If you left your car in the airport parking lot, there was almost-$4-a-gallon gasoline to deal with. Still, those of us who grumble about expensive gas but still fill 'er up no matter what the tote sign says have it better than some.

Think about the people with no cars at all.

The talk from Milwaukee County last week was about new express bus lines to solve nagging transportation problems that prevent people from easily and affordably traveling the metropolitan area. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker thinks new express bus routes would serve people who need public transportation the most, even though some critics don't think the plan goes far enough.

What about bus lines to the Amtrak station downtown and the airport, some asked.

The general lack of foresight in Walker's plan to connect all of the different modes of transportation people need in modern times seemed representative of how local government looks at this issue. In my mind, you can add all the express bus lines or commuter trolleys you want, but the biggest problem in this town is the general reluctance to explore more expansive modes of public transportation due to a knee-jerk response that makes some throw up their hands whenever someone says "light rail."

Amazingly, there are some people in town who actually brag about single-handedly keeping light rail off the table for political reasons. Milwaukee Ald. Bob Bauman is not one of them.

Bauman has been fighting for light rail for more than 20 years and, like me, he's frustrated with arguments against the system that have outlived their usefulness. Asked why there is so much opposition from some for light rail, Bauman didn't hesitate with his answer.

"Because it will work!" he said. "And we know it will work because everywhere else it's been tried, it worked."

Bauman said there were so many examples across the nation to prove light rail worked, he was baffled that Milwaukee light-rail opponents continue to be successful by dragging out the same tired canards.

The cost of building the fixed guideway system is always described as a prohibitive factor, without any consideration of the added economic benefits that come with allowing people to move around easier and find work in a greater number of places. Bauman didn't discount the start-up costs, but he noted much of that could come from other sources, including the federal government.

"There's always the 'sticker-shock' syndrome," he said of initial start-up costs for light rail.
The real money will be spent in operating costs, he said. Most people would recognize the benefits once the system was up and running.

I have friends in the African-American community who insist the resistance to light rail and other commuter train solutions is tied more to race relations than to money. The idea of blacks and other minorities from the central city being able to travel more efficiently throughout the metro area in search of better jobs or better communities to live in apparently makes some people squeamish.

Bauman witnessed the same thing 15 years ago while conducting surveys about public transportation in Waukesha. He said many people talked about increased crime and the presence of more people of color as deterrents to a light rail system.

Bauman said unlike other communities across the nation, Milwaukee's suburbs have remained resistant to racial diversity, which adds another component to the light rail controversy.

"The problem is that in Milwaukee, the suburbs still represent a place for people to escape to," Bauman said.

According to Jeff Browne, president of the Public Policy Forum, many local politicians don't realize that attitudes about public transportation have been changing recently. According to Browne, preliminary research by the forum suggests more and more residents favor increased public transportation -- including light rail -- but the support has not been measured in an exact way.

"The interest in public transportation is very high," Browne said. "Now, we need a comprehensive study to figure out where to go next."

What I think we need is for public officials to start thinking big picture about making this community easier for everyone to navigate if only we can stop being afraid of our own shadows.
There's no reason people in the central city of Milwaukee shouldn't be able to hold a job -- or find a home -- in Waukesha County or Racine if they are willing to travel.

And there's no reason why a visitor to our fair city shouldn't be able to get downtown from the airport for a reasonable price the same way you can in other cities. All it takes is vision to make it happen. - Commentary, Eugene Kane, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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OLD TROLLEY CARS COULD GET NEW LIFE

ST. CHARLES, MO -- New Town, the subdivision with old-style urban street grids, has acquired another antique feature: nine trolley cars that decades ago were part of St. Louis' streetcar system.

Trucked in earlier this month from California, the dilapidated cars eventually could be renovated for use in a new St. Charles, Missouri rail trolley line being considered by the city at the urging of New Town developer Greg Whittaker.

An initial seven-mile line would run from New Town, on the city's northern edge, to the Main Street historic district and a Whittaker condo-shopping development planned for the old Noah's Ark site near Interstate 70.

Consultants hired jointly by Whittaker Builders and the city will soon submit a feasibility study on the idea. Everybody involved emphasized that no decisions had been made on whether to go ahead with the project.

"It may be pie in the sky or it may be practical, we don't know," said City Councilman Michael Klinghammer, who recently was appointed chairman of a council trolley committee. "It's too early to tell."

How to come up with the estimated $26 million in start-up costs has yet to be determined, let alone the financing of ongoing operations. Also unknown is the degree of public support. In 1996, St. Charles County residents twice voted down a mass-transit sales tax.

