American Railroads

2006-11-17T06:27:00.000-05:00

Thief steals blogs

A company calling itself "www.pkblogs.com" is hijacking Blogspot blogs.

Our address is: http://americanrailroads.blogspot.com

You can also see it at: http://www.pkblogs.com/americanrailroads.

Somehow this guy is presenting the blogs under his domain and can then run his own ads for profit while running our content inside a frame.

This fellow is doing it to a number of blogs now and from what I am hearing elsewhere the hosting company is not doing anything about it.

Blogspot, owned by Google, is a copyright infringement on us and Blogspot.

By the way there is no connection possible at "www.pkblogs.com". Connection is refused. It appears he has some script managing to get the subdomain name and running it as his own.

2006-10-27T15:44:00.000-04:00

Peter Bowler

It looks like Amtrak and Canadian National are back on track to start new passenger train service between Chicago and outlying areas on Monday. On August 16, the view from Roosevelt Road showed a train and a pair of light P-42s inbound to Union Station, Chicago.

Added Amtrak service back on track

New Amtrak Illinois service between Chicago and St. Louis and Chicago and Carbondale will operate as planned as part of a late night deal struck between Amtrak and Canadian National Ry.

In an agreement reported Friday morning, CN is dropping its opposition to Amtrak’s plan to add two trains on the Chicago-St. Louis route and one new train on the Chicago-Carbondale line, according to The Southern Illinoisan of Carbondale, Ill.

The service was expected to begin Monday, but was thrown into limbo when CN attempted to wriggle out of a contract it signed in July.

At issue was a concern by CN that additional passenger trains on a stretch of track between Chicago and Joliet would slow freight traffic.

As part of the pact, the two sides will oversee a study of the how the added trains impact service on the busy corridor.

‘‘The demand for more passenger rail service in Illinois is clearly growing and we’re pleased that CN’s leadership has made it possible to move forward,’’ said Amtrak President Alexander Kummant.

The issue had taken on political overtones when it became known earlier this week. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., had threatened to draft legislation to thwart CN’s attempt to curtail the additional service. Durbin also enlisted other members of the state’s congressional delegation to publicly chastise CN for its position.

On Friday, Durbin hailed the agreement.

‘‘I’m glad it ended this way,’’ he said during a press conference at the Amtrak station in his hometown of Springfield. ‘‘It was very clear that if we went to court today we would have prevailed.’’

The added service was made possible by a $24 million subsidy from the state. That amount is double what taxpayers have been paying to keep Amtrak service rolling through the Prairie State in recent years.

For riders along the Chicago-Carbondale line, it will mean one additional round trip between the two cities, which serve three state universities and several communities. On the Chicago-St. Louis corridor, the added service will bring two more round-trip runs to cities including Normal, home to Illinois State University, and Springfield, the seat of state government and the center of tourist sites linked to Abraham Lincoln.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich thanked Amtrak and CN for coming to an agreement.

‘‘This expansion of Amtrak service is too important to people in Illinois to allow it to be derailed before it even got started,’’ Blagojevich said.

‘ACE’ is angry with UP over late trains

“The Altamont Commuter Express prides itself in being a premiere alternative transportation, service-oriented agency. We exist because of the faithful patronage of our passengers, and we continually strive to make our rail service the best in its class,” ACE told its riders last week.

Then they added, “However, our on-time performance is not where it needs to be, and this serious issue needs to be addressed immediately.”

The unnamed writer stated, “As of today, the ACE train is running at 52 percent on-time for the month of October and 77 percent for the year thus far. This is unacceptable considering Union Pacific’s contractual obligation to dispatch the ACE trains at 95 percent on-time.”

Industry standards allow for a leeway of 5 minutes for scheduled arrival and departure times, ACE stated, and pointed out, “According to ACE’s contract with the UP, ‘San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission shall have absolute priority’ on the tracks until the trains reach 95 percent.’”

Part of the blame falls with dispatchers, ACE stated.

“Due to this detrimental trend in dispatching, ACE understands the urgency of this matter and the importance this issue holds for the service to our passengers, and explained, “The Altamont Commuter Express, in a sense, rents track from the UP and is at the control of UP’s dispatching and maintenance. In addition to signal and dispatch-related failures, the ACE train experiences a high amount of slow orders, which, because of poor track and tie conditions, forces the train to travel at speeds below the normal scheduled speeds.”

The writer added, “Recent developments along the ACE corridor have also added to the failing on-time performance. The ACE corridor has experienced the traditional seasonal increase in freight traffic. In addition, the new Capitol Corridor schedule has created additional schedule conflicts for the ACE train.”

Those challenges to ACE’s on-time performance “are no excuse for the current level of service that our passengers are facing,” the writer stated.

The San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission (SJRRC) “takes these issues very seriously” and is working to rectify the challenges that “stand in our way of achieving at least 95 percent on-time performance.”

Today, ACE updated its original complaint, stating “Last Monday, ACE’s Director of Operations attended a meeting with UP administration regarding to ACE’s “discouraging on-time performance. Out of this meeting came a crucial plan for corrective action,” which includes a greater focus on ACE operations, sending a UP dispatcher to Stockton to ride and become familiar with the ACE trains, reporting performance to high-level UP management, and UP dispatcher and Corridor Manager participation in Corridor Improvement.”

Later, a meeting at UP’s in Omaha, headquarters on November 3 “will discuss other operational issues.”

After the meeting, ACE’s operations director “will report to the passengers on what was accomplished.”

2006-10-27T04:31:00.000-04:00

The following stories were intended to be posted on Thursday, but because Blogger.com was down for maintenance, it was impossible to do so.

-Ed.

Law expert says Amtrak lawyers were lax

An forensic legal fee analyst hired by the federal government to investigate Amtrak’s extensive legal expenses with private law firms said yesterday he found numerous questionable management practices and lax oversight over tens of millions of legal expenses billed to Amtrak each year, according to the House committee and Infrastructure.

“Amtrak’s Law Department is not fulfilling its role,” John W. Toothman wrote in his 102-page report.

“Instead of being the aggressive protector of Amtrak’s interests, many in the law department, including upper management, seem to view themselves as the advocates for outside counsel,” he stated.

Reps. John Mica, R-Fla., and Don Young, R-Alaska, who is the committee chairman, requested the investigation.

Both solons said Toothman was hired for his expertise in analyzing legal billings to assist in a federal investigation of Amtrak’s Legal department by the Amtrak Office of the Inspector General and the USDOT’s Inspector General.

Yesterday the Transportation Committee released the report by both inspectors general which outlined alleged numerous examples of mismanagement and lack of oversight for more than $100 million in taxpayer-financed legal fees paid by Amtrak between 2002 and 2005).

A press release from the House committee stated Toothman was selected to assist the inspectors general investigation as one of the top U.S. experts in the field. He is a former Justice department attorney, who is often retained by public entities and large private clients who feel the performance of their legal counsel is in question, Mica and Young said

Some of the major findings in his report include questionable process for selecting outside legal firms.

He alleged, “Amtrak’s in-house lawyers appear to have been co-opted by their outside firms, they rarely select new outside firms, they are making no apparent effort to engage in a thorough law firm selection process, and the firms they use are among the largest and most expensive in the country.”

He said questionable billings and expenses by outside legal firms are rarely challenged. Instead of challenging many of the fees and expenses billed by the outside legal firms, Toothman wrote, “Amtrak’s Law department acts as though its job is to defend outside counsel, not manage them. The attitude exhibited by Amtrak’s Law department when their handling of outside lawyers was questioned was to defend the lawyers and provide excuses for not reviewing them more aggressively.”

He added, “This is a bad sign, indicating that the Law department has lost sight of its primary job: To protect the interests of Amtrak.”

Toothman wrote in his report Amtrak’s legal department “has not investigated its firms properly and not considered alternative law firms that would be cheaper and provide equivalent, if not better, services. There are thousands of firms with expertise handling most of the work done for Amtrak – most of Amtrak’s work is routine, both in subject matter and complexity.”

The Associated Press reported yesterday Amtrak’s law department responded that the review didn’t take into account “the rigorous oversight of work done by outside counsel.” Amtrak’s lawyers also said they save money by performing work in-house, which is cheaper than using outside firms.

The law department lowered its legal fees by 22 percent, from $31 million to less than $24 million, from 2003 to 2005.

Amtrak’s 130-person law department includes 25 lawyers, investigators said.

Toothman agreed with Mica’s estimates, but said that Amtrak is probably not unique among government agencies.

“My suspicion is that it’s toward the bad end,” said Toothman, who has investigated other government agencies.

The report found that Amtrak didn’t request budgets and didn’t scrutinize bills.

Mica conceded that Amtrak had changed some of its practices since the inspector general’s investigation.

A copy of the redacted Toothman report is online at www.house.gov/transportation.

BLE alleges:

AAR, CEOs attack disabled rail unionists

The railroad industry has again shown its contempt for its workers, including those who are retired, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers charged yesterday.

“Edward Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads, recently wrote to Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., in opposition to H.R. 5483, the Railroad Retirement Disability Earnings Act the union stated in a press release.

Enzi is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The bill, scheduled for Senate consideration after the November 7 elections, would increase the amount of money a disabled individual can earn without affecting his or her Railroad Retirement disability benefits.

The House passed the bill on September 28 and the Senate needs to pass it in order for it to become law. However, AAR is lobbying against it.

“The House of Representatives saw fit to increase the amount of money these men and women can receive from outside employment,” BLET National President Don Hahs said in Cleveland at union headquarters.

“However, the railroads can’t concede an inch in their battle against their workers – both present and former. The total cost of this legislation would be about $400,000 annually – a pittance compared to the millions raked in by these CEOs in salary and bonuses.”

Current law limits the outside earnings of a railroad worker drawing disability benefits from the Railroad Retirement Board to a maximum of $400 per month. These limits have remained unchanged for more than a decade. The bill raises the monthly limit to $700. If passed, the measure would become effective January 1, 2007, and would also create an indexing formula to provide for automatic increases in the future.

“This is an attack against the most vulnerable,” said BLET vice-president and National Legislative Representative John Tolman, who is lobbying for passage of the bill on Capitol Hill.

He added, “Many of the individuals that would be affected by the passage of this legislation were hurt on the job.”

Tolman said others are considered disabled or disqualified from working by the railroads themselves for various reasons. These individuals rely on their Railroad Retirement disability benefits in combination with outside work.

“The attempt to destroy this legislation would jeopardize their benefits – and their ability to provide for their families,” he said.

http://www.ble.org/pr/news/newsflash.asp?id=4374

Freight rails were up and down last week

Intermodal volume was up but carload freight was down on U.S. railroads during the week ended October 21 in comparison with the corresponding week last year, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported yesterday.

Intermodal volume of 253,387 trailers or containers was up 1.3 percent from the comparable week last year. Container volume rose 5.8 percent for the week while trailer volume declined by 11.8 percent.

Carload freight totaled 339,525 cars, down 1.1 percent from last year, with loadings up 0.9 percent in the West but off 3.5 percent in the East.

Total volume was estimated at 34.8 billion ton-miles, up 0.3 percent from 2005.

Only five of 19 individual carload commodities showed increases from last year, with coke up 6.4 percent, coal up 6.0 percent, and farm products other than grain up 4.9 percent. On the downside, primary forest products were down 22.1 percent, lumber and wood products fell 20.5 percent and metallic ores were off 18.8 percent.

Cumulative volume for the first 42 weeks of 2006 totaled 14,152,678 carloads, up 1.4 percent from 2005; 9,958,449 trailers or containers, up 5.9 percent; and total volume of an estimated 1.41 trillion ton-miles, up 2.7 percent from last year.

On Canadian railroads, during the week ended October 21 carload traffic totaled 77,054 cars, down 3.9 percent from last year while intermodal volume of 49,241 trailers or containers was up 2.9 percent from last year.

Cumulative originations for the first 42 weeks of 2006 on the Canadian railroads totaled 3,136,686 carloads, down 1.2 percent from last year, and 1,906,506 trailers and containers, up 5.6 percent from last year.

Combined cumulative volume for the first 42 weeks of 2006 on 13 reporting U.S. and Canadian railroads totaled 17,289,364 carloads, up 0.9 percent from last year and 11,864,955 trailers and containers, up 5.9 percent from last year.

The AAR also said that during the week ended October 21 Mexican railroad Kansas City Southern de Mexico (KCSM) reported total carload volume of 11,400 cars, down 3.6 percent from last year. KCSM reported total intermodal volume of 4,109 trailers or containers, down 2.6 percent from the 42nd week of 2005.

For the first 42 weeks of 2006, KCSM reported total cumulative volume of 477,980 cars, down 3.5 percent from last year, and 168,068 trailers or containers, down 3.2 percent.

Railroads provide more than 40 percent of U.S. intercity freight transportation, more than any other mode, and rail traffic figures are regarded as an important economic indicator.

The AAR is online at www.aar.org/.

2006-10-25T16:14:00.000-04:00

BULLETIN

2 solons charge Amtrak lawyers with wasting cash

WASHINGTON – Two House Republican charged today that a federal review of Amtrak’s extensive use of outside legal firms uncovered numerous examples of mismanagement and lack of oversight for more than $100 million in taxpayer-financed legal fees over three years between 2002 and 2005.

The joint probe by the Amtrak Office of Inspector General (IG) and the U.S. DOT Inspector General was requested by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Committee Chairman Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.

The main objectives of the review were to determine whether Amtrak and the federal government received “fair and reasonable value for the legal fees that Amtrak spent for outside counsel” and whether Amtrak’s in-house counsel properly managed and monitored the operations and billings by the private legal offices.

“Today, we have found that Amtrak’s Legal Department was not properly maintaining legal and billing records, failed to consistently prepare and manage budgets, and never even conducted audits despite documented cases of over-billing, errors and the prohibited practice of block billing,” said Mica.

“Some reform efforts are underway, but both the costs and management of unaudited, poorly administered contracts for outside legal services must be brought under control,” Mica added.

“The financial mess at Amtrak’s legal department is much worse than any of us on the Committee could have anticipated,” said Young.

“Millions and millions of federal dollars have been doled out to private law offices by Amtrak’s legal department but the paper trail is clearly incomplete.”

Young said, “Both the Amtrak and DOT Inspectors General have determined that Amtrak’s legal department has not followed its own rules and procedures for working with outside counsel and continues to provide millions of dollars to these outside firms each year without adequate oversight.”

The probe focused on the top 10 outside law firms hired by Amtrak between June 2002 through June 2005. These top 10 firms billed Amtrak for more than $40 million in fees out of the estimated total of $102 million Amtrak dispersed to outside legal firms during this three-year period, but a press release from both solons did not name the legal firms.

The pair charged Amtrak did not properly manage outside counsel “in a manner that limited costs and protected Amtrak’s interests,” Amtrak “did not enforce guidelines which would have been effective in protecting Amtrak’s interests and preventing overcharges,” and that Amtrak “signed agreements with one law firm that significantly supplanted the guidelines and voided its protections.”

The joint Amtrak/DOT Inspector General review determined that Amtrak’s in-house counsel did not enforce the required guidelines and did not adequately review outside counsel legal billings, properly manage outside counsel staffing and rates, prevent prohibited billing practices, nor “perform audits anticipated by the agency’s guidelines.”

All top 10 firms submitted invoices with block billing, Mica said, “a practice prohibited by the guidelines.” Block billing lumps different tasks together under one entry on an invoice, obscuring the cost of each task.

During the three-year review period, 31.4 percent of fees invoiced by the top 10 firms were block billed, Mica said, Amtrak’s in-house managing attorneys failed to question or disallow block billing, even though it is easily recognized and prohibited, and one firm block billed almost exclusively until September 2005.

Amtrak’s in-house counsel primarily selects large, metropolitan firms with high rates, Mica said.

“Some of the rates Amtrak is paying are generally high, from over $450 per hour for an eighth-year associate (2002) to $575 per hour for a partner (2004).” He added, “The guidelines state that Amtrak expects at least the same discount offered to an outside firm’s other government clients or large corporate clients, whichever is lower.”

The Amtrak and DOT Inspectors General “found no way to verify that the discounts Amtrak obtained were the best to which they were entitled, nor did they find any indication that Amtrak attempted to verify that the discounts were in fact given,” Mica alleged.

No evidence was found that Amtrak in-house counsel ever conducted an audit of invoices, one firm’s invoices frequently did not show hourly rates or the time spent on each task, as required, so it was impossible to determine whether invoices totaling $143,000 were correct and only one of the top 10 firms in the review routinely submitted receipts or other evidence of reimbursable expenses.

Mica added that two outside counsel firms voluntarily disclosed billing errors when they became aware of the Amtrak-DOT Inspector General review. Each firm proposed to refund about $30,000, but one firm has withdrawn its offer.

Mica charged “One of the firms most frequently used by Amtrak circumvented the budget requirement and other requirements in the guidelines by negotiating several agreements from 2003 to 2005 that supplanted the guidelines. The terms of the agreements were substantially less beneficial to Amtrak and more beneficial to the law firm than were the terms required by the guidelines.”

The IGs reported finding the use of highly paid attorneys and staff for work that is traditionally performed by lower-paid staff, Amtrak has no record of approval for changes in hourly rates, and records indicate duplicate payments on some accounts.

Some Managing Attorneys rely on outside counsel to maintain files and have no recourse if the firms are unable or unwilling to provide the records, the two House members said.

“Amtrak in-house attorneys, including two high-ranking officials, were unable to readily and promptly produce their own files related to the top billing firm. In-house counsel said the files ‘must have been thrown out,’” they stated.

The also alleged Amtrak in-house counsel was frequently unable to respond promptly and thoroughly to requests from the Amtrak/DOT Inspector Generals.

“Congress has a responsibility to conduct aggressive oversight of Amtrak, especially with a taxpayer subsidy of over a billion dollars a year. Unfortunately, today’s IG report discloses yet another example of problems with our nation’s current passenger rail service operations. Amtrak’s management of outside legal services has been found to be in serious disarray, with virtually no attention focused on costs and expenditures.”

Mica charged once again that “We have found that the taxpayers are subsidizing some passenger tickets over $600 each, and Amtrak is losing over $600 million each year on long-distance routes. “We have found that the taxpayers are underwriting Amtrak’s food and beverage costs at a loss of $83 million a year, and that Amtrak was spending $2 for every $1 it makes for this service.”

Mica has long complained that Amtrak is wasting money.

“We have found that the taxpayers are underwriting an Amtrak Mechanical Department that had no quality control system in place and was rife with waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, and now, today, we have found that Amtrak’s Legal Department was not properly maintaining legal and billing records, failed to consistently prepare and manage budgets, and never even conducted audits despite documented cases of over-billing, errors and the prohibited practice of block billing.”

He said, “Some reform efforts are underway, but both the costs and management of unaudited, poorly administered contracts for outside legal services must be brought under control.”

Young echoed Mica’s remarks.

“I want to be clear that I believe Amtrak is a critical part of our delicately balanced transportation network. I strongly support passenger rail in America, but when Amtrak requires in excess of $1 billion in taxpayer subsidies each year to function, I believe it’s my duty to ensure Amtrak runs efficiently and doesn’t waste taxpayer money.

“For years, Amtrak boasted it was on a ‘glide path’ to operational self-sufficiency. Clearly, those assertions were dishonest to Congress and the American taxpayer and did not reflect its true financial condition. Now we find one more department where the money Amtrak has been receiving is being spent with little oversight. Waste has been found in every Amtrak department that we have reviewed in the last four years.”

Young said, “Congress and the public deserve nothing less than complete, honest, accurate and timely information on how this money is being spent,” and added, “Amtrak is continually showing us it is incapable of effectively spending the $1 billion in federal funding it receives each year. One billion dollars a year is a lot of money and could accomplish a lot towards improving Amtrak’s passenger rail service if it wasn’t wasted on massive food and beverage losses and undocumented and questionable legal billings from outside private law firms.

“The financial mess at Amtrak’s legal department is much worse than any of us on the Committee could have anticipated. Millions and millions of federal dollars have been doled out to private law offices by Amtrak’s legal department but the paper trail is clearly incomplete.”

He stated, “Congressman Mica and I requested this investigation based on the numerous other financial and operational irregularities discovered in previous federal probes. Since investigations began several years ago, more than 200 Amtrak employees outside the law department have been fired for theft or financial irregularities with the company. Countless problems have been uncovered in Amtrak’s maintenance department, and Amtrak has accomplished what most people thought would be impossible – it loses $83 million a year in its food and beverage operation, losing $2 for every $1 it receives. We intend to continue our oversight of Amtrak and these problems until we finally get some real reforms in place and see some tangible results.”

A copy of the report is on the committee website at www.house.gov/transportation

2006-10-25T15:01:00.000-04:00

Bombardier

An artist’s rendering of the forthcoming Ile de France commuter trains. Bombardier of Canada expects to build 372 trains that will operate on a Paris suburban network, and includes an initial order of 172 trains valued at an estimated $1.7 billion.

Bombardier to build French commuter trains

Bombardier Transportation of Canada today said that it has been selected by SNCF, French National Railways, to supply the future Ile-de-France commuter train, after a call for tenders launched in February 2004.

The contract is for the delivery of 372 trains that will operate on the Greater Paris-Ile-de-France suburban network, and includes an initial order of 172 trains valued at an estimated €1.35 billion ($1.7 billion U.S.). The total value of the contract is estimated at €2.7 billion ($3.4 billion U.S.) the firm said in a press release from its Montréal headquarters.

SNCF announced its decision at the conclusion of its board meeting today, convened to review the opinion of its contract committee.

Neither Bombardier nor SNCF said when they would sing the contract, saying only it would take place “in the near future.”

Delivery of the first trains is scheduled to begin in November 2009 and continue until 2015.

The new train will be designed, manufactured and built at the Bombardier Transportation facility in Crespin, in the Valenciennes region, France.

The Ile-de-France commuter train is an articulated train with extra-wide coaches, wide seats and wide doors to increase speed of passenger movement. Each train consists of seven or eight cars in a single unit and can also be operated as a double or triple unit.

The capacity of the trains will vary from 800 to 1,000 passengers, depending on the configuration and layout.

CSX looks to Midwest for rail yards

CSX Corp. has changed the focus of its hunt for a place to build a major rail cargo transfer yard from the Chicago suburbs to Indiana and Ohio.

CSX is actively talking to local officials in both states, according to Garrick Francis, a CSX spokesman.

The Northwest Indiana Times reported on Sunday the yard would be used for both cargo container transfers to trucks and some rail services such as equipment inspections, Garrick said.

“We are constantly looking at ways to expand and improve, and one part of that could involve an intermodal center in the Indiana or the Ohio areas,” said Francis.

Intermodal rail yards have the potential to create thousands of jobs because retail distribution centers and sometimes manufacturers build facilities adjacent to them.

The Center Point Intermodal Center, in Joliet, has created about 6,000 jobs since it opened in 2002. It serves BNSF’s intermodal yard.

Earlier this year, a CSX spokeswoman said the railroad was evaluating sites in Northwest Indiana and the southeast Chicago suburbs for such a facility, but Garrick confirmed that search has now shifted away from Illinois.

The Toledo Blade reported earlier this month that CSX officials were to meet with village council members and local residents about a proposal for an intermodal yard in the village of North Baltimore, about 25 miles south of Toledo.

The city of Hammond has also been pursuing such a facility for Gibson Yards, currently site of the largest rail auto transfer yard in the U.S.

The County of LaPorte would also like to attract such a facility to Union Mills south of the City of LaPorte. The CSX main line runs through the area.

Local and state officials confirmed last week there are active negotiations with Norfolk Southern Corp. to build an intermodal rail yard just west of the city.

NS would not confirm that negotiations are underway, but local property owners say real estate agents representing the railroad have approached them.

The Ports of Indiana said there are ongoing discussions with railroads about locating in intermodal site in LaPorte County.

“Railroads will decide where they want to be,” said Jody Peacock, Ports of Indiana spokesman, “but we are working with railroads trying to make it happen in Indiana.”

STB judges NS to be ‘revenue adequate’

The Surface Transportation Board said Monday that Norfolk Southern Railway Co. was the only big U.S. railroad last year earning a rate of return on its investment judged “revenue adequate.”

The board calculated the weighted cost of financing and operations – known as the cost of capital – at 12.2 percent for the railroad industry. That expense mainly consists of the cost of accessing money through the debt and equity markets, the Virginian Pilot of Norfolk, Va., reported.

Norfolk-based NS beat that with a 13.2 percent rate of return on net investment, the ratio of railroad operating income to capital investments. The second-best railroad was BNSF of Fort Worth at 10.3 percent. Third was the Soo Line Railroad Co., the U.S. operations of Canadian Pacific Ry., at 8.9 percent.

Being a revenue-adequate railroad can affect the rates charged by the railroads in certain cases, according to the STB NS was also the only railroad in 2004 to be revenue adequate, according to the board.

It has been difficult for railroads to meet that standard because until recent years, they’ve been saddled with low rates and slow growth, making it difficult to pay for big investments in track and trains, said Anthony B. Hatch, an independent railroad consultant based in New York.

NS would not disclose its individual cost of capital, company spokesman Richard W. Harris said.

In a separate matter, Norfolk Southern Ry.’s parent company, Norfolk Southern Corp., stated on Monday that its regular dividend of 18 cents per share of common stock will be payable on December 11 to shareholders of record on November 3.

NS service resumes in Pennsylvania

Freight and passenger rail traffic slowly resumed through Beaver County, Pa. on Monday, three days after a fiery train derailment toppled ethanol tankers into a river and prompted temporary evacuations of neighboring homes.

Authorities said Norfolk Southern resumed service at 12:50 a.m., soon after emergency workers extinguished a fire in a tanker on the trestle connecting Beaver Falls to New Brighton, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Typically, between 50 and 70 Norfolk Southern trains run through New Brighton daily at about 45 mph, railroad spokesman Rudy Husband said. With service resumed at just 10 mph as crews complete repairs to the tracks and trestle, and some trains rerouted over other lines, delays will continue over the next few days, he said.

Husband said damage to the trestle was not significant, and crews expected to retrieve two tank cars from the Beaver River early today.

A spokesman with the National Transportation Safety Board said investigators are still trying to determine why the 83-car train derailed. The crew reported a routine trip interrupted at 10:30 p.m. Friday when the brakes abruptly lost pressure, halting the train. The crew then saw the train was on fire, with 23 ethanol-carrying tank cars off the tracks.

Texas’ Cotton Belt plan takes another step

A commuter rail line would eventually ferry up to 10,000 passengers a day along a route between Grapevine and southwest Fort Worth and link directly to Dallas’ light-rail system, under a transit plan presented Monday.

The Fort Worth Transportation Authority at a meeting unveiled its proposal for the Cotton Belt commuter rail line, which would cut diagonally across Tarrant County, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Officials say this is the best of all the options studied.

About 40 people attended the meeting, including several Grapevine residents who said they intend to vote for a half-cent sales tax Nov. 7. The tax would be divided so that three-eighths of a cent would go to commuter rail and the rest for other uses.

“I think this is a positive step toward change,” said Dan Schock, who travels to Dallas for his software business and would like an alternative to driving. “People won’t change until they see a reason to change.”

If Grapevine, Texas voters approve the measure, the rail line could be operating by 2011. It’s named after the former Cotton Belt Railroad, which became part of Southern Pacific and later absorbed into Union Pacific following a merger.

The $7 million generated annually by the Grapevine tax would speed up construction of the line by several years, officials from the city and the T say.

The Cotton Belt would carry up to 10,000 passengers a day by 2030, said Tim Baldwin of URS, a consulting company hired by the T. The region’s other commuter rail line, the Trinity Railway Express, carries about 8,000 passengers a day.

The T has spent the past year analyzing ways to move the large numbers of people already traveling between fast-growing Northeast Tarrant County and southwest Fort Worth.

The officials settled on the Cotton Belt system, which could cost up to $390 million to get started.

The system would provide an alternative for commuters traveling through the Texas 114/121 Grapevine funnel, Baldwin said.

Meanwhile, North Texas’ mass transit network will see about 40 miles of new rail lines by 2030 under a long-range plan adopted unanimously Tuesday night by the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) board of directors, the Dallas Morning News reported.

It also will bring passenger rail service to the Cotton Belt freight rail line through Far North Dallas and northern suburbs but will not fully address Dallas’ concerns about running trains behind hundreds of homes.

A proposed $700 million light-rail line along LBJ Freeway was not included in the plan.

“We’ve done a good job of meeting the city in the middle,” said DART board Chairman Mark Enoch.

Dallas officials had asked DART to postpone Tuesday’s vote for several weeks so they could learn more about the proposals. The board declined to table the matter before launching into three hours of negotiations on its plans.

One of the major discussion points was Dallas’ request that DART spend $250 million to dig an open trench for the rail line through Far North Dallas. The city wanted the trains to run below ground level to reduce their impact on homes nearby.

DART refused to spend $250 million on a trench, something it has not built for other neighborhoods with rail lines, but it did agree to set aside $50 million to help address neighborhood concerns. The meeting drew dozens of Far North Dallas residents who urged DART to listen to the wishes of the Dallas City Council.

The board spent 90 minutes hearing testimony and deliberating on the plan. When it became apparent that the board was going to vote in favor the plan, several members of the audience grew upset, shouting, “This is insulting!”

Board member Terri Adkisson of North Dallas said she was disappointed with some things in the deal but ultimately voted for it.

“My personal belief is that North Dallas has gotten shortchanged,” she said. “But going forward, one of the strengths of DART is that its member cities walk forward united.”

Other audience members were upset to learn that the DART board worked out many of the details in a work session before the regular meeting.

“It was a lack of judgment and a lack of democracy and a lack of public responsibility on the DART board’s part,” said Far North Dallas resident Genny Mantzuranis.

Dallas City Council member Ed Oakley observed the hours of negotiations that led to the compromise.

“There are going to be some folks who are very unhappy,” Mr. Oakley said. “But at the end of the day, this is going to be the best solution.”

After the vote, City Council member Ron Natinsky, who negotiated extensively with DART, said the agency’s attitude toward Far North Dallas has not changed in the 15 years it has considered putting rail on the Cotton Belt.

“I don’t think this is over,” he said. He added that Far North Dallas residents plan to work at the state and federal level to change legislation that would force transit agencies such as DART to abide by a city’s wishes when it builds rail lines.

Complicating matters was the relatively small amount of money that DART said it would have for rail projects: $1.6 billion. That led to squabbles over several proposed projects and their merits.

As with any negotiation, the process was not without some winners and at least one loser.

Dallas got its wish for a rail line extension dubbed Southport to a proposed freight and trucking hub in southern Dallas.

“Looking at the stakes, this is the best chance the southern sector has had for development in years and years,” Mr. Enoch said.

Another winner could be the proposed West Dallas line, which would run along either Fort Worth Avenue or

The biggest loser Tuesday was a proposed light-rail line along LBJ Freeway. That project was not a priority with Dallas, and it barely missed the DART board’s funding cut, even though estimates indicate it would draw 9,800 riders a day.

“We’re all here to think about what’s best for the region,” said DART board member Angie Chen Button of Garland. “I would hate to think that the city of Dallas doesn’t think that almost 10,000 riders is important.”

The LBJ line didn’t make the list because of its cost and for political reasons. DART board members did not want to spend $1.2 billion of the $1.6 billion available on two east-west rail lines in the northern half of the region.

“For too long, the southern sector has been neglected. My concern is that we do not put all our money in the northern sector,” said Joyce Foreman of Dallas, the board’s vice chairman.

DART officials said they hope their sales tax revenue will exceed forecasts, allowing them to pay for part of the LBJ line and get federal funding for the rest.

Construction on any new rail lines that are part of the 2030 plan would not start until around 2020 at the earliest. The first projects would open around 2025. Other projects could open by 2030.

October 25

NS net income up 38 percent

Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) reported record third-quarter net income of $416 million, or $1.02 per diluted share, a 38 percent increase compared with $301 million, or $0.73 per diluted share, for the same period of 2005. Third-quarter income from railway operations increased 35 percent to a record $715 million.

“We have consistently driven financial and operational performance to higher levels throughout each quarter this year,” said Wick Moorman, Norfolk Southern’s CEO.

“In the third quarter our performance enabled us to produce excellent results and set records for railway operating revenues, income from railway operations and net income, while also significantly improving our operating ratio.”

For the first nine months, net income set a record at $1.1 billion, or $2.62 per diluted share, an increase of 19 percent compared with $919 million, or $2.24 per diluted share, for the same period of 2005. Nine-month results for 2005 included a benefit of $96 million from the effects of Ohio tax legislation, which increased diluted earnings per share by $0.23. Excluding this item, net income for the first nine months of 2006 would have been 33 percent higher than the $823 million, or $2.01 per diluted share, earned in the same period of 2005.

Record third-quarter railway operating revenues of $2.4 billion improved 11 percent compared with the same quarter a year earlier. For the first nine months, railway operating revenues increased 13 percent to a record $7.1 billion compared with the same period of 2005. Both improvements were largely the result of higher average revenues, including fuel surcharges. All markets, with the exception of automotive, posted significant revenue gains, and several set new revenue highs.

General merchandise revenues were $1.28 billion, an increase of 13 percent compared with the same period last year and a third-quarter record. For the first nine months, general merchandise revenues rose 15 percent to a record $3.87 billion compared with the year-earlier period.

For the quarter, coal revenues increased 9 percent to a record $595 million and improved 9 percent to a record $1.74 billion during the first nine months compared with the same periods of the prior year.

Intermodal revenues continued growth in both the quarter and for the first nine months, rising 9 percent to a third-quarter record of $515 million, and climbing 13 percent to a record $1.48 billion for the year-to-date compared with the same periods of 2005.

Railway operating expenses were $1.68 billion for the quarter, an increase of 3 percent compared with third-quarter 2005, and $5.15 billion for the first nine months, up 8 percent compared with the same period a year earlier. Higher diesel fuel prices contributed to the increases during both periods.

For the quarter, the railway operating ratio improved 5.4 percentage points to 70.1 percent. For the first nine months, the railway operating ratio improved 3.1 percentage points to 72.6 percent.

2006-10-25T10:05:00.000-04:00

Robby Gragg

Will Canadian National’s subsidiary Illinois Central allow the recently announced new Amtrak trains to operate over their tracks? That’s today’s question for lawyers. Amtrak signed an agreement with CN recently allowing the moves, but now, it appears, CN is backing out. On October 14, these engines were ready for work near Chicagoland’s 18^th Street Bridge.

Amtrak, CN at odds over contract, new trains

By Leo King

The Canadian National Ry. is apparently trying to pull the pin on a new agreement with Amtrak.

Amtrak said yesterday it is “prepared to seek an emergency order requiring Canadian National-Illinois Central (CN-IC) Railroad to honor the existing agreement” between the two railroads allowing the addition of new passenger trains between Chicago and St. Louis and between Chicago and Carbondale.

Amtrak said it would seek relief from a National Arbitration Panel or a restraining order in federal court, should the CN-IC make a final decision not to honor the agreement.

The service expansion, being carried out by Amtrak for the Illinois DOT, (IDOT), is set to begin on October 30 and runs over tracks owned in part by the CN-IC. In July, Amtrak and the CN-IC signed an agreement permitting the new trains to operate on the CN-IC tracks.

On October 19, according to Amtrak, “CN-IC attempted to change the agreement to reduce the number of trains and shorten its term. Illinois rejected this proposal by CN-IC.”

Already popular with passengers, the carrier stated in a press release, some of the trains are sold out during the upcoming holiday season.

Following a Carbondale news conference on September 25, tickets have been on sale for the Saluki (train Nos. 390 and 391) and Illini (Nos.392 and 393). Ticket availability for the Lincoln Service (Trains 300, 301, 302, 305, 306 and 307) to and from St. Louis was announced on October 14.

“Canadian National’s unilateral move to violate its existing agreement allowing trains to operate is an affront to Illinois and its rail passengers,” said William Crosbie, Amtrak’s senior vice-president for operations.

He said, “Amtrak has been in communication with CN-IC officials since March concerning this service. Amtrak has hired and trained employees, renovated train equipment, purchased advertising and mounted a series of public events – some of which CN was a participant – supporting the new train frequencies.”

Crosbie charged, “CN-IC is now trying to back out of the agreement,” pointing out Amtrak and IDOT “will be resolute in enforcement of the pact to add new frequencies on downstate Illinois routes, in response to legislative action and to satisfy public demand.”

He said Amtrak has no plans to cancel these additional trains, and is continuing to accept reservations and sell tickets on all routes and frequencies.

Expanded service on the Chicago-Quincy route is unaffected, he added.

Amtrak explained it, IDOT and other railroads “have invested capital on the Chicago-Joliet route to increase capacity and improve reliability for passenger trains. Less than 37 miles of the 284-mile Chicago-St. Louis route is on tracks owned by CN-IC between Chicago and Joliet.”

Three Amtrak trains and three commuter trains make round-trips on this route, with no commuter trains on weekends. Under the agreement with CN-IC, two more daily round-trips by Amtrak trains will be added for eight passenger train round-trips on weekdays, and five passenger train round-trips on weekends.

Nearly the entire 310-mile Chicago-Carbondale route is on tracks owned by CN-IC. Two Amtrak trains currently make round-trips on this route, with all commuter trains using dedicated tracks nearby.

Under the agreement with CN-IC, one more daily round-trip by Amtrak trains will be added for a total of three passenger train round-trips daily.

The expanded service comes after news that all state-sponsored Amtrak routes posted record ridership levels for Illinois’ Fiscal Year 2006 and with an increase in state funding for passenger rail service by Amtrak from $12.1 million to $24 million approved by the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported this morning, “CN has told Amtrak that the CN official who approved the expanded access did not have the authority to make the agreement, railroad sources said. CN officials say there is not enough track capacity on the two lines to operate the additional Amtrak trains without inconveniencing other freight railroads that also use the CN tracks.”

CN officials appear to be open to a possible compromise.

“We are in discussions with Amtrak right now regarding expanding Amtrak service over our lines to Carbondale and Joliet,” said Jim Kvedaras, senior manager of U.S. public and government affairs at CN.

Amtrak law contracts are focus of an investigation today

The results of a lengthy ongoing federal investigation into allegations of questionable spending practices and the lack of oversight by the Amtrak Legal Department over the private sector law firms it uses will be released at a press conference this morning, according to a press release from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

“The report is the product of a joint investigation by the Amtrak Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of the Inspector General into Amtrak’s legal department activities,” the statement read.

Amtrak receives approximately $1 billion dollars each year from the federal government, of which it is estimated the Amtrak Law Department spends approximately $150 million in annual legal and settlement expenses.

“Such a high percentage of legal costs in comparison to Amtrak’s overall budget has raised serious questions about the appropriateness of Amtrak’s legal spending practices.”

U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., a senior member of the committee, and committee chairman Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, requested the investigation.

The hearing began at 10:00 a.m., 2167 Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C.

Participants are expected to include Mica and D. Hamilton Peterson, Deputy Counsel and Director of Special Investigations in Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General.

Since 2004, according to the press release, the House Transportation Committee has been conducting oversight investigations concerning Amtrak operations in coordination with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Amtrak Office of Inspector General, and the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General.

“Broad ranges of issues have been evaluated with the recent focus being on the operations of the Amtrak Law Department.”

Specifically, “issues have been raised about the extent to which the Amtrak Law Department has followed its own established rules and procedures for managing outside counsel, whether the relationships with outside counsel have been truly at arm’s length, and whether the Amtrak Law Department documents and maintains complete records of its activities.

The House subcommittee is also looking into whether legal service contracts are managed properly to protect the interests of both Amtrak and U.S. taxpayers, and whether the Amtrak Law Department has “prudently overseen and spent the taxpayer funds Amtrak receives from the federal government each year.”

Young and Mica requested that both the Amtrak Inspector General’s Office and the DOT’s Inspector General’s Office jointly investigate the procedures and expenditures by the Amtrak Law Office, with an emphasis on the top 10 law firms paid by Amtrak in recent years.