Moreover, St. Charles officials considered last year ending the city's small bus system because of lack of ridership.

Whittaker's architecture director, Tim Busse, hopes the city could qualify for federal money to pay for much of the construction costs.

He said the line could serve tourists, residents and the St. Charles Convention Center, plus employment centers such as St. Joseph Health Center, Ameristar Casino and a Boeing Co. plant. Adding a stop at Lindenwood University might spur use by students, he added.

Busse said the company had spent $243,000 to buy and transport the nine cars. The seller was a man from South Lake Tahoe, California, who had tried unsuccessfully to get his area to set up a trolley line.

Gary Landrio of Warren, Pennsylvania., one of the consultants on the feasibility study, said the cars were built in St. Louis in 1946 by the old St. Louis Car Co. and used on St. Louis area streets until about 1958.

Amid a gradual phaseout of the area's lines, Landrio said, the cars were sold to San Francisco, where they were run until the early 1980s, when that city temporarily stopped using streetcars. That's when they were transported to the Lake Tahoe area and put in storage.

Streetcars and light-rail vehicles are powered by electricity and use similar-size rails. Light-rail systems can run at faster speeds and usually cover wider geographic areas. They also use multiple overhead wires, whereas streetcars use a single wire.

Streetcars also can handle fewer passengers at a time than light-rail trains, which string cars together. MetroLink trains have two cars each. Streetcars most often run down city streets, while light-rail lines typically use their own rights of way. Landrio said the St. Charles streetcar idea, though, would use a mixture of streets and an old rail line.

St. Louis' last streetcar line shut down in 1966. The only one that touched St. Charles closed in 1932. It took riders across the Missouri River over the old Highway 115 bridge.

Busse said Whittaker planned to renovate two cars to promote the trolley line idea around St. Charles. One would stay in New Town, a so-called new urbanist development that emphasizes placing stores and recreation within walking distance of homes. About 1,800 people now live there in 580 residences. Hundreds more are planned.

"It gets people excited," Busse said. "It gets people thinking about possibilities."

In the short term, he said, the cars could be used for commercial purposes. He said the idea most likely to be adopted was to use one for seating for a New Town barbecue restaurant.

For the time being, the cars are lined up in two fenced-off areas on a gravel lot near New Town's Boschertown Road entrance, next to an old barn.

With rust, peeling paint, some broken windows and splotches of graffiti, the old cars -- some green and yellow, others green and orange -- appear to be forlorn relics.

But they also provide hints of their former and, Whittaker hopes, future purpose.

Among those reminders: circa-1980 advertising placards above riders' seats and outside insignias proclaiming "S.F. Municipal Railway" or simply "Muni."

Busse said the trolley line's goal would be to circulate people inside St. Charles, then link them to other public transit.

That could be St. Charles' current bus line to MetroLink's North Hanley Road bus station in St. Louis County or a new St. Charles County bus line that is being considered.

Most U.S. cities dropped their streetcar lines decades ago amid rising maintenance costs and the march to the suburbs. But trolleys have achieved a rebound of sorts in recent years, with new lines starting in places such as Memphis, Tenn., Little Rock, Ark., and Kenosha, Wis.

St. Charles isn't the only part of the St. Louis area looking at trolleys.

For several years, the nonprofit Loop Trolley Co. has been promoting construction of a $32 million rail line from near the western end of the University City Loop to the History Museum in Forest Park near a MetroLink station.

Loop Trolley got $600,000 through the East-West Gateway Council of Governments to buy and refurbish two trolleys to go on display.

The Gateway Council also has awarded the company $1.2 million in federal money to help pay for preliminary engineering, dependent on the company's raising $300,000 in matching money. Other federal money also is being sought.

Tom Shrout, executive director of Citizens for Modern Transit -- a transit booster group supportive of the Loop project -- said he didn't view the St. Charles plan as a competitor.

"The more the merrier, as far as I'm concerned, as long as the project makes sense," Shrout said.

Whittaker began pushing the trolley idea in 2005, and the council formed a committee last year to look into it.

The idea has spurred little public attention so far. That could change with the release of the feasibility study, which cost the city and Whittaker $15,600 apiece.

Meanwhile, one councilman, Michael Weller, says he opposes spending any more on the project -- which he regards as a luxury -- in the foreseeable future. The city, he says, has more pressing needs, such as street and road improvements.

"We're years away from anything like that happening," he said. "I don't think we should be spending any time or wasting any capital on it at this time."

What will happen to the cars if the St. Charles idea fails to become reality? Busse said they could be sold to other cities.

"These cars are in demand," he said. - Mark Schlinkmann, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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THE END