2006-10-24T16:08:00.000-04:00

Ryan D. Humphrey

All the major railroads are reporting big profits for the third quarter, and BNSF is leader among them. In the photo, A BNSF stack train climbs towards Sullivan’s Curve as another BNSF stack train climbs up track 2 on March 5 in Cajon, Cal.

Bottom line:

BNSF reports all-time record quarter

BNSF said today in Houston its quarterly earnings were $1.33 per diluted share, or 22 percent higher than third-quarter 2005 earnings per diluted share of $1.09.

Third-quarter freight revenues increased $597 million to $3.82 billion, with increases in volume, price and fuel surcharge. Its operating income was $920 million, an increase of $142 million.

BNSF Corp. (NYSE: BNI) today reported record quarterly earnings of $1.33 per diluted share, a 22-percent increase over third-quarter 2005 earnings of $1.09 per diluted share.

“BNSF experienced double-digit revenue increases in each of the company’s four business groups during the third quarter of 2006,” said Matthew K. Rose, BNSF chairman, president and CEO.

“We again handled record volumes in the quarter led by a 10-percent unit increase in coal, and an 8-percent unit increase in both our intermodal and agricultural products businesses. This led to our 18^th consecutive quarter of year-over-year volume increases.”

Third-quarter 2006 freight revenues increased $597 million, or 19 percent, to an all-time quarterly record of $3.82 billion compared with $3.22 billion in the prior year. Revenue for the third quarter of 2006 included fuel surcharges of approximately $500 million compared with approximately $300 million in the third quarter of 2005. The increase in fuel surcharges was driven primarily by rising fuel prices, which was offset by the $293 million increase in fuel expense.

Coal revenues rose by $126 million, or 20 percent, to $748 million, due to record loadings of Powder River Basin coal. BNSF exceeded second quarter 2006’s record loadings by nearly 3 percent. Consumer Products revenues increased $244 million, or 18 percent, to $1.58 billion due to strong revenue increases in the international and domestic intermodal sectors. Industrial Products revenues increased $128 million, or 17 percent, to $871 million led by double-digit revenue growth in chemicals and plastics, petroleum and construction products. Agricultural Products revenues were up $99 million, or 19 percent, to $621 million, due primarily to strength in corn and soybeans.

Operating expenses for the third quarter of 2006 were $3.02 billion compared with third-quarter 2005 operating expenses of $2.54 billion. The $480 million increase in operating expenses was principally driven by a $293 million increase in fuel expense primarily reflecting higher prices and a declining hedge position as well as a 7 percent increase in unit volumes.

All-time quarterly record operating income of $920 million, increased $142 million, or 18 percent, compared with the third quarter of 2005.

CN posts 27 percent quarterly increase

Canadian National Ry. last week reported its financial and operating results for the three-month and nine-month periods ended September 30.

Third-quarter 2006 financial highlights show a net income of Canadian $497 million, a 21 per cent increase over third-quarter 2005 in its October 19 report in Montreal. Elsewhere, its diluted earnings per share (EPS) was 94 cents, an increase of 27 per cent, its operating income of C$844 million was up 27 per cent, and solid revenues of C$1,981 million was an increase of 9 per cent.

The railway’s record quarterly operating ratio of 57.4 per cent was an improvement of 5.9 percentage points, and nine-months free cash flow of C$1,131 million.

E. Hunter Harrison, president and CEO, said, “CN produced exceptional third-quarter results, reflecting substantial revenue growth, asset utilization and cost control accomplishments. Revenues increased 9 per cent, freight volume was up six per cent, and carloadings improved by 2 per cent.”

Harrison added, “The top line benefited from the underlying strength of the diverse and balanced portfolio of commodities that CN transports, as well as freight rate increases. Cost control was again outstanding – operating expenses declined 1 percent during the quarter despite an increase in workload and much higher fuel expenses. Our revenue, cost performance and asset utilization focus all came together in producing a record quarterly operating ratio of 57.4 percent.

“CN’s business model – the pursuit of long-term, sustainable growth, and its consistent ability to grow the business at low incremental cost – continues to hit the mark, driving superior bottom line growth and delivering shareholder value.”

Harrison noted, “I’m pleased to announce today that CN is revising upwards its full-year 2006 earnings guidance because of the strong year-to-date financial performance of the company. CN now expects 2006 adjusted diluted earnings per share to be approximately C$3.40.”

Building on the strength of CN’s 2006 financial track record, the company expects 2007 diluted earnings per share to grow in the 10 percent-plus range, consistent with the company’s long-term vision.

In addition, CN expects 2006 free cash flow of approximately C$1.3 billion, and 2007 free cash flow of approximately C$800 million, with the reduction in 2007 reflecting higher cash payments for Canadian income taxes.

CN’s 2007 financial outlook assumes, among various conditions, the latest consensus forecast of North American economic growth of 2.6 per cent; crude oil prices (West Texas Intermediate) of U.S. $65 per barrel; and a Canadian-U.S. dollar exchange rate of U.S. $0.89 per Canadian dollar.

CP reports weaker third quarter

Canadian Pacific Railway (TSX/NYSE: CP) said today from Calgary, Alberta, a third-quarter net income of $162 million. Net income was lower in 2006 by $42 million when compared to the same period in 2005 due primarily to the impact of foreign exchange on long-term debt and a one-time special reduction to an accrual taken in third-quarter 2005.

“I am very pleased with our results,” said Fred Green, CPR President and CEO.

“CPR has delivered growth of 26 per cent in normalized diluted earnings per share and an improved operating ratio of 74.2 percent. We achieved this while significantly improving the safety of our train operations. Our operating metrics, which measure how well our railroad is running, are excellent and show that our scheduled railroad strategy is driving us closer to our goal of being the safest and most fluid railway in North America.”

Excluding foreign exchange gains and losses on long-term debt and other specified items, income was $168 million, up 24 percent. Its diluted earnings per share was $1.06, an increase of 26 per cent from 84 cents, and its operating ratio improved 320 basis points to 74.2 percent.

Operating expenses were virtually flat at $854 million despite increases in fuel costs, the carrier reported.

In the third quarter, total freight revenues improved by 4 per cent to $1.12 million, with growth in grain of 18 per cent; industrial and consumer products of 13 per cent; sulphur and fertilizers of 10 per cent; and intermodal of 8 per cent. This growth more than offset a sharp decrease in coal revenues of 25 per cent.

CSX reports strong third-quarter earnings

CSX Corp. [NYSE: CSX] reported on October 17 third quarter 2006 net earnings of $328 million, or 71 cents per share. Earnings in the quarter included a 17-cent per-share benefit from Hurricane Katrina insurance recoveries and the resolution of certain income tax matters.

Excluding these items, earnings were 54 cents per share, up 50 percent from 36 cents per share reported in the same quarter of 2005.

“Improved service, growing volumes and continued strong pricing drove our strong third quarter financial results,” said CSX Corp. chairman and CEO Michael Ward

“We continue to invest in strategic capacity and create opportunities for long-term growth,” he said.

The company’s surface transportation businesses posted record third quarter revenues of $2.4 billion, a 14 percent increase from the third quarter last year. The increase was driven by improved pricing and volume growth. Yields increased 12 percent with improvements across all markets. Volumes grew nearly two percent, led by strength in agriculture, coal and intermodal volumes, which more than offset softness in phosphates and fertilizers, automotive and forest products.

These top-line improvements, combined with continued momentum in operations, generated record third quarter Surface Transportation operating income of $489 million, including the $15 million benefit from insurance recoveries. Excluding the insurance recoveries, operating income was $474 million, a 31 percent increase over the $361 million reported in the third quarter of 2005.

“We expect demand for rail and intermodal transportation services to remain strong,” said Ward, adding, “With improved service on our extensive network, CSX is well positioned for the future.”

NS reports 18 cents

Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) yesterday reported its regular quarterly dividend of 18 cents per share on its common stock, payable on December 11 to stockholders of record on November 3. The firm reported the change from its corporate headquarters in Norfolk, Va.

Peering into the NS mindset

Moorman offers a railway future view

By David Foster

Norfolk Southern President, Chairman, and CEO Charles “Wick” Moorman made a major address on October 19 at Hotel Roanoke, which he characterized as a “coming out party” for the railroad’s I-81 strategy.

Intermodal is the fastest growing sector of NS’s business, he said, and set out four key reasons behind that statement

First, he said, are rising oil prices, which constitute a competitive advantage for rail. Next comes a chronic shortage of long-distance truck drivers. He cited an example of a major trucking company that needs 18,000 drivers, and to retain this number they have to recruit 14,000 each year.

Huge increases in imported goods added to the mix – all the big box stores, from Wal-Mart to Target to Lowe’s, etc. are importing enormous volumes of goods from overseas, which helps railroads.

Highway congestion will remain a problem for the foreseeable future. There is neither the money nor the will to address this, he said, so it will stay with us.

Since the first quarter of 2003, NS’s intermodal revenues are up 23 percent. Margins are up, too, he said, noting how in the past it was hard for rail carriers to make money on intermodal shipments because of intense truck competition. Now, he said, the margins on intermodal are comparable to those on other commodities.

Moorman defined some I-81 terms as a prelude to his talk.

“I-81 refers to the truck catchment area,” he said, and can extend all the way to Texas.

“I-81 Corridor” refers to from North Jersey into the deep South, and includes both the NS Piedmont and Shenandoah lines. He said the Shenandoah line paralleling I-81 “will never be a route where we run a lot of trains at high speed.”

“NS can be part of the solution to congestion on I-81, but we can’t be the solution,” Moorman said.

He peered back at the company’s history of involvement in the corridor. Moorman said Wiley Mitchell started the analysis as far back as 1981. He traced developments up to more recent steps in 2003 with the PPTA and the Reebie Study, which he said is “the genesis of a lot of our plans since then.”

“We didn’t go out and beat the drums for I-81,” Moorman said, “because of priorities with the Heartland Corridor project.”

He described the significance of that effort and the multi-state cooperation and financial support it has received.

Now that Heartland is okay, it’s time to turn to I-81. “We’ll be talking a lot more about it as time goes on.”

Moorman said there are about 4 million trucks per year on I-81, and validation of data is ongoing.

“This market is largely untouched by rail,” he said. He drew a contrast by way of comparison with the Chicago-New York market. In that corridor, rail has a market share of more than 50 percent of the “would-be truck traffic.” Most of those are container shipments, and large companies control most of it.

The I-81 market is more highly fragmented.

It’s mostly trucks, and many are “moms and pops” (owner-operators). NS faces inadequate infrastructure and a very complex market in the I-81 corridor, which will make competing difficult.

“Consistency is number one,” he said, and that requires reasonable speed and adequate terminal capacity... in short, infrastructure. High speed is not required.

Over-the-road speeds of 35 to 40 mph have been adequate, he said, to capture premium intermodal business elsewhere.

A prerequisite for capturing the I-81 market is a more open intermodal strategy, and helped the audience understand what that means – mostly lots of new equipment, that can carry all kinds of trucks.

Moorman said the I-81 market could be attacked incrementally.

Modest infrastructure improvements could divert 100,000 to 200,000 trucks annually. At the billion-dollar investment level in track, terminals, and rolling stock, it may be possible to take a million trucks per year off I-81. A public private partnership would be needed, with the public’s share in such cost commensurate with public value.

Ultimately he said, with $6 or $7 billion, and a completely double tracked railroad, NS could do even better. It sounds like a lot, he said, but went on to contrast it to STAR’s $13 billion just for the section in Virginia.

State transportation officials are coming around, he said. They realize they cannot whip this thing alone. It’s going to require a corridor or regional approach, and NS can do that.

“We are the environmentally friendly way to go,” Moorman said, explaining some of the other advantages of relying on rail.

“We can move ahead quickly,” he said. If funding can be identified, he added, a project could be in place in five years.

The writer is the RAILSolution executive director

UP reports record third quarter earnings

Union Pacific Corp. (NYSE: UNP) reported on October 19 its record third quarter 2006 net income of $420 million, or $1.54 per diluted share. Last year’s third quarter net income was $369 million, or $1.38 per diluted share, which included a non-cash income tax expense reduction of $118 million after-tax, or $.44 per diluted share.

Excluding the tax item, third quarter 2005 net income would have been $251 million or 94 cents per diluted share. Comparing 2006 to 2005 results without the tax item, net income increased 67 percent and diluted earnings per share grew 64 percent.

Operating income during the third quarter of 2006 was $752 million, up from $481 million reported in the third quarter of 2005.

“Quarterly operating revenue and income were the best ever in the history of the Railroad,” said Jim Young, President and CEO.

“This quarter marks the sixth consecutive quarter of operating income growth. Unlike last year’s results, which were affected by hurricanes, this quarter we converted the demand for our services and greater operational efficiency into strong performance.”

Operating revenue set an all-time quarterly record, growing 15 percent to $4.0 billion compared to $3.5 billion in the third quarter 2005. Five of six business teams achieved all-time record results in the quarter. The sixth business team, Automotive, posted its best third quarter ever.

Operating ratio improved 5.0 points versus the third quarter 2005 to 81.1 percent.

The Railroad’s average quarterly fuel price increased 21 percent from $1.88 per gallon in 2005 to $2.27 per gallon in the third quarter of 2006. The fuel surcharge recovered approximately 89 percent of the cost in excess of the Railroad’s $.75 per gallon base fuel price.

The company’s fuel consumption rate, as measured by gallons per thousand gross ton-miles, was a best ever-quarterly rate of 1.26 versus 1.27 in the third quarter 2005.

While quarterly carload volume grew 3 percent, average terminal dwell, as reported to the Association of American Railroads, improved 7 percent year-over-year to 26.2 hours and average third quarter train speed decreased only slightly to 21.3 mph from 21.6 mph in 2005.

UP settled all insurance claims related to the January 2005 West Coast Storm, which reduced operating expense by $23 million in the third quarter 2006.

UP’s third quarter railroad commodity revenue summary vs. 2005 shows agricultural up 19 percent, energy up 17 percent, industrial products up 15 percent, chemicals and intermodal each up 14 percent, and automotive up 10 percent.

“We are optimistic about the fourth quarter,” Young said. “We anticipate that continued revenue growth and operational improvements will be converted into strong bottom line results.”

2006-10-23T15:53:00.000-04:00

Two photos | Brock Johnson

Derailed tank cars carrying ethanol continued to burn through Sunday along Norfolk Southern tracks in New Brighton, Pa. A high hill overlooking the Beaver River Bridge from a resident’s back yard offered this view.

New Brighton residents return to homes

Most of the people living near the scene of Friday night’s fiery Norfolk Southern derailment in New Brighton, Pa., were back in their homes Sunday night, returning to their beds while one last ethanol-laden tank car continued to burn on a bridge over the Beaver River. The community is in Beaver County, about 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

One track was reopened on Monday.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today emergency officials from Beaver County, the state and the National Transportation Safety Board met last night to discuss whether to let the fire, fueled by the ethanol within the car, burn itself out. The other option, according to Wes Hill, director of emergency services for Beaver County, would be to have firefighters move in to extinguish it.

Two freight cars remained in the Beaver River, below the trestle where the NS freight train, transporting 100,000 gallons of ethanol fuel from Chicago to New Jersey, derailed.

Three locomotives hauled the 89-car tank train, enroute from Chicago to New Jersey when it derailed. NTSB investigators removed data recorders from all three locomotives. A section of track was broken, officials said.

Earlier in the day, teams of men in hard hats worked within feet of two burning tank cars, draining the explosive ethanol and continuing the removal of more than 70 tanker cars from the site. Crews also used bulldozers and cranes to lay new tracks across the bridge.

“We’re still in a caution stage because we have fire burning and product in the [last] car,” Hill said Sunday night, “but things are progressing well.”

Although the derailment at 10:30 p.m. Friday produced a massive explosion that rocked the New Brighton and Beaver Falls neighborhoods, none of the train’s crew or the more-than-150 evacuated residents was injured.

Fire officials yesterday reduced the blocked-off “hot zone” to a three-block area of Second Avenue, about 100 feet from the derailment, affecting 10 families living in five duplexes.

Residents returning to homes inside the original one-square-mile evacuation zone were urged to park their vehicles outside the area and walk in.

New Brighton Borough Manager Larry Morley said NS had set up a family-assistance center at a local church.

NS officials asked business owners who suffered financial losses to contact the railroad at 1-800-230-7049, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

NS reported today in a service alert to customers, the derailment disrupted operations on two important NS routes “between Conway, Pa., and Fort Wayne, Ind., and between Conway, Pa., and Youngstown, Ohio.”

The freight hauler added, “Conditions at the site of the derailment are improving but delays on shipments normally moving over these routes should be expected.”

The line between Conway and Youngstown was reopened late Saturday and one of two mainlines between Conway and Fort Wayne reopened early Monday. However, trains moving through the area are operating at restricted speeds, due to continuing work on the second mainline between Conway and Ft. Wayne. Work to repair the line will continue over the next few days

The carrier added, “NS is now moving some traffic over normal routes but also continues to reroute some traffic normally moving over these routes via alternate routes on Norfolk Southern and other carriers. As repairs are made and conditions improve, all traffic will gradually shift to normal routes.”

State Route 18 in New Brighton opened to northbound and southbound traffic yesterday morning and Second Street in Beaver Falls also reopened.

The accident obliterated a length of track along the NS main line, closing a section used by 50 to 70 freight trains daily, as well as Amtrak passenger service, the Capitol Limited, which makes one round trip daily between Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Until the damaged section of track reopens, each one-way trip will take about 2-½ hours longer because the train is being detoured onto tracks between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.

Unofficial sources noted Westbound train No. 29 of October 21 reversed out of Pittsburgh one mile to Field, then west on Allegheny Valley Ry. to Bakerstown, then Buffalo and Pittsburgh Ry. to New Castle, NS to Youngstown Center and to Ashtabula. The stop at Alliance was missed and “taxi-stuted.”

Train No. 30 operated the detour in reverse.

The service disruptions on Friday did not go well. The equipment that was originally No. 30 of the 20^th turned at Cleveland and returned to Chicago at 4:55 p.m.

Buses from Pittsburgh arrived in Chicago between 9:30 p.m. and 11:20 p.m. Thirty passengers on No. 30 missed all connections in Washington after No 29 turned in Pittsburgh, departed eight hours late, and then hit a tree in Rockville, Md. It finally arrived in Washington about 12 hours late.

The NTSB has not yet determined the extent of structural damage to the Beaver Falls-New Brighton Bridge, which was littered yesterday with twisted tracks and splintered guardrails. The riverbed resembled a junkyard filled with pairs of sheared-off train wheels on their axles.

NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Sumwalt said that a section of damaged track from the bridge was shipped to Washington, D.C., to determine whether it was damaged before or by the derailment.

He said FBI officials, who are routinely called in for NTSB investigations, did not believe “any sort of sabotage” prompted the derailment

Preliminary indications from the train’s data recorders showed that the train was traveling 36 to 39 mph when it crashed, Sumwalt said. The speed limit is 45 mph along the rail bridge over the Beaver River.

Sumwalt said the train’s crew had told investigators the train was running well until it automatically applied emergency brakes because airbrake lines between cars had been severed.

“They looked behind them, they saw the train was on fire,” he said. “The engineer contacted 911, he contacted the dispatcher, and then they evacuated the locomotive cab and got... about a half-mile away from it.”

Federal investigators worked throughout the day yesterday making diagrams of the wreckage and recording the positions of the cars for later analysis, he said.

NS spokesman Rudy Husband said company officials inspect mainline tracks like the ones on the bridge at least twice a week. He added that 50 to 70 trains use the tracks each day.

Local officials are focusing on a dangerous situation that they said could have been much worse.

“I think we dodged a bullet here,” said New Brighton Mayor Rick Smith.

“You had the antithesis of ‘A Perfect Storm,’ “ said Beaver County Commissioner Charles Camp.

He explained that because the river level was high and ethanol is not the most dangerous fuel, there was minimal harm to animal and plant life. He also noted that the bridge is on the northernmost edge of town, away from most homes and businesses.

Betsy Mallison, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said there had been no disruption to public water supplies and minimal environmental impact. Some aqueous white foam used to suppress the ethanol vapors was being cleared from the river, she said.

In terms of nostalgic value, locals said, the greatest loss was “Big Rock,” a giant boulder at the riverside that was a popular diving spot for swimmers. The rock, at the entrance to Big Rock Park, was shattered by the toppling freight cars.

On Saturday night, emergency crews in New Brighton began the delicate task of unloading nearly 100,000 gallons of the explosive chemical from overturned tank cars, while several others blazed nearby.

It was part of a systematic plan to put out a fire that had burned for a day. The wreck also stalled east-west traffic on one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the NS system.

Neither the train crew nor anyone in the town was injured, officials said, but hundreds of residents who live within a one-mile radius of the derailment were evacuated from their homes. They were allowed to return briefly last night to grab essential items, then most were sent off to hotels or relatives’ homes. Residents from about 45 homes on Fifth and Sixth Avenues were allowed to return for good later in the evening.

“We have people in and around each of the cars,” said Wes Hill, director of emergency management for Beaver County. “There’s always a risk anytime you’re dealing with these cars.”

The emergency workers converged on the site after 23 cars derailed just inside the borough limits. Moments later, a colossal fireball illuminated the night and sent hundreds of residents from their homes within the one-mile radius.

Hill said the process would take time.

“They were full cars,” he said. Each tank car was capable of holding 30,000 gallons of ethanol, a processed grain alcohol widely used as a gasoline supplement. The train was eastbound from a western refinery en route to a shipping point in New Jersey.

The cars that stayed on the tracks were hauled from the scene Saturday. Of the 23 derailed cars, some lay on their sides alongside the eastbound tracks, while others were jumbled at sharp angles after dropping from the bridge.

Earth in a park adjacent to the scene was saturated with the alcohol compound and a section of a brick foundation at the base of the bridge was dotted with flames where pockets of the ethanol had spilled.

Atop the bridge, wooden crossties smoldered and firefighters were posted nearby to make certain they did not erupt into full flame, imperiling tankers atop them.

By 5 p.m. Saturday, NS crews were moving heavy cranes to the scene to remove four cars that had tipped over in a row after they had crossed the bridge. Another crew shuttled empty tank trucks to and from the foot of the hill on which the tracks run to begin emptying a car that blazed from the top.

The touch-and-go procedure involved draining that tank car from the bottom and pumping it full of chemical foam. Then the contents of the other three cars were to be pumped into empty tankers moved up on parallel tracks.

At that point, the cranes moved in to lower the empty cars down some steps to be cut into the hillside below the tracks. A cutting machine was to be set up in the park below, and the $50,000 tank cars were to be cut into scrap and hauled away.

Commuter train hits truck, derails; injures 20

Rescue crews took up to 20 people to hospitals with minor injuries this morning after an inbound commuter train collided with a flatbed truck at a rail crossing in Franklin, Mass., according to fire and transit officials.

The truck was carrying a piece of construction equipment with a bucket loader and got struck at a rail crossing at Fisher Street, according to Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The driver got out of the truck and walked down the track to try to alert an approaching train, according to The Boston Globe.

“The engineer immediately began to apply emergency brake but was unable to stop the train before it collided with the truck,” Pesaturo said.

When the train hit the truck at about 7:52 a.m., the bucket loader swung around and hit the middle of the first car of the train. About 20 people who had been riding in the first car were taken to local hospitals with minor injuries, Pesaturo said.

The train derailed as a result of the accident and will be stuck at the Fisher Street rail crossing for some time, Pesaturo said. The train had just begun its run back to Boston.

Not a good day at Amtrak, either

Broken engines delay some Amtrak trains

Amtrak Regional Train No. 167 of October 22 was delayed departing Boston’s South Station because its scheduled engine, No. 658 (an HHP-8) was unavailable and shopped in South Hampton St. Yard. The was held an hour and 24 minutes until another HHP-8, No. 653, could be taken off the consist of No. 67 as a replacement.

Sources said as of this morning, 36 of the 49 AEM-7s on roster were available for service, but only seven of the 13 HHP-8s on roster were available. Both are within Amtrak’s “quota” for power availability. That means Amtrak’s “quota” for availability on the HHP-8 is less than half of its fleet: six out of 13.

Elsewhere, on October 22 at 3:45 p.m., CSX shut down train movement on its South End Subdivision at Rocky Mount, N.C., for investigation of a light aircraft crash with debris fouling both main tracks. CSX established single-track routing through the Rocky Mount freight yard and provided pilots for Amtrak movements through the yard.

Trains were able to stop at the Rocky Mount station. Trains 53, 70, 91, 97 and 98 were delayed from 10 to 38 minutes. The main tracks reopened at restricted speed at 10:20 p.m., but major congestion and delays due to backed-up freight traffic was expected.

Bombardier launches tender offers

Bombardier Inc. and Bombardier Capital Funding LP said today that they have launched “tender offers for any and all of the outstanding €500 million 6.125 percent notes due 2007 issued in Europe by Bombardier Capital Funding LP and a principal amount to be determined of the €500 million 5.75 percent notes due 2008 issued in Europe by Bombardier Inc.

$1 exchanged for €0.79286; €1 was worth $1.26126 at 3:15 p.m. today.

The minimum target amount of the tender offers is €500 million with the exact aggregate repurchase amount to be announced on the business day following the expiration date of the tender offers, being November 13. Settlement is expected on November 17, unless the tender offers are extended or terminated.

Details on the terms, conditions and restrictions relating to the tender offers are contained in the Invitation Memorandum dated October 23, Bombardier stated. The tender offers are not open to U.S. persons or persons located or resident in the United States or Italy.

“The purpose of the tender offers is to take advantage of current favorable conditions in the debt capital markets and to extend the Bombardier’s debt maturity profile by refinancing” the 2007 and 2008 notes with longer maturity securities. The tender offers are conditional upon completion of and will be funded with a portion of the proceeds of a proposed new issue of notes by Bombardier Inc., which is expected to be launched soon.

Bombardier said it expects to complete the issue of notes before the settlement of the tender offers, subject to market conditions. The new issue will not be registered under the securities laws of any jurisdiction and cannot be offered or sold in any jurisdiction without registration or an applicable exemption for registration requirements.

Deutsche Bank is acting as sole dealer-manager.

2006-10-20T17:57:00.000-04:00

Leo King

Is it fair to blog Amtrak? Is it fair to critcize Amtrak? Who's to blame for the carrier's woes? Is it the Bush White House? Who is it in the Administration who so intensely dislikes Amtrak? Is there a history of downsizing, or at least trying to downsize, the nation's only intercity passenger carrier? Some answers are within this edition of American Railroads.
The railraod is headquartered in Washington, D.C. on the top floor above the switcher and AEM-7.

2006-10-20T17:34:00.000-04:00

Moynihan project falls by wayside

A proposal to turn Manhattan’s main post office into a new rail gateway for commuters died in an Albany boardroom Wednesday.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver refused to support the proposal and his amendment to expand the project near Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden drew no support from representatives of Gov. George Pataki and the Senate’s Republican majority, The AP reported Wednesday.

Whether another proposal will be made is uncertain.

Silver said the existing $900 million Moynihan Station proposal “does not come close” to meeting the needs of the area including Madison Square Garden and Pennsylvania Station and a more expansive plan is required.

The current plan “fails to renovate any space at the existing Penn Station,” Silver wrote in a letter to Pataki on Wednesday. “It does not build any new facilities for the MTA subways, Long Island Railroad, Metro North (commuter trains) or Amtrak.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had urged Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, to vote for the project.

“It would be a mistake to wait to do something as big as what’s being called ‘Plan B,’ which would involve negotiations with Amtrak, the MTA. The city would have to come up with a billion dollars, which we don’t have,” Bloomberg said. He said, however, that Silver’s alternative “is a very ambitious - and a very desirable plan,” but starting with the current proposal would make it easier to include development proposed by Silver.

In a letter to Silver on Tuesday, Pataki had warned that the approval was needed Wednesday and that while he sympathized with Silver’s desire for a larger project, the existing proposal was the necessary first step.

“As a long suffering Knicks fan, I share your enthusiasm for a new Madison Square Garden,” Pataki wrote Silver, who, like Pataki, was once a noted high school basketball player. “And as you suggest, Moynihan Station can be the ‘first phase of the comprehensive development plan.’ Phase (One) can start now, must start now and by doing so will take the critical step to allow the pursuit of the larger plan on a dual track.”

Pataki quoted the late Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Tuesday letter: “If we get into the mind-set where the good becomes the enemy of the best, we will get nothing.”

Silver said Pataki’s proposal would only serve New Jersey commuters, but the Assembly majority’s plan would serve 500,000 riders of the subway, Amtrak, Metro North and Long Island Railroad each day.

Silver said his proposal would include private developers’ funding to help pay for the project that would include office towers and a relocation of Madison Square Garden.

He said he hoped a compromise could be struck, and said he’s unsure why Pataki rejected his proposal.

“Maybe because the governor has only 10 weeks left and they don’t do photo opportunities for deed transfers,” Silver said.

In a statement released Wednesday evening, Pataki said, “Speaker Silver has single-handedly prevented the most important civic and transportation project in the nation today from proceeding.”

The statement added, “It is truly infuriating to now have to consider those efforts to be fruitless.”

The plan would spend $230 million to buy the Farley post office from the U.S. Postal Service. The New York-New Jersey Port Authority would provide about $140 million of that and another $90 million would come from the private developer, but the Pataki administration said changing the project would result in the developer withdrawing its share because the residential and retail benefit to the developer could be threatened.

The renovation of the Farley post office, which sits just across from Madison Square Garden and covers two city blocks in the areas of 33^rd and 34th streets and 8th Avenue, had been projected to be completed by 2010.

The expanded landmark would include 300,000 square feet of space for the train station, 850,000 square feet of retail space and 250,000 square feet for the post office.

Californians meet Kummant

This is a report by Rail Passenger Assn. of California (RailPAC) President Paul Dyson on his recent meeting with new Amtrak President Alex Kummant. Also present were Cliff Black, Amtrak’s Director of Media Relations, and Marcus Mason, Senior Director of Government Affairs for Amtrak. The meeting took place Wednesday, October 18 at the Amtrak Executive office in Washington, D.C.

“The 45-minute meeting was very cordial and covered a wide range of topics,” Dyson wrote, “from the lessons of British Railways privatization through relations with Union Pacific, and of course specific issues such as Northeast Corridor infrastructure costs, the long distance trains, and California Corridors.”

He continued, “Obviously, Mr. Kummant is very new to the position and to passenger railroading, and he is the first to acknowledge that he has a lot to absorb.

“I was impressed that he referred to a railroad atlas when I made a specific reference to a route; I’ve worked with too many railroaders who pretend they know everything. However, he certainly doesn’t seemed daunted by the challenges, and has the attitude of any good executive taking the helm of a corporation; that it’s his job to grow the business and improve the bottom line.”

Dyson continued, writing that regarding the political climate and the demands for more private involvement with passenger rail, Mr. Kummant asked me to prepare some notes on the results of privatization of British Railways.

While there have been some improvements in services in the United Kingdom, the overall public subsidy has increased four-fold, a fact often overlooked this side of the pond. We both agreed that passenger rail is on the public agenda as it has not been for many years and that there is a great opportunity for growth. We also agreed that Amtrak and its supporters should do more to tout the progress of rail, particularly to quote passenger miles rather than just ridership.

I explained that RailPAC is, in effect, a coalition of many interests, including high-speed rail, long distance trains and corridors, but our overriding concern has been to present proposals that are realistic and that represent value for money for the taxpayer.

I also told him that the Western states feel strongly that the long-distance network and western services are under invested compared to the NEC.

California, in particular, has spent state tax dollars for our own rail program – while at the same time we send federal tax dollars that are spent on the Acela program, so we pay twice.

Mr. Kummant took the point and stated that he wanted to come to California and to work with our officials on some initiatives to “redress the balance”. He believes in incremental improvement and that 100 mph corridors are marketable. We spoke of the San Joaquin Valley cities as being in need of more service and having great potential.

Mr. Kummant believes that his experience with Union Pacific will be a valuable asset, as he “understands how they think.” He believes that the organization is changing under new CEO Jim Young, although the fear of open access remains. There are major investments in infrastructure in the pipeline for UP, although in the short term that could cause disruption to the long-distance trains.

We spoke of the need for investment in rolling stock and the difficulty in putting together a large enough order to interest a car builder. I mentioned my experience in the railcar leasing business and our interest some years ago in finding the rail equivalent of the 737. Mr. Kummant is very interested in private financing of rolling stock, with perhaps a “Fannie Mae” type of structure whereby the government is a guarantor of last resort.

The discussion turned on the long distance trains. I believe Mr. Kummant views these as having potential for improvement and development, possibly with participation from tour operators, cruise lines and others with their own vehicles as part of the consist. I mentioned that our group and many others would fight to keep the long-distance trains, and that reducing the network would only add costs to the remaining trains. We agreed that the easiest part of a service to get rid of is the revenue; the costs have a habit of sticking around.

It’s obviously very early days for Kummant and only time will tell how effective he will be. The CEO of Amtrak is subject to more political pressure than just about any equivalent position in the business world. At the same time, there is a large constituency of people like ourselves who have strong opinions on how things should be done and are very ready to criticize when policies are adopted with which we don’t agree. I believe we at least owe the man a chance. I’m sure he wants to succeed and he told me that he values our input and opinions.

Let’s wish him the best and support him in his endeavors.

About Amtrak:

Why is the passenger carrier

so lothe to take on new business?

High-speed railroad advocate Fritz Plous of Chicago sent the following message around the web on Thursday.

The “large, untapped market for passenger-train service” is not a railfan wet dream.

Its existence was demonstrated historically 35 years ago. Unfortunately, Amtrak’s effort to make growth go away also was demonstrated shortly thereafter.

The evidence is on pages 130-133 of Rush Loving Jr.’s excellent new book, The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of the Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry (Indiana Univ. Press, 2006, $27.95, 345 pp.). I was in the audience Monday at the Passenger Trains on Freight Railroads (sponsored by Railway Age magazine) conference where Loving was the luncheon speaker, and this gracious Virginian autographed my copy of the book for me and spent a few minutes talking privately with me about the dramatic events from the Penn Central bankruptcy of 1969 to the Conrail CSX-NS takeover struggle of 1998-99 and the sale/carve-up of Conrail in 1999.

Don Phillips, Frank Wilner, Marshall Loeb and other luminaries have found the book just as exciting and informative as I did, but none of them in their reviews mentioned what Loving documented on those three pages: Amtrak initially was very popular, with ridership growing 15 percent a year, but federal policy deliberately limited its growth and attractiveness.

Here is the passage from the book, told largely through the eyes of Jim McClellan, who was working at Amtrak at the time and ultimately went on to an illustrious career as VP-Planning and Development at Norfolk Southern. The period under discussion is right after Amtrak’s startup in 1971:

“Amtrak’s marketing vice president was a rotund, highly personable man with a big white walrus mustache who had come from Pan American World Airways, and he started promoting trains to the masses like he had pushed flights to Paris and Puerto Rico [this would have been Harold Graham, who ultimately was fired for taking kickbacks from hotels to which he steered passengers who failed to connect with their outbound train because their inbound train was late into a hub--FKP]. The American public responded and started sampling the trains again. Ridership was growing at about 15 per cent a year. McClellan had foreseen this, projecting a growth rate in this range for Amtrak’s first year or so, a rate the operations department could easily handle, but he grew concerned that traffic would surge beyond expectations if such an aggressive marketing program continued. Noting that a similar promotion had suddenly doubled business at the Canadian National Railway and it had not been able to handle the volume, McClellan warned his superiors in a memo that they were headed for trouble. “The results could be disastrous,” he warned. “It’s hard to get on a growth curve and then ‘turn it off.’“ His memo did not endear him to the marketing vice president or to Roger Lewis, Amtrak’s chairman.

He also ran afoul of the vice president for operations, an unreconstructed Red Hat who had run the Pennsylvania Railroad’s commuter operations. Seeing that most of the cars from the northeastern railroads were dilapidated, McClellan proposed that excess cars from more prosperous roads like the Union Pacific be brought east and used until the other equipment could be fixed.

The operations vice president exploded at the idea that McClellan would dare make decisions involving his department. To him that was something only an operating man could do. So he stormed into Roger Lewis’s office, declaring, “I want him off the property.”

“Who?” asked Lewis, surprised, “Who do you want off the property?”

“McClellan!” he rumbled. “I want McClellan off the property.”

McClellan eventually was moved from marketing to the operations department, where he continued to annoy people. At one critical moment Amtrak wanted the Southern Pacific to switch its cars in a particular way in the SP’s Oakland, California, yard. The SP, which made no secret of its hatred of passenger trains, claimed the maneuver could not be done. Apparently, they believed no one at Amtrak had even seen the yard. McClellan had, and he took them on, telling them they were wrong and they could make the switching operation. Someone at the SP then called Amtrak in Washington, complaining that McClellan was difficult to work with. That was the opening Roger Lewis wanted.

Lewis had his own reasons for getting rid of McClellan. He had been showing open disdain for Lewis, who he and others saw as a failed executive who had not made it in the private sector and was a stranger to railroads.

“He didn’t know much and did not really care,” McClellan declared. Lewis had been chief executive officer of General Dynamics, where he had pointedly ignored Col. Henry Crown, one of the company’s larger shareholders. Crown had retaliated by quietly buying up enough shares to control the company, and once he had the shares in hand he had called Lewis at home one evening and informed him he was out. Seeing a fellow Republican jobless, the Nixon administration had put him in charge of Amtrak.

Day after day McClellan’s whole demeanor displayed contempt for Lewis... McClellan lasted only a year, a month and a few days after Amtrak’s start-up. Lewis and many of the other top managers survived only another two years. McClellan’s warning could have been their epitaphs, because the marketing campaign went on at a furious clip and by 1974 his worst fears had come true. Traffic surged, and Amtrak was not able to handle it.

The cars that McClellan had brought east had encountered problems of their own. Passenger cars require parts and repairs constantly.

The cars were made for different climates than that of the East, and they required different types of components, but the operations department failed to get the parts from the western railroads, ordering its maintenance supervisors to buy them locally instead.

This sometimes meant they had to be custom-built, an expense Amtrak could little afford, and many breakdowns went unfixed.

Making life yet more unpleasant for passengers, the marketing department decided to take away the frills and lush interiors that had survived on some of the trains. They also cut back on the quality of the dining cars’ much heralded meals.

Passengers were complaining bitterly to their congressmen because their trains were overcrowded and late and they often broke down.

The cars were unheated in winter and lacking air conditioning in the summer. As the flow of complaints turned into a flood, Lewis had more difficulty getting money, and his meetings on Capitol Hill became increasingly tense. “You think the Lord Jesus Christ had troubles?” he lamented. “You should see us going up Capitol Hill with our crosses on our backs.”

Tired of the heat, top officials at DOT and congressional leaders determined that Lewis must go, but some felt they needed more public support before they took such severe action. Just then, in May 1974, Fortune magazine published a story that castigated Amtrak’s management, describing the mistakes it had made and calling for the removal of Amtrak’s top officers, starting with Roger Lewis himself. The magazine’s founder, Henry Luce, had carefully built Fortune’s influence over the decades until it had become an unbelievably powerful institution in Washington, and the story was all Lewis’s opponents felt they needed. They quickly rounded up enough votes from Amtrak directors and fired him. It was almost two years to the day after McClellan’s removal from the Amtrak property. Painful as it might have been when he was fired, in the end McClellan had been vindicated.

Commentary resuming:

That is the end of Loving’s chapter. Amtrak never resumed Harold Graham’s naïve but successful campaign to build ridership. Roger Lewis may have been evicted, but his philosophy of controlling Amtrak’s size by limiting its attractiveness prevailed and endured.

Nevertheless, these three passages confirm what many of us remember from that period: The American public did not “desert” its passenger trains. While many were lured away by the new Interstates and the government’s airport and air traffic control system, there was a solid and growing constituency ready to ride trains, and more were waiting to ride if the service and equipment were made more attractive and reliable. The government’s takeover of Amtrak was all the signal these people needed, and they flocked to Amtrak believing federal investment would now provide the system with the reliability, comfort and utility it had been lacking. They didn’t wait for the trains to get better; they started riding the trains out of a belief they were going to get better.

Alarmed at this unanticipated display of loyalty toward passenger trains, Amtrak and its railroad sponsors responded by quietly subverting the growth of a form of travel they had convinced themselves was unneeded and would soon be abolished. Everything we have lived with in the ensuing 30 years dates from that moment--the Big Uh-Oh when the railroads realized that Americans’ desire for passenger trains was not dead and that they were looking to Amtrak to revive passenger service instead of killing it.

So who was more naïve--the American people for believing Harold Graham’s marketing campaign, or the railroad industry for believing Richard Nixon’s promises that he would use Amtrak to kill off passenger trains for good?

Frederick K. Plous is Director of Communications, Corridor Capital LLC

UP gains 56 percent in 3^rd quarter

Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP) on Thursday reported its third quarter 2006 commodity revenue was an all-time quarterly record of $3.8 billion, up 15 percent. Elsewhere, operating income increased 56 percent to an all-time quarterly record of $752 million, and third quarter 2006 operating ratio improved by 5.0 points versus third quarter 2005 to 81.1 percent.

The railroad reported its third quarter net income was $420 million, or $1.54 per diluted share. Last year’s third quarter net income was $369 million, or $1.38 per diluted share, which included a non-cash income tax expense reduction of $118 million after-tax, or 44 cents per diluted share. Excluding the tax item, third quarter 2005 net income would have been $251 million or 94 cents per diluted share.

Comparing 2006 to 2005 results without the tax item, net income increased 67 percent and diluted earnings per share grew 64 percent. Operating income during the third quarter of 2006 was $752 million, up from $481 million reported in the third quarter of 2005.

“Quarterly operating revenue and income were the best ever in the history of the Railroad,” said Jim Young, President and CEO.

Bad BNSF track, says NTSB

Washington, D.C. - The National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday that the probable cause of an Amtrak passenger train derailment was the BNSF Ry. Co.’s inadequate response to multiple reports of rough track conditions that were subsequently attributed to excessive concrete crosstie abrasion. Contributing to the accident was the Federal Railroad Administration’s failure to provide adequate track safety standards for concrete crossties. The abrasion allowed the outer rail to rotate outward and create a wide gauge track condition.

“This is a case where the railroad failed to respond appropriately to warnings of a track problem and where federal requirements could have provided strong guidance to prevent this accident,” said NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker.

“The Safety Board will continue to push regulators to take responsibility to make sure all safety measures are in place and acted upon.”

On April 3, 2005, a westbound Amtrak train, consisting of a single locomotive unit and four passenger cars, derailed in BNSF’s Northwest Division.

The train was traveling through a cut section of the Columbia River Gorge near Home Valley, Wash. The train remained upright; however, the cars came to rest leaning against the outside curved embankment. Of the 115 persons aboard, 30 people sustained minor injuries.

The investigation determined that there were 19 consecutive concrete crossties that exhibited rail seat abrasions at the point of derailment. The abrasions created voids between the bottom of the rail base and the top of the concrete crossties, which allowed the rail to deflect downward and rotate outward under load. This rotation of the rail resulted in a gauge widening as trains passed over the area and allowed wheels on the Amtrak train to drop between the rails.

There are no federal standards specific to concrete crossties in the Track Safety Standards for track classes 1 through 5 that are similar to those standards for classes 6 and higher (used for higher speed operations).

The track where the accident occurred was designated as FRA Class 4, with maximum allowable operating speeds of 60 mph for freight trains and 80 mph for passenger trains, the Board’s report states. Because of geographical characteristics and track curvatures, the maximum allowable operating speeds through the derailment area were 55 mph for freight trains and 60 mph for passenger trains.

The Safety Board is concerned about the lack of Federal requirements to help inspectors identify when concrete crossties on certain classes of track have deteriorated to unsafe levels. The seriousness of this accident highlights the need for the FRA to ensure adequate safety standards exist for concrete crossties in all track structures.

The NTSB recommended that the FRA “extend to all classes of track safety standards for concrete crossties that address at a minimum the following: limits for rail seat abrasion, concrete crosstie pad wear limits, missing or broken rail fasteners, loss of appropriate toeload pressure, improper fastener configurations, and excessive lateral rail movement.”

To BNSF, the agency recommended “As part of your track inspector audit program, determine whether inspectors are provided adequate track time to perform their duties, and take corrective action if necessary.”

To the Association of American Railroads, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Assn., and the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Assn., the feds stated, “Emphasize to your employees the need to establish inspection guidelines for track inspectors that address the problems and characteristics unique to concrete crossties for all classes of track.”

The board’s views are on its website, www.ntsb.gov. Its full report will be available website in several weeks.

Good sign for Amtrak: 'Sold out'

Amtrak’s newest trains in Illinois don’t begin service until October 30, but they are already proving popular with customers, reports WBBM Chicago.

Amtrak officials said Thursday, that two of the new trains linking Chicago and Carbondale are sold out, and said bookings are heavy on a number of other trains.

“I don’t think it’s a surprise,” said Jason Tai, director of public and intermodal transportation for the Illinois DOT.

“I think the increased ridership shows that there is a demand.” He added.

It’s also no surprise to State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Wilmette, who sponsored the measure appropriating the additional $12 million that made the service expansion possible.

“I believe we’re going to meet, if not exceed, the original projections,” Schoenberg said.

November is traditionally Amtrak’s busiest month of the year, with the heaviest patronage in the week surrounding Thanksgiving.

By offering more service on each of the three routes, Amtrak Vice-President Joe McHugh said it hopes to attract far more riders than have used the trains until now.

“If you increase the frequency and make the trains run reliably, people will take the train as opposed to driving the car, particularly when coming into the city, where gas prices are still quite high for a lot of people,” McHugh said.

McHugh is one of several top Amtrak, IDOT and state officials taking part in a three-day whistle-stop tour of Illinois promoting the expanded service.

It’s a big deal downstate, where bands and local officials have greeted the trains. At a stop on the new Chicago-Carbondale Saluki, the train was greeted by a pair of salukis, one of the oldest known breeds of dogs, dating back to ancient Egypt.

CF&E short line workers ratify first contract

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen members working on the Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern (CF&E) Railroad recently ratified their first union contract.

The four-year contract covers all 30 employees who work as locomotive engineers along the railroad’s 276 miles from Crestline, Ohio to Tolleston, Ind.

“This is a great first contract,” said John Mullen, the BLET’s Director of Short Lines.

“Our members now have the security of a collective bargaining agreement in place for the first time. There will be a 3 percent increase in wages for each year of the contract, plus our members will now have access to a 401k plan, profit sharing, personal leave days and other benefits.

“Our members at CF&E no longer are at-will employees,” he said. “They are starting to get the respect they deserve from the rail carrier.”

RailAmerica acquired the CF&E short line railroad through a lease agreement with CSX and began operations on August 1, 2004. The BLET first organized the property on Sept. 28, 2005. The BLET is a division of the Teamsters Rail Conference.

AAR says it was a mixed week

Carload traffic on U.S. freight railroads rose 4.5 percent during the week ending October 14 compared with the corresponding week last year, while intermodal traffic rose 0.4 percent, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported Thursday.

Carload freight totaled 340,114 cars, with loadings up 8.1 percent in the West and up 0.3 percent in the East.

Intermodal volume was 250,693 trailers or containers, the ninth highest total for any week in history. The corresponding week in 2005 was, at the time, the highest week in history. Container volume rose 5.1 percent for the week while trailer volume declined by 12.9 percent.

Total volume was estimated at 35.0 billion ton-miles, up 6.7 percent from 2005.

Among individual carload commodities, coal rose 12.2 percent to 141,835 carloads, up 15,424 carloads from last year, while grain gained 15.1 percent (3,309 carloads) to 25,274 carloads. Carloads of coke rose 1,399 carloads (26.7 percent) to 6,631 carloads, while carloads of chemicals rose 4.3 percent (1,193 carloads) to 28,846 carloads.

On the downside, carloads of metallic ores fell 1,885 carloads (23.2 percent) to 6,227 carloads, while carloads of motor vehicles and equipment fell 1,762 carloads (7.6 percent) to 21,541 carloads.

All told, 10 of 19 commodity groups tracked by the AAR saw higher carloadings this week in 2006 than in 2005.

Cumulative volume for the first 41 weeks of 2006 totaled 13,813,153 carloads, up 1.5 percent from 2005; 9,705,062 trailers or containers, up 6.0 percent; and total volume of an estimated 1.37 trillion ton-miles, up 2.8 percent from last year.

On Canadian railroads during the week ended October 14, carload traffic totaled 74,244 cars, down 2.2 percent from last year, while intermodal volume of 45,659 trailers or containers was up 3.4 percent from last year.

Cumulative originations for the first 41 weeks of 2006 on the Canadian railroads totaled 3,059,632 carloads, down 1.2 percent from last year, and 1,857,265 trailers and containers, up 5.7 percent from last year.

Combined cumulative volume for the first 41 weeks of 2006 on 13 reporting U.S. and Canadian railroads totaled 16,872,785 carloads, up 1.0 percent from last year, and 11,562,327 trailers and containers, up 6.0 percent from last year.

The AAR also said that during the week ended October 14, Mexican railroad Kansas City Southern de Mexico (KCSM) reported total carload volume of 12,947 cars, up 10.1 percent from last year. KCSM reported total intermodal volume of 4,229 trailers or containers, up 3.8 percent from the same week in 2005.

For the first 41 weeks of 2006, KCSM reported total cumulative volume of 466,580 cars, down 3.5 percent from last year, and 163,959 trailers or containers, down 3.2 percent.

Railroads provide more than 40 percent of U.S. intercity freight transportation, more than any other mode, and rail traffic figures are regarded as an important economic indicator.

The AAR is online at www.aar.org.

Second thoughts:

Where are the sidings?

Has anyone with the state of Illinois or Amtrak addressed the fact that the increased service between Chicago and St. Louis will cause possible delays due to limited siding capability?

This is time-sensitive service, and the limitations to the line are going to be a challenge.

For example, there are no sidings between Joliet and Dwight, a distance of 37 miles because northbound traffic used to go north to the Santa Fe (Mazonia to Eileen) at Coal City, then use the joint trackage to Joliet.

Amtrak chose not to continue this capability several years ago due to cost of maintaining switches. The crossovers at Joliet and Coal City were taken out. This means that when one train is in route between Joliet and Dwight, any other movement must wait. One train can head in, or back in, at Mazonia where the line breaks off, then return to the main.

Delays of up to 30 minutes are common. This is going to be a delay prone area with additional frequencies.

Elsewhere, the siding at Godfrey, north of Alton, is a three-mile siding of former double-track main. This siding has only been good for 10 mph for years. It takes 20 minutes to get through this siding at 8 or 9 mph.

Another point is that UP and TRRA traffic often clogs passage in and out of St. Louis. The faster route via Venice on the east side of the river is often not available, forcing trains to use the slower route through the tunnels on the west side.

There have been cars stored on a couple of sidings, both north and south of Springfield.

I am thrilled with additional service, but I do not want new riders to be turned off by these antiquated limitations.

Tell me some good news!

A poster on All_Aboard wrote the letter.

2006-10-18T20:03:00.000-04:00

Mike Ray

This photo was snapped in Tennessee just a few days ago, but it is so evocative of a bygone era as well as today’s railroading. Photographer Mike Ray was on hand on October 14 when Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum 2-8-0 No. 610 passed J Avenue in Chattanooga just as a CSX hotshot glided by. TVRM train No. 300 is heading for the Central of Georgia mainline. You do remember the CofG, don’t you? It was “the right way” to ship. In 1963 it was absorbed into the Southern Ry., which eventually became part of Norfolk Southern in a June 1982 merger.

2006-10-18T19:59:00.000-04:00

Durbin, Kummant meet with mayors

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin hailed the first Midwest Amtrak expansion in nearly 20 years Tuesday in a meeting with more than 30 mayors from across the state.
Durbin met with the mayors to discuss a planned expansion of passenger rail service set to begin at the end of the month. The mayors also met with Amtrak President Alex Kummant, and discussed the possibility of future expansion of rail service in northwest and north central Illinois, The AP reported on Tuesday.
State support for Amtrak doubled to $24 million this year, resulting in more round-trip trains from Chicago to St. Louis, Carbondale and Quincy. For cities along the routes, more trains mean more connection to Chicago, which can help local businesses and attract new ones.
“I want to commend the state of Illinois for entering into a historic partnership with Amtrak to provide new jobs and new service for riders from Chicago to Quincy to Carbondale,” Durbin said in a statement.
Daily train service between Chicago and St. Louis will increase from three round-trips to five round-trips, with new morning and evening departure times.
The expansion also includes additional round-trips on the Chicago-Carbondale and Chicago-Quincy lines.
No word on what Kummant said.

Amtrak adds two St. Louis-Chicago trains

Starting on October 30, Amtrak will include two more Illinois trains on the Chicago-St. Louis corridor. The expansion also includes additional round-trips on the Chicago-Carbondale and Chicago-Quincy lines.
Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich said today the expansion is part of a plan to more than double state-sponsored passenger rail service. Round-trips between Chicago and downstate will increase from three daily to seven daily by the end of October. The expanded service comes after news that all state-sponsored Amtrak routes posted record ridership levels for Illinois’ Fiscal Year 2006.
“Amtrak is an affordable travel option, and in many communities it’s the only form of public transportation,” said Blagojevich.
The governor added, “People want and use Amtrak; that’s why we doubled our commitment to ensuring we have regular passenger rail service. During the past several years we’ve continued to see an increase in the people riding the Illinois state-sponsored trains.”
That news comes on top of an announcement earlier this week that a new train, the Carl Sandburg, will begin running on the 30th as well.
Starting October 30, daily train service between Chicago and St. Louis will increase from three round-trips to five round-trips, three of them state-sponsored.

Box car hits house
Officials demand answers in UP wreck

Two of the San Antonio area’s highest elected officials are calling for an investigation into a train derailment that severely damaged two homes just north of downtown Tuesday.
In joint letters to the National Transportation Safety Board and the president of Union Pacific Railroad, Mayor Phil Hardberger and County Judge Nelson Wolff depict the derailment as a narrowly averted catastrophe, the San Antonio Express-News reported today.
Meanwhile, concerned residents, activists and government officials renewed calls to improve railways in this city and someday divert commercial trains from urban areas.
“We were lucky this time,” wrote Hardberger and Wolff to UP President Jim Young. “We may not be so fortunate next time.”
The 106-car freight train was traveling south from Hearne to Laredo when 17 boxcars carrying scrap paper, steel coils and potash – all non-hazardous materials – jumped the tracks around 11:00 a.m. near Aganier Avenue and Hickman Street.
One boxcar slammed into a house while its resident was standing in the front yard. Another slid into the bedroom of an unoccupied home. A third missed a high-voltage power line by inches.
No one was injured, officials said, but the derailment stretched for three blocks and damaged 680 feet of track.
UP spokesman Joe Arbona said a recorder showed the train was traveling at 21 mph on a section of the track with a speed limit of 25 mph.
Railroad employees visually inspect that section of track every other day, Arbona said. He added that every two months the company uses ultrasound technology to check for rail defects.
“They abuse the tracks,” said Leonard Moyer, 51, who was working on his car outside a home he’d been renting on Weymouth when a boxcar smashed into it. “So many of them come by all the time.”
“I seen (Tuesday’s train) come off the tracks,” Moyer added, “and like slow-motion I just started running.”
Dave Arevalo, a local activist who has scrutinized UP for years, said the company either should improve the rails or reroute them from urban areas – demands echoed by Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, who represents the district in which the derailment occurred.
Rerouting many of the 70 or so trains that rumble through San Antonio daily would cost $1 billion to $2 billion and take more than a decade, according to state and local officials, who have talked about the matter since 2004.
They kicked off a study last year after a string of major train wrecks in Bexar County killed five people, released hazardous materials and sent shivers through the community.
At the same time, pressure was put on UP to beef up safety.
The study still is five months away from targeting solutions, but one idea is to build new tracks on the Southeast Side near Loop 1604 — an endeavor that could cost up to $2 billion. Construction wouldn’t even start for a decade.
A bigger question is where the money will come from.
Voters last year approved a proposition to let the state sell bonds to buy land and build and improve tracks, but the state legislature still needs to come up with funds. Texas Department of Transportation officials suggested coming up with $200 million to back $2 billion worth of bonds, but with rail needs statewide running $12 billion to $14 billion, competition will be fierce.
With rerouting a distant prospect and repairs uncertain, Tuesday’s derailment left many in the neighborhood shaken and nervous about the immediate future.
Rudy Gomez, who lives three houses from the tracks, said he believes excessive speed was to blame. After nearly 40 years in his home, he’s become familiar with the sound a train makes while rattling along the tracks, and he said this one made a impression on him, particularly as he heard the brakes screech and felt his home rattle.
“This thing was barreling through the neighborhood. I knew we were in trouble,” he said.
Neighborhood resident James Laform had other ideas. He walks the tracks often and said he has noticed that for the past month they’ve appeared to be in disrepair, with spikes protruding and ties splintered and splitting.
UP’s Arbona said the railroad spent $56 million last year to repair and add track in the San Antonio area.
Maria Berriozabal, co-founder of the Beacon Hill Area Neighborhood Association, said the incident has highlighted a major safety issue for the densely populated neighborhood.
She pointed to nearby apartments that cater to senior citizens and sit within a few blocks of the derailment, wondering what would have happened if the train had been carrying hazardous material instead of tools and paper products.
“It’s a very vulnerable population,” said Berriozabal, who also is a former City Council member.
Javier Hernandez, another Beacon Hill resident, simply wants the trains out of his neighborhood.
“Why do we have to wait for a tragedy?” he asked. “As many trains that drive through this sucker, sooner or later we’re going to have a catastrophe.”

NTSB blames crew for 2005 derailment

The National Transportation Safety Board said today that the probable cause of the October 15, 2005 collision of two Union Pacific trains in Texarkana, Ark., “was the failure of the crew of train ZYCLD-13 to remain attentive and alert and thereby able to stop before striking an observable standing train in front of them.”
Contributing to the severity of the accident, the federal agency stated, “was the puncture of a tank car during the collision, which resulted in the release of propylene, a compressed flammable gas.”
Additionally, “The yardmaster did not immediately provide emergency responders with a consist which would have immediately identified the contents in the tank cars, including hazardous materials.”
As a result of the accident in the UP yard, propylene flowed into a nearby neighborhood and an unknown source ignited the gas causing a house to explode. Approximately 3,000 residents within a one-mile radius of the punctured tank car were evacuated.
“Proper emergency notification and response procedures are vital to saving the lives of people involved in an accident and minimizing the effect on neighboring communities,” said NTSB Chairman Mark V. Rosenker.
“It is imperative that Safety Board recommendations addressing emergency response coordination and communication are implemented,” he added.
Following the investigation of this accident, the Safety Board recommended the UP implement “measures to ensure that all of your field personnel understand and comply with the procedures for responding to hazardous material incidents, with particular emphasis on timely notification and appropriate coordination with local emergency responders.”
To the City of Texarkana, the NTSB recommended the community “Implement measures to ensure that all of your field personnel understand and comply with your procedures fro responding to hazardous material incidents, with particular emphasis on timely notifications and appropriate coordination with local responders.”
The agency also suggested the International Assn. of Fire Chiefs “reemphasize through your publications, web site, and meetings the importance of conducting periodic joint emergency response drills and exercises with regional and local transporters of hazardous materials, such as railroads and trucking companies, to help ensure effective communications and coordination when accidents occur.”
The Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line Regional Railroad Assn were advised to emphasize “the importance of conducting periodic joint emergency response drills and exercises with communities adjacent to railroad yards and along hazardous material routes, to help ensure effective communications and coordination when accidents occur.”
A synopsis of the Board’s report, including the probable cause and recommendations, is available on the Board’s website, www.ntsb.gov. The full report will be available on the website in several weeks, the agency stated.

2006-10-18T19:57:00.000-04:00

Maine Today | Jim Evans

Conductors Henry Groth, left, and Linwood Lothrop check the time as they wait to start the day trip from Brunswick to Gardiner on Tuesday.

2006-10-18T19:42:00.000-04:00

Railroad restores passenger service for a day

A passenger train stopped at the Gardiner, Maine railroad station Tuesday for the first time in six years. About 80 passengers climbed down briefly at the shuttered station, and many took photographs of the historic occasion.

“We never thought we’d see a train up here again,” said John Coughlin of Windsor, a member of the DownEast Rail Group that met at the station in the 1980s.

The two-engine, three-car Maine Eastern Railroad carried dignitaries and invited guests between Brunswick and Gardiner along what’s known as the railroad’s “lower road.”

“It’s an opportunity for Maine Eastern to show the neighbors between here and there that the train is viable and can run on these tracks,” said Gordon Page Sr., director of passenger operations. “It’s a look at what’s possible.”

Maine Eastern currently runs a Rockland excursion line, stopping in Wiscasset, Bath and Brunswick. The carpeted Elm and Magnolia passenger coaches and the Alder Falls six-bedroom sleeper and lounge car normally ply that line.

If Amtrak’s Downeaster ever makes it as far north as Brunswick, Maine Eastern is looking at line expansion. The Downeaster now has four trips a day between Portland and Boston, and a fifth round-trip is to be added at the end of October.

“We’re showing the community the route is viable and just needs some capital investment,” said Gordon Fuller, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Maine Eastern Railroad, as he rode back to Brunswick.

He said his company - based in Rockland and Morristown, N.J. - wants to be involved in any expansion of passenger service in Maine.

A renaissance for railroads

Railroad traffic is growing worldwide at such a rate that most of the rail systems in the industrialized world are stressed to carry all the freight and passenger traffic being pressed on them, so around the world, corporations and countries are spending large sums of money to keep up with the demand, International Herald Tribune writer Don Phillips reported today from Washington.

David Briginshaw, the editor of The International Railway Journal, said in an opinion article in the October issue, “The outlook for rail has never been better than during the period when most of the world’s railways were first constructed.”

For the first time, the journal said, the annual market for railroad equipment, infrastructure and technology will soon surpass €100 billion, or $125 billion, if it has not already done so.

In 2003, the latest year for which figures could be assembled, the German company SCI Verkehr estimated that the total was €97 billion.

In that year, the market for railroad locomotives, cars and other rail vehicles accounted for 61 percent of total spending – but infrastructure was the fastest growing market at 32 percent, led by new rail lines and line upgrades in the Middle East and Asia.

In terms of total spending, Europe led with €34.2 billion. The U.S. spent the equivalent of €20.5 billion and Asia €20 billion. Most of the European money is going to passenger traffic, including a new high- speed line from Paris to Frankfurt, but much of the rest of the world’s spending is for freight traffic.

For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has begun spending significant amounts of money to modernize its neglected railroads – €8.9 billion in 2005 – although economists warn that significantly more will be necessary to keep up with growing demand and avoid creating an inevitable drag on the Russian economy.

Railroads in the United States have been greatly aided by crowded highways and a shortage of truck drivers, and even trucks are often hauled long distance on railroad “intermodal” trains. In China, highways are so inadequate that freight usually travels mainly by rail.

U.S. rail lines are spending billions of dollars each year for new freight capacity but are still hard- pressed to keep up. Spending rose from $6.4 billion in 2005 to an estimated $8.3 billion this year, according to the Association of American Railroads.

BNSF chairman Matthew Rose, which runs one of the four major U.S. railroads, recently took transportation reporters on a tour of his railroad.

He surprised everyone with a plan to increase freight haulage between the Port of Los Angeles and Chicago. Rose said the line, which handled train traffic just fine for more than a century with long stretches of single-track and sidings, would eventually become a three-track main line all the way.

BNSF is spending $2.6 billion on capital investment in 2006 alone. Many other railroads are adding capacity in a similar fashion.

“It is very clear that the railway landscape is changing quite considerably,” Briginshaw wrote in the journal’s editorial.

Even the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials seems to be getting on board.

For many years, the association considered itself a highway body, but after years of supporting more and more highways, it has begun a campaign to promote greater use of railroads, which are far more efficient than trucks when it comes to land use in moving freight.

2006-10-18T19:39:00.000-04:00

Today Online

An SNCF high-speed train is displayed in Paris. The French national railway SNCF will invite Japanese groups to bid on contracts for its next generation of high-speed trains, a newspaper has reported but the company immediately played this down.

2006-10-18T19:35:00.000-04:00

SNCF takes bids from Japanese

The French national railway, SNCF, will invite Japanese groups to bid on contracts for its next generation of high-speed trains, a newspaper has reported, but the company immediately played this down.

The daily Le Parisien quoted the director of high-speed operations at the group’s France Europe Voyagers branch, Frank Bernard, as saying Wednesday, “The tender for our next generation of TGV will be open to Japanese manufacturers.”

He added, “Prices offered by Japanese industrial groups are very competitive,” Bernard just returned from a 10-day trip to Japan.

An SNCF spokesman later said, “So far, discussions with Japanese manufacturers have been limited to exchanges of information and missions to study the Japanese high-speed train. The SNCF will need to renew its rolling stock in the coming years and an international tender will be launched. We do not yet know who will take part.”

Groups such a Kawasaki, Hitachi and Nippon Sharyo, which build the Japanese Shinkansen train, could go head-to-head with Alstom, the French group that has built all French TGVs for the past 25 years, Le Parisien stated. In 2014, the SNCF is to replace the first French trains that entered service in 1981, it added.

The Shinkansen began operations in 1964 between Tokyo and Osaka. It has trumped the French train and a German rival built by Siemens in several contests, including for a Taiwanese line between Taipei and Kaohsiung.

Later this month however, the SNCF is expected to finalize an order worth €1-2 billion ($1.25-2.5 billion) for 40 double-decker TGV trains from a consortium that includes Alstom and the Canadian company Bombardier, the newspaper said.

The SNCF spokesman said only that a European tender for the contract had been launched, without providing financial details, and that Alstom was the only bidder to date.

2006-10-17T16:39:00.000-04:00

USDOT's Peters

Peters parrots Bush Amtrak line

New U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said Monday that Americans shouldn’t expect the federal government to pick up as much of the cost of making needed improvements in the nation’s highway and surface transportation systems as it has in previous decades.

Peters, in one of her first interviews since taking office, said state and local governments should consider innovative new financing methods that include sophisticated drive-through toll systems, The AP reported today.

She served as Arizona’s transportation director before serving as head of the Federal Highway Administration under President Bush, and was sworn in as transportation secretary on October 4.

Peters said her priorities are improving transportation safety, increasing reliability and productivity and taking a fresh look at programs and funding for ground transportation and then aviation.

Peters said she embraces the Bush administration’s push to reduce annual federal subsidies for Amtrak to help prod the national passenger rail system into replacing “a failed business model.”

Though Congress has resisted similar suggestions in the past, Peters said some long-distance routes might have to be pruned in whole or in part from the system, particularly in areas where alternatives such as subsidized air service are available.

“I would like to see us get on a model where we could agree to fund Amtrak over a period so we could make the necessary investments that you can’t make if you’re going on a year-to-year basis, but that has to be coupled with an effective business plan to operate the railroad,” she said.

If the end segments of a long-distance route produce enough passengers to make those segments economical but that isn’t the case for the middle, it may be prudent to have trains roll through some current stops, she said.

Peters said she has already ridden Amtrak trains between Washington and New York but plans to ride a long-distance train later this fall.

“I want to see what the services are like. I want to see what the routes are like, how many people are on the train,” she said. “I think I need to experience it firsthand.”

A decent station for St, Louis - finally

Almost 28 years after the last passenger train pulled out of St. Louis Union Station, a new train-bus terminal is finally taking form beneath a busy elevated highway exchange. It has been a long, long time in coming, but finally progress in concrete after so many shelved plans and stalled intentions.

The new, $26 million, steel-and-glass building will serve Greyhound buses and Amtrak passenger trains from a front door on 15^th Street, just south of the Scottrade Center and next to a MetroLink station. Its grand opening is expected by fall 2007, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported today.

The location gets within a few feet of “Amshack,” the humble combination of trailers that served as downtown’s rail gateway from 1978 until a second “temporary” station opened in February 2005.

To reach the tracks, builders of the new station have to contort their work around and beneath the piers and overpasses of I-64 and its ramps to and from 14^th Street. The zigzag design raises jobsite jokes about Houdini and Rube Goldberg.

Digging began in the summer. Workers are pouring concrete foundation and supports now, and are to begin raising steel next month.

When the temporary station was dedicated on Nov. 2, 1978, speakers promised it would be temporary, just five or so years. Soon it was being derided as “Amshack.”

A city that once was the nation’s second-busiest passenger hub made do with the five trailers bolted together, painted beige. That, and good intentions that never happened.

Nearly half of the $26 million for the new station comes from city coffers, mainly from a special capital improvement sales tax and refinancing of bond issues. Most of the rest is from federal agencies.

Missouri is rebuilding Spruce and 15^th Streets for the main entrance, a drop-off loop and access to parking lots.

When completed, the St. Louis Gateway Transportation Center will have 10 bays for Greyhound buses, doubling the company’s current capacity in its converted bank building. The Amtrak section will have four tracks reached by an overhead, enclosed walkway and two sets of stairways, escalators and elevators to the platforms below.

Ticket windows, a common lobby and a restaurant will be in the middle. The station’s contemporary exterior is similar to the spacious glass of the Scottrade Center nearby.

The station’s foundation runs 700 feet north and south as its curls around the highway piers. The building will be narrow – no wider than 35 feet in its interior public areas.

That’s nothing like grand old Union Station, which opened in 1894 when train travel was rushing to its glory.

Rhode Island puts transit on ballot

On November 7, Rhode Island residents will vote on a ballot measure calling for rail, public transit, and road and bridge improvements.

If approved, Question 5 would authorize Rhode Island to issue $88.5 million in bonds for transportation improvements and enable the state to provide matching funds for $394 million in federal dollars available to Rhode Island during the next two fiscal years. The bonds would provide $7 million for commuter rail, $80 million for a highway and bridge program, and $1.5 million for buses.

-Progressive Railroading

STB to hold grain hearing

The Surface Transportation Board said last week that the agency will hold a November 2 public hearing to examine rail grain transportation.

On October 6, the GAO released a report on rates, competition, and capacity issues in the rail freight industry.

In a press release, the STB Stated, “Although GAO reported that changes that have occurred in the rail industry since the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 are widely viewed as positive – with a healthier industry generally charging lower rates – it stated that grain rates have diverged from industry trends.”

GTW trainmen renew labor contract

The Canadian National Ry. reported today some 300 UTU members who work on the former Grand Trunk Western Ry., now a CN property, ratified their hourly wage agreement.

The five-year pact, retroactive to August 2005, marks the first renewal of an hourly-rate agreement on the GTW. The new contract, among other provisions, includes wage increases for UTU members.

In contrast with traditional mileage and rule-based wage systems for train crews dating back to the steam locomotive era, GTW UTU members are paid hourly wages and have job security in exchange for greater work rule flexibility for the company. Most of CN’s train and engine employees in the U.S. are covered by hourly-rate labor agreements.

The GTW main line runs between Chicago and Port Huron, Mich.

2006-10-16T17:09:00.000-04:00

A Keystone Service train adorns the cover of the new Fall-Winter 2007 System Timetable.

2006-10-16T17:02:00.000-04:00

Amtrak’s winter timetable starts soon

Amtrak’s newest timetable goes into effect on October 30.
That’s also the date all-electric Keystone Service begins between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. Weekday roundtrips between Philadelphia and Harrisburg increase from 11 to 14, with 10 traveling to and from New York.
Trains along the route will operate up to 110 mph, and trip times will be 15 to 30 minutes shorter than the previous standard two-hour journey.
In the Midwest, eight new state-supported trains will begin operating on Oct. 30 in Illinois between Chicago and 28 Downstate cities. Two new roundtrips will begin on the St. Louis-Chicago corridor, one between Carbondale and Chicago and another between Quincy and Chicago. Along with added frequencies, several routes will display new train numbers, names and schedules.
To accommodate the expanded Chicago-St. Louis frequencies, Texas Eagle trains 21 and 22 will each operate approximately one hour earlier.
On the West Coast, added Capitol Corridor frequencies that began in August will also be published, displaying four new roundtrips between Sacramento and Oakland.
A fourth Amtrak Cascades roundtrip between Seattle and Portland, which launched in July, will also be included. Operated by Amtrak and funded by Washington State and Oregon DOTS, Cascades service has experienced 11 consecutive years of ridership and ticket revenue growth since service began in 1994.
The Downeaster between Boston and Portland, Maine, is adding service as well.
Acela Express service, with 15 trainsets, will see travel time improvements.
Fifteen weekday Acelas will run between Washington and New York, eight of which operate to and from Boston. The addition of one more roundtrip in the Boston-New York market makes nine frequencies, with eight operating to and from Washington.
Top speeds at approximately 100 locations between New York and Washington has been raised, reducing the running time between Washington and New York from 2 hours and 50 minutes to 2 hours and 45 minutes.
Elsewhere, the Capitol Limited will depart Chicago 90 minutes later, making better connecting service with trains from the West. Also, Pennsylvanian train 43 will operate one hour later, allowing New England connections from Regional train 95.
In the Indianapolis-Chicago market, Cardinal trains 50 and 51 and Hoosier State trains 317 and 318 (which operate on alternate days) will depart Chicago two hours earlier at 5:45 p.m., and arrive in Indianapolis at 11:35 p.m., a more attractive arrival time than the current 1:35 a.m.
Westbound Train 51 will depart New York two hours earlier and be combined with a Regional train for the New York-Washington portion of its run, operating two hours earlier from Washington to Indianapolis. Trains 51 and 317 will depart Indianapolis 20 minutes earlier at 6:30 a.m., and arrive in Chicago 20 minutes earlier, providing a more convenient departure from Indianapolis for day trips and more reliable connections in Chicago.
Other changes are scattered throughout the timetable.

Train runs over Union Pacific employee

A Union Pacific employee died Friday morning when he was run over by a train at the railroad yard off Salinas Road, the Register-Pajaronian of Watsonville, Cal. Reported over the weekend.
Darrell Clyde Thompson, 49, a resident of Santa Cruz, was working in the Union Pacific switchyard when he fell between two moving train cars. Both of Thompson’s legs were amputated in the accident, which caused his death, the Monterey County Office of the Sheriff, Coroner’s Division reported.
“He was actually run over by the train,” said Commander Greg Clark of the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. “It wasn’t as if he was standing on the tracks, he was on the train and fell from the train.”

Greenbrier buys another line

Private equity firm Olympus Partners said on Sunday it agreed to sell Meridian Rail Services, which provides maintenance services for trains, for $227.5 million to the Greenbrier Cos. Inc.
The acquisition of Meridian follows Greenbrier’s purchase of Rail Car America for $34 million in September. Greenbrier supplies transportation equipment and services, building and repairing railroad freight cars and marine barges, Reuters reported.
Olympus purchased Meridian in November 2004. The rail services company is the fourth portfolio company Olympus has sold since June. Total proceeds from the sales of TravelCenters of America, Global Link Logistics, Club Staffing and Meridian exceed $3 billion, Olympus said.

Channel Tunnel rail freight may soon end

The Liberal Democrat Party has claimed that British freight will no longer be taken through the channel tunnel after November 30 because government is to end financial support of the service, according to Transport News Network.
The “LibDems” say that the 1.6 million tons which train operator EWS carries annually will have to be transported by other more environmentally damaging means after this date, and the Liberal Democrat Shadow Transport Secretary, Alistair Carmichael MP will table an Early Day Motion calling on the Government to negotiate a new financial settlement to allow these journeys to continue.
Carmichael said, “It is shocking that at a time when the government is claiming to support clean forms of transport, Ministers content to sit by and let our freight industry crumble. The government has failed to support our freight industry since coming to power. I call on them to act now, while there is still time.”

Luxembourg takes blame for train crash

Human error in Luxembourg was to blame for a train crash last week on the French border that killed six people, transport minister Lucien Lux said on Sunday.
A passenger train from Luxembourg collided head-on with a freight train on October 11 just after crossing into France.
An initial investigation showed that dispatchers in Luxembourg had given the passenger train authorization to use a track that was already occupied by the freight train, Lux said.
“We have to admit that the main responsibility probably lies with Luxembourg,” Lux told a news conference. “As things stand, the conclusions (of the investigation) are undeniable.”

2006-10-13T23:12:00.000-04:00

Leo King

A CSX freight train enroute west from Jacksonville, Fla. on the S line passes near Lawtey, Fla. last year. BNSF and CSX are creating a high-volume intermodal corridor between the west Coast, Atlanta and Jacksonville. The S Line leads to New Orleans and Tampa. Trains from Atlanta to Jacksonville operate over the Fitzgerald sub on the ANB Line.

2006-10-13T16:42:00.000-04:00

BNSF, CSX Create High-Volume Intermodal Corridor

BNSF Railway Co. and CSX Corporation’s rail transportation and intermodal companies today reported plans to create a high-volume rail corridor for reliable intermodal services on the lines connecting California, Atlanta and the rest of the fast-growing Southeast Region.

The planned service will initially include two intermodal trains each day between the West Coast and Southeast in each direction. Corridor volume on the line is expected to grow with the overall expansion of the West Coast to Southeast intermodal market.

To support the planned service, BNSF will expand capacity on its rail lines connecting Avard, Okla., Memphis, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala. CSX will expand its rail line between Birmingham and Atlanta, as well as its intermodal terminal in Fairburn, Ga., near Atlanta.

The agreement also allows for continued interline rail service between Memphis and Florida, as well as improved connections with the Carolinas and other key Southeast destinations.

Clarence Gooden, executive vice president - sales and marketing of CSX Corp., said, “This agreement enables CSX to provide more seamless and reliable service to our intermodal customers… Import and domestic demands continue to rise.”

The new agreement replaces and expands on the terms of an earlier agreement signed in 2001 that would have expired in 2007. It is anticipated that the new service will begin in early 2007, with the initial capacity projects, consisting primarily of sidings and terminal expansion, to be completed by the end of that year. The agreement also allows for future capacity expansion along the corridor.

Snow in Buffalo disrupts Amtrak, CSX, NS

A snowstorm in the Buffalo area is causing some Amtrak cancellations and delays of up to four hours, Amtrak reported this morning.

Norfolk Southern reported similar woes in the greater Buffalo area.

Numerous commercial power failures in the area also affected railroad signals, crossing gates and switches.

The affected route is the Empire Corridor, from New York City to Albany. Train 283 terminated in Albany today with passengers accommodated on train 285, and train 286 was cancelled between Niagara Falls and Albany. The train operated between Albany and New York City.

Other passenger trains affected included Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited between New York and Chicago, and the Maple Leaf, between New York and Toronto.

Amtrak stated it is “in communication with CSX,” which owns the tracks in the area, “to resume normal service as soon as possible.”

Norfolk Southern stated in a service alert, “Due to a heavy snow storm of 16-24 inches traffic in and out of Buffalo may incur delays of 24 to 48 hours.”

The carrier stated, “Personnel are working to open our routes and facilities.”

Some 250,000 homes were reported to be without power this morning and roadways are slowly being cleared.

Continuing resolution funds FTA programs

The new federal fiscal year began on October 1, but Congress has completed only two of the 11 Fiscal Year 2007 appropriations bills that fund federal programs. To continue funding for programs lacking a completed appropriations bill, which includes the federal transit program, the House and Senate approved a Continuing Resolution as part of the FY 2007 Defense Appropriations bill (H.R. 5631, P.L. 109-289) on September 29, and President Bush signed the bill the same day. Congress then adjourned for its pre-election recess, according to American Public Transportation Assn. On October 5.

The continuing resolution provides funds for the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) administrative expenses through November 17, but new transit funds will not be available until Congress passes the fiscal 2007 Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations bill (H.R. 5576).

Under continuing resolutions passed in previous years, FTA has delayed the release of formula apportionments and other new grants until a final appropriations bill is passed. Apportionments and grants made in previous fiscal years should not be affected.

The House and Senate have scheduled a lame duck session that will begin the week of November 13. The post-election session, called a “lame duck” because it occurs before the newly elected Congress convenes next year, will focus on the completion of the Transportation Appropriations bill and other appropriations measures, but a plan to advance the spending bills has yet to be determined.

The House passed its version of the FY 2007 Transportation Appropriations bill in June, but the Senate has not acted on the bill approved in July by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

2006-10-12T19:28:00.000-04:00

Skynet

French first responders and railroaders continue to search for survivors in yesterday’s SNCF passenger-freight train collision on the Luxembourg border in Northeast France. At least 13 people are reported dead. So far, five bodies have been recovered from the wreckage after a passenger train collided with a goods train. Some 20 people were injured in the smash at Zoufftegen, south of the city of Luxembourg. The passenger train had been traveling from Luxembourg to the French city of Nancy. Because the track it was on was being repaired, a dispatcher switched it onto an adjacent track, hitting the oncoming freight train.

2006-10-12T19:26:00.000-04:00

NTSB to consider two rail accidents

The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a public Board meeting Tuesday, October 17, at 9:30 a.m., in its Washington Board Room and Conference Center.
Two accidents are on the agenda.
On October 15, 2005, a westbound Union Pacific Railroad train collided with the rear of a standing UP train in a rail yard in Texarkana, Ark. The collision resulted in the puncture of a railroad tank car containing propylene, a flammable gas. An unknown ignition source ignited the migrating gas, exploding a house and killing the person inside. Approximately 3,000 residents within a one-mile radius of the accident were advised to evacuate.
In the other accident, on April 3, 2005, a westbound Amtrak train derailed on the north side of the Columbia River near Home Valley, Washington. Of the 115 persons aboard, 30 people sustained minor injuries.
A live and archived webcast of the proceedings will be available on the Board’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Technical support details are available under “Board Meetings.” To report any problems, please call 703-993-3100 and ask for Webcast Technical Support.

2006-10-12T19:21:00.000-04:00

Thomas J. Van Haag, Jr.

Amtrak “Cabbage” 90224 was out of service for more than three years and was recently rebuilt and returned to service. It no longer has a power plant, but its controls and brake piping are intact and cabled to the other end of the train and the powered locomotive. Here, it is bringing up the rear of train No. 335, enroute from Chicago to Milwaukee, on October 8. It will take about 90 minutes for the run.

2006-10-12T19:08:00.000-04:00

NJT makes multilevel service plans

After months of extensive testing, New Jersey Transit will out its first multilevel train into service on December 11 for commuters on the Northeast Corridor between Trenton and New York.

“These cars provide much needed capacity to meet our growing demand while we build the Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel,” said NJ TRANSIT Chairman and Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri.

The Port Authority and NJT spent $250 million for the first 100 multilevel rail cars,” said Port Authority Chairman Anthony R. Coscia.

“That investment was the precursor to our landmark contribution to Trans-Hudson Express tunnel project, which we believe will serve as our generation’s George Washington Bridge – a transportation project that is a cornerstone of economic growth for the region.”

In December, NJT expects to have nine multilevel cars available for service. The delivery schedule calls for the manufacturer, Bombardier Transportation of Montreal, to produce seven cars each month from February 2007 until July, and then 10 cars per month until all 234 are on the property.

As they are delivered and tested, the new cars will replace single-level cars where they are needed most, on NJT’s busiest rail lines – the Northeast Corridor, the North Jersey Coast Line and Midtown Direct service.

APTA salutes Guardino

Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) President and CEO Carl Guardino was honored by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) with APTA’s Outstanding Business Executive of the Year Award for his work on transit and transportation, including rail, in the Silicon Valley region.

“Carl Guardino is a leader in the business community who understands the importance of having a good public transportation system,” said APTA President William W. Millar.

“The residents of Silicon Valley should know that he has helped to improve their quality of life.

The award, Millar said, recognizes outstanding contributions of an executive who has taken a leadership role in improving his or her company and has made significant contributions to the community and public transportation.

Nearly one million people work in Silicon Valley, and more than 200 companies comprise SVLG membership

Rail freight totals rise again for week

Freight traffic on U.S. railroad rose during the week ended October 7 in comparison with the corresponding week last year, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported today.

Intermodal volume of 250,894 trailers or containers was up 2.5 percent from the comparable week last year. Container volume rose 7.0 percent for the week while trailer volume declined by 10.2 percent.

Carload freight totaled 336,836 cars, up 3.9 percent from last year, with loadings up 8.8 percent in the West but off 2.0 percent in the East.

Total volume was estimated at 34.5 billion ton-miles, up 5.2 percent from 2005.

Among individual carload commodities, metallic ores rose 22.2 percent from last year, while coke gained 13.0 percent and grain was up 11.3 percent. On the downside, lumber and wood products were down 23.1 percent, nonmetallic minerals dropped 14.5 percent and primary forest products were off 13.9 percent. In all 11 of 19 commodity groups were up from last year.

Cumulative volume for the first 40 weeks of 2006 totaled 13,473,039 carloads, up 1.4 percent from 2005; 9,454,369 trailers or containers, up 6.2 percent; and total volume of an estimated 1.34 trillion ton-miles, up 2.7 percent from last year.

On Canadian railroads, during the week ended October 7 carload traffic totaled 75,460 cars, down 2.9 percent from last year while intermodal volume of 49,711 trailers or containers was up 5.6 percent from last year.

Cumulative originations for the first 40 weeks of 2006 on the Canadian railroads totaled 2,985,388 carloads, down 1.2 percent from last year, and 1,811,606 trailers and containers, up 5.8 percent from last year.

Combined cumulative volume for the first 40 weeks of 2006 on 13 reporting U.S. and Canadian railroads totaled 16,458,427 carloads, up 0.9 percent from last year and 11,265,975 trailers and containers, up 6.1 percent from last year.

The AAR also said that during the week ended October 7 Mexican railroad Kansas City Southern de Mexico (KCSM) reported total carload volume of 12,552 cars, up 7.0 percent from last year. KCSM reported total intermodal volume of 4,103 trailers or containers, down 0.6 percent from the 40th week of 2005.

For the first 40 weeks of 2006, KCSM reported total cumulative volume of 453,633 cars, down 3.8 percent from last year, and 159,730 trailers or containers, down 3.4 percent.

Railroads reporting to AAR account for 87 percent of U.S. carload freight and 96 percent of rail intermodal volume. When the U.S. operations of Canadian railroads are included, the figures increase to 96 percent and 100 percent. The Canadian railroads reporting to the AAR account for 91 percent of Canadian rail traffic. Railroads provide more than 40 percent of U.S. intercity freight transportation, more than any other mode, and rail traffic figures are regarded as an important economic indicator.

The AAR is online at www.aar.org.

2006-10-11T16:52:00.000-04:00

REUTERS | Str

Two photos

Rescuers examine the wreckage of a train near the station of Zoufftgen, France earlier today. A passenger train from Luxembourg collided head-on with a freight train in northeastern France on Wednesday, killing as many as 13 people, state SNCF railways said.

2006-10-11T16:49:00.000-04:00

Thirteen feared dead in SNCF wreck

A double-decker passenger train from Luxembourg collided head-on with a freight train in northeastern France on Wednesday, killing as many as 13 people, state SNCF railways said. Some 20 others were injured in the crash at Zoufftgen, about 12 miles south of Luxembourg.

Rail officials said the trains were traveling on the same track because of maintenance work on a parallel track, and slammed into each other in a wooded area in Zoufftegen, Reuters reported.

More than four hours after the crash, some bodies were still trapped in the mangled wreck, and emergency services did not rule out finding more victims.

“It is terrible,’’ said Patrick Hatzig, a vice-president of the Lorraine regional council.

“There was a head-on collision. Some people were seriously injured and have been moved (to a hospital). Others are still trapped in there,’’ he told Reuters from the site of the crash.

The passenger train consisted of just three coaches, and was heading from Luxembourg to the French city of Nancy.

Seconds after crossing into France, at around 11.45 a.m., it slammed into the freight train, which had 22 cars and was making its way to Luxembourg.

“We imagine that the trains were traveling at a high speed,’’ said SNCF spokesman Guillaume Pepy.

2006-10-11T16:46:00.000-04:00

Rescuers examine the wreckage of a train near the station of Zoufftgen, France today. A three-car, double-decker passenger train from Luxembourg collided head-on with a freight train.

2006-10-11T16:18:00.000-04:00

Alabama man electrocuted;

tried to steal copper wire

A man trying to steal copper wire from utility poles was electrocuted in a marshy area about three miles north of the Cochrane-Africatown USA bridge, Mobile police said Monday.

Two CSX Railroad maintainers found the man’s body about 9 a.m., police said. Mobile police identified the man the next day as Herman Bentley, 43, of Saraland, the Mobile Press-Register reported today.

The railroaders found the body near the banks of the Mobile River near the Akka railroad crossing, located north of Chickasabogue Creek, said CSX Transportation spokesman Gary Sease in Jacksonville, Fla.

Officer John Young, a Mobile police spokesman, said the man apparently walked to the site where his body was found.

“Our preliminary investigation shows that he was attempting to steal copper wires and inadvertently cut into power lines and was electrocuted,” Young said.

Bernie Fogarty, Alabama Power Co. spokesman, said Monday that the theft of copper wiring is an ongoing problem. He said he was aware of at least one electrocution last year of a person attempting to steal wire. Fogarty said that death occurred near Opelika.

It had not been determined late Monday when the man found near Mobile might have died, but apparently it was not long before he was found because his body did not show signs of decomposition, Young said.

The body was taken to the Mobile office of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for autopsy which should help determine the time of death, Young said.

Claudell Wilson, a CSX railroad signal maintainer, said Monday morning that he and fellow signal maintainer Ed Gunter discovered the body when they went to the area to determine why electric power to railroad signals had failed.

Wilson said he didn’t get a good look at the body, but his partner told him the man was still clutching the copper wire that electrocuted him.

2006-10-10T17:03:00.000-04:00

Sandburg will be new Illinois Amtrak train

Beginning October 30, Illinois’ partnership with Amtrak will include an additional train on the Quincy-St. Louis corridor. The expanded service comes after news that all state-sponsored Amtrak routes posted record ridership levels for Illinois’ fiscal year 2006; the expansion also includes additional round-trips on the Chicago-Carbondale line.

The train will be named the Carl Sandburg, named after the 20^th Century Illinois poet who celebrated Chicago and railroads in many of his poems.

Sandburg (1878-1967) won two Pulitzer prizes, but graduated only from the eighth grade. He attended college classes for four years, but never received a degree.

Sandburg was born in a three-room cottage in Galesburg on January 6, 1878, the son of Swedish immigrants. The elder Sandburg was a blacksmith’s helper for the nearby Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.

Illinois’ expansion is part of a plan to more than double state-sponsored passenger rail service. Round-trips between Chicago and downstate will increase from three daily to seven daily by the end of October.

Starting October 30, daily state-sponsored train service between Chicago and Quincy is being doubled to two round-trips.

Under this schedule, there will be new morning and evening departures from Chicago and Quincy. Combined with the other trains on the Quincy route that are part of the national Amtrak network, there will be four daily round-trips on the Chicago-Galesburg segment, two of them state-supported.

Last spring, the Illinois General Assembly increased state funding for passenger rail service by Amtrak to $24 million from $12.1 million.

The Carl Sandburg and the Illinois Zephyr will carry new train numbers.

Survey shows Texas voters

are okay with rail tax

North Texas voters overwhelmingly support an additional half-percent sales tax to fund an expanded commuter rail network, according to a recent survey.

In the survey of 4,077 registered voters in eight counties, 63 percent, when first asked, said they would support a sales tax increase to build multiple rail lines, The Dallas Morning News reported today. Support grew to 75 percent when respondents were asked an almost identical question at the end of the survey.

The numbers impressed most state lawmakers from North Texas, and supporters of an expanded rail network say it helps their cause. However, it remains uncertain how much influence the survey will have in getting the Legislature to pass a bill next year allowing a mass transit election.

“A phone poll and a tax are miles apart in the process,” said state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano.

The survey was taken between mid-August and mid-September in Collin, Dallas, Ellis, Johnson, Kaufman, Rockwall, Parker and Tarrant counties. Portions of any county already served by Dallas Area Rapid Transit were not included. Denton County, which held its own election several years ago, also was not included.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the Fort Worth Transportation Authority and the Denton County Transportation Authority covered the survey’s $92,000 cost. The Survey Research Center at the University of North Texas conducted the interviews, and Dr. Charles Leonard of the University of Texas at Dallas managed the project.

The survey has a margin of error of 1.5 percentage points.

It found large majority support in all eight counties and in each of the area’s nine state Senate districts.

“The results are so robust, it’s hard to argue with them,” Dr. Leonard said.

Eighty-five percent of the respondents are white, and 60 percent are women, suggesting that those demographic groups were over-sampled.

Dr. Leonard said the ethnic breakdown of the survey is not a concern.

That’s because the cities that already belong to DART were not included in the survey. Those cities have a higher concentration of minorities than do outlying cities and counties.

Dr. Leonard acknowledged that too many women were included but said he would have corrected for the over-sampling if it had been a statistical problem.

Lawmakers initially embraced the survey results. They had sought a survey to measure public attitudes before the next legislative session begins in January.

Now, with public support as reflected in the survey, lawmakers can more comfortably back legislation that would allow local-option sales tax elections for mass transit.

Laney to co-chair investment meet

David Laney, a Dallas lawyer and current Amtrak board chairman, will co-chair the upcoming U.S. Infrastructure Investing Summit to be hosted by the International Quality and Productivity Center on October 18-19 in New York City.

His expertise includes transportation planning, construction and finance, and he is actively involved in the representation clients in connection with State legislative matters. Laney is past chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission and a past member of the Texas Turnpike Authority.

Taking place at the Digital Sandbox in New York, this conference will feature investor and government-led discussions and bring together other top institutions such as La Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, Goldman Sachs, the City of Chicago, both Virginia and Texas DOTs, Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP. Laney will co-chair the conference with Richard Ornitz, Chairman of the Americas Infrastructure group at DLA Piper.

Discussions will include various infrastructure assets opening up to private investors -- railroads, toll roads, ports, energy and lotteries.

Amtrak, CSX trains detour around fire

CSX and Amtrak trains detoured off the former Seaboard Air Line main line (“S Line”) southwest of Raleigh, N.C. on October 6 to avoid a large chemical waste plant fire that erupted in Apex, N.C. early in the morning.

Amtrak’s Silver Star, Nos. 91 and 92, between New York City and Florida, detoured on the “A Line” (ex-Atlantic Coast Line) between Rocky Mount, N.C., and Pembroke, N.C., before heading west to Hamlet, N.C., where the Silver Meteor runs.

They took this routing to avoid the blaze, which was only 1,600 feet away from CSX tracks and caused evacuations for six square miles. CSX also diverted freights on this same detour.

CSX spokesman Gary Sease said the railroad halted operations at 3:25 a.m. on both the main line between Hamlet and Raleigh and the Apex-Durham branch, which is the former Durham & Southern. Both routes were expected to be closed at least until mid-day Saturday as area fire crews worked Friday afternoon to put out the blaze.

2006-10-10T16:59:00.000-04:00

David Kamerman | Boston Globe Staff

A Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter train passes through the new Anderson Regional Transportation Center in Woburn, Mass. On October 30, there will be four new morning trains from Anderson to Boston’s North Station.

2006-10-10T16:57:00.000-04:00

MBTA adds rail trips

Starting Oct. 30, the Lowell commuter rail line may become a better ride as commuters on Interstate 93 and Route 128 pull into Woburn’s Anderson regional

transportation center and find a faster, less crowded way to get to Boston.

The Boston Globe reported on October 8 After the “Big Dig” tunnel ceiling collapse in July, the T added several mid-day commuter rail runs and discovered there was some space in their schedules that could be used more efficiently, so at the end of the month there will be four new morning runs from Anderson to North Station, with an equal number back to Woburn in the afternoon, several of them express runs.

Unlike most MBTA commuter rail lots, Anderson has a great deal of parking, about 1,500 spots, many of them empty for most of the day.

“If we can guarantee people that they don’t have to wait more than 15 to 20 minutes per train, you can use it without needing a schedule,” MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas said

“One of the things that would enhance it s use is to make [Anderson] literally a shuttle service,” he added.

2006-10-10T16:53:00.000-04:00

Sacramento Bee | Bryan Patrick

“Measure R” supporters Bill Kortum, left, founder of Sonoma County Conservation Action, and Jack Macy, former chairman of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce, stand at the site of a proposed train station under Highway 101 in Novato. Measure R would raise the sales tax one-quarter cent in Marin and Sonoma counties to fund the project.

2006-10-10T16:14:00.000-04:00

Commuter train a hard sell

for two California counties

Brake lights start glaring around 4:30 every weekday afternoon.

Cars, hundreds of them during evening rush hour, slow to a crawl as they approach the infamous “Novato Narrows,” a point on Highway 101 just north of this small Marin County town where Highway 101 shrinks from six lanes to four – but for the second time in eight years, voters are being offered a chance to raise taxes for an alternative: “Measure R” would fund rail commuter service between California’s northern Sonoma County and southeastern Marin County.

Measure R has spurred heated debate among odd coalitions. Business groups that generally disdain tax hikes are siding with Sonoma County officials and some environmentalists, contending that rail is an answer to ever more cars on the area’s one major highway, the Sacramento Bee reported on Friday.

Meanwhile, taxpayer groups, some Marin County officials and other environmentalists claim Measure R would create a costly boondoggle for a relative few probable riders.

Both sides agree that congestion has so intensified on Highway 101, and population growth estimates for the area are so high, that even a commuter train is unlikely to significantly reduce freeway traffic.

“You just can’t get on top of congestion. It’s going to always be with us,” said Bill Kortum, a Measure R proponent and founder of Sonoma County Conservation Action. “If you didn’t have the train, the congestion will be that much worse.”

In 1998, Marin and Sonoma voters approved advisory measures endorsing the concept of commuter rail but rejected separate proposals to raise sales taxes by one-half cent to pay for it.

Since then, traffic on Highway 101 has only grown worse. Two lengths of it between Marin City and Highway 37 are among the 10 most congested freeway stretches in the Bay Area. The Novato Narrows and the Santa Rosa portion of Highway 101 are not in the top 10, but to frustrated commuters the slow spots move as if they were at the top of the list.

Two years ago, the state legislature created the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit District, whose goal was to establish a commuter rail system.

Measure R, on both counties’ ballots, would raise sales taxes by one-quarter cent over 20 years to help finance a 70-mile “SMART train” on little-used tracks the district owns between Cloverdale in northern Sonoma County and Larkspur in southeastern Marin County.

Trains would run only during weekday rush hours and once at midday; a ticket would cost about $4. Supporters envision the line using cars with diesel engines that burn clean fuels. The system would cost an estimated $400 million to get started, and $17.6 million annually to operate.

Opponents predict that commuters to San Francisco would be unwilling to drive to a train station, ride to Larkspur, then walk a quarter-mile to catch a ferry for a trip across the bay – when driving or riding a bus would deliver them in about the same time.

They note the project’s environmental impact report foresees only 5,300 passengers riding the train daily by 2010, and slightly fewer in 2025 – the result of improvements to Highway 101 that would free up space and attract more drivers.

In contrast, the Caltrain line, which links Gilroy and San Francisco, carries more than 35,000 commuters daily.

The SMART train “doesn’t reduce traffic,” said Fred Levin, head of the Sonoma County Taxpayers’ Association. “It isn’t convenient and it doesn’t take people directly where they want to go.”

Mike Arnold, co-chairman of the Marin Citizens for Effective Transportation, which opposes the measure, said there are other effective and cheaper alternatives, such as busways or high-occupancy toll lanes.

“We are not anti-rail,” he said, but “rail does not work in all cases.”

Complicating matters further is opposition by the Larkspur City Council, which cited parking and aesthetic concerns that it believes have not been resolved.

Supporters, though, insist the environmental impact report’s authors adopted very conservative ridership estimates.

Kortum noted that planned improvements at the Novato Narrows and other parts of Highway 101 would not be completed for another 12 to 15 years. With another 250,000 residents expected to move into Sonoma County by 2050, he added, the attraction of commuter rail would only grow.

“When people find out that it’s convenient... they will take it,” said Jack Macy, former chairman of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a lot less expensive. It’s a lot less nerve-racking.”

Wisconsin offers freight rail upgrades cash

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said last week his state has given 10 state awards totaling $11.3 million. They will be used to construct freight rail-related facilities and upgrade rail infrastructure as part of overall efforts to support job growth and Wisconsin’s agricultural economy.

“Freight rail is a major component of Wisconsin’s transportation system, moving some 150 million tons of commodities every year,” Doyle said. “These awards will help retain jobs and spur economic growth in many rural communities while strengthening our agricultural economy.”

The Wisconsin DOT is administering eight of the awards totaling $7.48 million through the Freight Railroad Infrastructure Improvement Program, according to the Beaver Dam, Wis., Daily Citizen.

A revolving loan program, FRIIP awards are provided to private industries, railroads, and local governments to improve rail infrastructure, highway-grade crossings, and to construct new rail-served facilities, with the overall goal to boost economic development and jobs. As FRIIP loans are repaid, the dollars are used to help fund new projects.

Most of the work on the recently-approved FRIIP loan projects will begin in spring 2007. FRIIP award recipients include a $1.2 million loan to Duffy Grain Inc. of Columbus, to help construct a 590,000-bushel capacity grain storage bin, and a freight car scale and unloading pit at Duffy’s Twin Line Road location west of Marshall. The improvements are expected to enhance grain prices for weighed carloads and minimize spoilage due to the expanded indoor storage space. The Wisconsin & Southern Railroad serves the facility.

A $1 million loan to Grand River Co-op will help construct a new 48 by 116-foot dry fertilizer storage building, storage for 350,000 gallons of liquid fertilizer, along with renovation of existing spur tracks and construction of 735 feet of new track. The new facilities will benefit the farm community by allowing the co-op to purchase and store fertilizer when prices are favorable. Wisconsin & Southern Railroad will ship the commodities. The state and East Wisconsin Counties Railroad Consortium own the rail corridor.

APTA is meeting in San Jose

North American public transportation officials are meeting this week at the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Annual Meeting at the Convention Center in San Jose. This year, APTA expects nearly 2,000 public transportation leaders to attend the conference which will address all aspects of this $42 billion industry. The meeting began Sunday and ends Wednesday.

Issues covered at the conference include the impact of high gas prices on public transit ridership, the “greening” of public transit systems, managing transit security and disaster risk exposure, and technology management and the importance of technology in the public transit industry, including emerging security technologies.

Other topics will include transit-oriented development’s link to affordable housing, building grassroots support for public transportation, and the latest on APTA’s industry standards.

In addition, APTA and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) offered several technical tours that will highlight the best in public transit innovation today.

2006-10-06T18:10:00.000-04:00

Tim Vermande

South Shore Railroad train No. 110 does some street running in Michigan City in May 2004. A new report yesterday stated Indiana’s governor is looking into selling the line, but another report later said that is not the case.

2006-10-06T17:07:00.000-04:00

South Shore’s future uncertain

A top official of the agency that runs the South Shore Line says Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is looking into whether the state should sell or lease the commuter railroad, The AP reported Wednesday, but the next day Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District general manager Gerald Hanas says he doubts the line would be a candidate for privatization like the Indiana Toll Road, since it doesn’t break even on ticket sales.

The state funds about one-third of the South Shore’s $30 million annual operating budget. The line runs between South Bend and Chicago.

A spokesman for the Indiana DOT denied that they’re talking about privatizing the South Shore. He said the state’s most recent conversations with railroad officials have been about finding federal funds to buy new cars.

Daniels’ office denied on Wednesday that the administration had proposed the state consider leasing the South Bend-to-Chicago line to a private operator.

“The governor has zero interest in ‘selling or leasing out the South Shore,’ and has no ability to do so if he did,” the governor’s office said in a statement.

The report comes barely a month before an election in which some Republican legislative candidates are distancing themselves from Daniels’ push for a $3.8 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road to a foreign company for 75 years.

Gerald Hanas, general manager of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, said he had a preliminary discussion about a month ago with state transportation Commissioner Tom Sharp about South Shore privatization.

20 receive $271 fines for ignoring lights, gates

About 20 people learned the hard way Wednesday why it’s unsafe to cross railroad guards when they’re down.

They now have to pay $271 tickets.

The Manteca, Calif., Police Department joined forces with Union Pacific, Amtrak, and the Ripon police departments along with San Joaquin Probation Department in the annual Operation Lifesaver sweep aimed at educating the public about the dangers of crossing railroad tracks when trains are approaching.

“We consider this to be a safety awareness, education, and enforcement operation,” said UP Western Region Police Public Safety Officer Tim Nehrling. “This stretch from Sacramento to Fresno is our most critical corridor when it comes to accidents involving cars and pedestrians and we want to prevent that.”

It also yielded some interesting results.

Throughout Wednesday afternoon the train made passes through the majority of Manteca on the main UP line — moving along at less-than-normal speeds while officers from each of the agencies manned posts throughout town at each of the crossings.

Several pedestrians were cited for trying to run across the tracks before the train actually approached — something that Nehrling wanted to point out was especially dangerous and deadly.

“The misleading thing about a train is that it’s almost impossible to tell how fast it’s going,” he said. “Unfortunately that’s the main reason why a lot of these accidents occur and hopefully we can let people know that.”

It wasn’t just people who violated the crossing guard laws that got caught up in the operation, either.

While the train making one pass down the tracks an officer on board spotted somebody removing copper wire from one of the communication units that controls the arms — something that could provide a potentially deadly situation for motorists.

Jonathan Paul Wilson was arrested on felony charges that stemmed from the incident.

“Unfortunately it’s really been an issue throughout California because of the increasing value of the wire,” Nehrling said. “It can be deadly and we’re just glad that we were able to catch it.”

According to Manteca Police Department Public Affairs Officer Rex Osborn, the Operation Lifesaver program has been a valuable tool in preventing disasters on the tracks — something that has happened in Manteca in the past.

Just last year a local man was honored as a hero when he pulled a suicidal woman from the tracks just seconds before she was hit.

“The biggest benefit is bringing all of these agencies together and promoting awareness,” Osborn said. “It’s something that’s being done throughout the entire valley and it’s something that people are going to be talking about.”

Hutchison sees need to keep Amtrak

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, a month away from her re-election bid against Democratic nominee Barbara Radnofsky, said today Texans need to help keep Amtrak. She spoke in a meeting with the editors of the Longview News-Journal and earlier at Longview Partnership’s Governmental Affairs luncheon.

Speaking to the editors on a variety of topics, the senator asserted the need to keep Amtrak going and expressed opposition to the Trans-Texas Corridor and its plans for using toll systems to raise revenues.

She said it is in the best interest of Texas to keep Amtrak viable.

“It’s important that we have alternative transportation,” she said. “We need all modes of transportation to take away our dependency on the highways.

“If you lose Amtrak, you’ll lose the tracks, then we’ll never be able to afford the accelerated rails,” she said.

Hutchison said the scarcity of transportation dollars can be blamed for Interstate 69 delays, but Texas is second only to California in getting transportation dollars back from Washington.

She said the state gets 92 percent of those dollars returned.

Hutchison is firmly in opposition to the envisioned $183.5 billion Trans-Texas Corridor, preferring to invest in the corridors the state already has, such as Interstate 35.

‘Dead’ crew stops Chicago commuters

Thousands of rail commuters on Metra’s Southwest Line were delayed – some nearly two hours – Thursday morning because a freight train was blocking the tracks and its “outlawed” crew was unable to move it, according to today’s Chicago Tribune.

The incident was the latest in a series of problems that commuters say they have faced on the line serving Chicago’s Southwest Side and suburbs.

Six of the Southwest Line’s eight inbound trains were blocked by a CSX freight that came to a stop at the Forest Hills crossing, between 179^th and 153^rd Street stations in Orland Park, according to Metra. It stopped because its crew had exceeded federally mandated work hours, Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said.

A fresh CSX crew had to be summoned to move the train while about 3,400 Metra commuters waited, Pardonnet said.

“The train should not have been left where it was,” she said. “It’s certainly not proper protocol, and we expressed our concern to CSX. They said they’ve made a mistake and would initiate new procedures to see that it doesn’t happen again.”

One Metra train left the 179th Street station at 5:10 a.m. and didn’t arrive at Chicago’s Union Station until about 8:08 a.m., Pardonnet said. It was scheduled to arrive at 6:15 a.m.

Four other trains experienced delays of from 44 minutes to 12 minutes, Pardonnet said. Another train, scheduled to leave at 5:49 a.m. was canceled.

Metra passengers were angry.

“There were a lot of unhappy people,” passenger Kirk Hartley said. “You could hear people saying, ‘I’m going to miss the doctor, I’m going to miss this or that.’ This is just destroying our faith in whether we can count on [Metra].”

Pardonnet said CSX promised to improve the training of its crews and dispatchers. Calls to CSX headquarters in Jacksonville were not returned Thursday afternoon.

Federal Railroad Administration regulations govern train crew members.

In general, the rules mandate that employees not remain or go on duty unless they’ve had at least eight consecutive hours off during the prior 24 hours. If employees have been on duty for 12 consecutive hours, they cannot resume work until having at least 10 consecutive hours off.

Even before Thursday’s delays, Southwest Line commuters termed this week a “commuting disaster” because of delays Tuesday, blamed on the previous night’s storm. Commuters said freight trains have blocked crossings before and switching problems have caused delays.

“Metra has clearly fallen down on the job of policing the right-of-way on this,” Hartley said. “It shouldn’t take calls from reporters and cranky commuters to get results.”

‘Amwoes’ in the Northeast Corridor

Boston-bound Amtrak Regional train No. 94 of October 4, with Amtrak engine 949, an AEM-7, stopped at CP229.0 in Metro-North territory with a dead engine. Its engineer reset the engine, and the train continued on its way but without head-end power – meaning neither heat nor air conditioning.

At New Haven, another AEM-7 was added, No. 911, onto the point, and the train continued, but stopped again, this time at Mill River, a junction where trains either continue on to Boston via the Shore Line, or turn northward for Springfield, Mass.

The 911 was unable to make its automatic voltage changeover, but the engineer reset it and was able to continue eastward.

At Groton, Conn., the engineer reported a spurious penalty stop from the traffic and signal system, and requested permission for a reverse move to gain momentum to get over a hill. After the reverse move, the engineer had to manually override the controls to prevent another penalty stop. He then operated at restricted speed to Midway, about eight miles. His train made it to Boston’s Back Bay station, one mile short of South station, but then both engines died – and this time the engineer was unable to clear the problem by resetting them. No. 94 was terminated and its passengers transferred to train 178, which was nearby.

Rescue engine 901, another AEM-7, was sent from Southampton Street Yard to haul 94’s equipment to the yard.

Numbers climb again for freight carriers

Both intermodal and carload freight were up on U.S. railroads during September, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported yesterday.

The last three weeks of September 2006 were the three highest-volume intermodal weeks in the history of U.S. railroading, as railroads originated 987,903 intermodal units during the month, up 50,543 trailers and containers (5.4 percent) from the same month last year. Carload volume also rose, totaling 1,352,159 units, up 4,366 carloads (0.3 percent) from September 2005.

Eleven of the 19 major commodity categories tracked by the AAR saw U.S. carload increases in September 2006 compared to September 2005. Intermodal traffic is not included in carload figures.

Commodities showing carload gains in September 2006 included coal (up 12,667 carloads, or 2.3 percent, to 569,005 carloads); metals and metal products (up 5,339 carloads, or 10.2 percent, to 57,675 carloads); and grain (up 4,457 carloads, or 5.2 percent, to 89,935 carloads).

Commodities showing carload decreases in September 2006 included motor vehicles and equipment (down 11,602 carloads, or 12.4 percent, to 82,144 carloads); nonmetallic minerals (down 5,081 carloads, or 16.3 percent, to 26,046 carloads); and stone, clay, and glass products (down 3,753 carloads, or 8.9 percent, to 38,607 carloads).

In the third quarter, total carloads on U.S. railroads rose 1.1 percent (48,271 carloads) to 4,346,112 carloads, led by coal (up 4.5 percent, or 78,072 carloads), metals and metal products (up 13.5 percent, or 22,192 carloads), and grain (up 5.6 percent, or 15,506 carloads). Carloads of motor vehicles and equipment fell 11.0 percent (28,947 carloads) in the third quarter; carloads of nonmetallic minerals were down 12.1 percent (12,167 carloads); and carloads of lumber and wood products were down 11.7 percent (8,922 carloads).

For the first nine months of 2006, total U.S. rail carloads were up 175,983 carloads (1.4 percent) to 13,136,203 carloads.

U.S. intermodal traffic was up 182,237 trailers and containers (6.1 percent) in the third quarter and was up 545,939 trailers and containers (6.3 percent) for the first nine months of 2006 to 9,203,475.

Total volume after 39 weeks was estimated at 1.3 trillion ton-miles, up 2.6 percent from 2005.

“An economy as diverse as ours is naturally stronger in some areas than in others, and the fact that freight railroads serve virtually every major sector is reflected in rail traffic figures,” noted AAR Vice President Craig F. Rockey. “The U.S. auto sector is not doing well right now, and that has depressed rail carloadings of automotive products. On the other hand, consumer spending still appears to be solid — a factor behind the record-setting intermodal traffic in September.”

Canadian rail carload traffic was down 1,045 carloads (0.3 percent) in September 2006 to 305,550 carloads, up 4,170 carloads (0.4 percent) in the third quarter, and down 32,598 carloads (1.1 percent) for the year to date to 2,909,928 carloads. In September, carload gains in grain (up 7,177 carloads, or 21.9 percent) and chemicals (up 2,660 carloads, or 4.7 percent), among other commodities, offset declines in carloads of motor vehicles and equipment (down 5,451 carloads, or 18.6 percent) and coal (down 5,012 carloads, or 14.9 percent), among others.

Canadian intermodal traffic was up 8,552 units (4.8 percent) in September 2006 compared with September 2005 to 187,769 units; up 31,651 units (5.6 percent) in the third quarter; and up 96,278 units (5.8 percent) for the first nine months of 2006 to 1,761,895 units.

Carloads carried on Kansas City Southern dé Mexico (formerly Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana - TFM), a major Mexican railroad, were up 730 carloads (1.6 percent) in September 2006 to 46,817 carloads, while intermodal units carried totaled 18,858 units, up 2,283 units (13.8 percent). For the year-to-date, KCSM carloads carried were down 4.1 percent (18,866 carloads) to 441,081 carloads, while intermodal units carried were down 3.5 percent (5,615 units) to 155,627 trailers and containers.

For just the week ended September 30, the AAR reported the following totals for U.S. railroads: 345,299 carloads, up 2.4 percent (7,929 carloads) from the corresponding week in 2005, with loadings down 4.0 percent in the East and up 8.0 percent in the West; intermodal volume of 258,511 trailers and containers, up 4.9 percent (11,981 units) and the highest week on record; and total volume of an estimated 34.8 billion ton-miles, up 3.6 percent from the equivalent week last year.

For Canadian railroads during the week ended September 30, the AAR reported volume of 78,868 carloads, up 0.3 percent from last year; and 48,766 trailers and containers, up 6.6 percent from the corresponding week in 2005.

Combined cumulative rail volume for the first 39 weeks of 2006 on 13 reporting U.S. and Canadian railroads totaled 16,046,131 carloads, up 0.9 percent (143,385 carloads) from last year, and 10,965,370 trailers and containers, up 6.2 percent (642,217 units) from 2005’s first 39 weeks.

The AAR is online at http://www.aar.org.

2006-10-05T16:56:00.000-04:00

Leo King

In January 2001, Pawtucket’s station was decrepit. The concrete platform was a mess, and the steel stairs leading to the waiting room were long rusted away. In this view, looking toward Providence, the Providence & Worcester main is to the right, and the Amtrak and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority tracks are at the left. The Goff Avenue site is on the curve ahead of the camera, to the left.

2006-10-05T16:53:00.000-04:00

When and where will commuter trains

call on Pawtucket? January, maybe, but…

A commuter rail stop serving Pawtucket and Central Falls could attract 1,100 daily commuters, three-fourths of them new riders not currently serviced elsewhere, an engineering consultant outlined Tuesday in a presentation.

The consultant, David Wilcock, had a rapt audience of more than two-dozen movers and shakers, including Mayor James E. Doyle and planning and other local officials, representatives of the state Department of Transportation and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the developers who own the depot site on Broad Street, and tourism, preservation and affordable housing advocates, among others.

Wilcock, planning and operations manager for transit and rail for Boston-based Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., was summing up the results to date of a $344,000 city-commissioned study on the viability of bringing commuter rail – and a coveted T stop – to the city, the Pawtucket Times reported on Tuesday.

Billed as a “stakeholders” meeting, the presentation, slide show and all, will be repeated for the public on October 24 at 7:00 p.m. in the first floor theater of the downtown Visitors Center building.

Come January, the study’s current outline will take on three dimensions with cost estimates and a comparative ranking of which of two proposed sites would best suit a commuter rail stop to a T: The 3.4 acre depot property on Broad Street or small freight yard adjacent the former Union Wadding mill complex on Goff Avenue.

Both sites, Wilcock said after Tuesday’s two-hour session, have their pluses and minuses and neither could be immediately ruled in or out for a T stop.

He said prior rough estimates by transportation officials that the stop could cost $25 million to $30 million (about a third just for rail improvements) to create were likely in the ballpark, based on similar T stops elsewhere.

Determining factors will include the cost and ability to install adjacent parking, neighboring economic impact or what’s called “transit oriented development,” platform access that at either site would require elevators and stairs to get to and from the below-grade train tracks, the fate of the 90-year-old Beaux Arts depot building itself where, Wilcock said, trains last ran on a regular basis about 20 years ago, and whether the stop would be on a curve or if that would be avoided.

The VHB study has not evaluated the condition of the depot building – the bricks and mortar part – which Wilcock said would come in a later phase if that site was chosen, but an early part of the study released last spring determined the concrete slab on which the building sits to be basically sound, despite some damage from water entering along courses where electric utilities were pulled out.

Wilcock said several cost factors favored the Goff Avenue site, including more land and more level land for construction and parking, but other factors were less in its favor.

“There’s some railroad costs that swing the other way,” he said, including railroad signaling.

“The railroad signal block is a section of track that controls the movement of the trains. There’s a little gray metal building, called a signal bungalow,” now on the west side of the tracks at the Goff Avenue site, readily seen looking east from the Conant Street bridge.

Wilcock said Amtrak requires having at least one “block” - the length of which can vary, according to the length of the trains and the speed they go, from “a few thousand feet to a couple of miles,” for each train.

“Only one train can be in that section of track at one time,” he explained, but the existing signal bungalow straddles right across the border of what would be two delineated blocks for a commuter rail stop. Since “they don’t allow you to put stations on a break (between blocks),” Wilcock said, two consecutive blocks would have to be set aside for safety, and the signal bungalow and all its electronics relocated.

“It’s a safety factor cost,” he said, “and of course with the Goff Avenue site you get the whole issue that the yard has to be relocated.”

Wilcock noted that on another VHB project in the Rutland, Vt., area, visits to 20 sites turned up no alternates that were feasible or would not have faced intense opposition, including from neighborhoods not wanting a new railroad yard in their back yard.

On the other hand, “The depot is on the tightest part of the curve,” although “it doesn’t mean we can’t use that building or use that general area.” A straight stretch of track is preferable, Wilcock said. Numerous stations throughout the Northeast Corridor were built on curves.

The depot building, whose preservation fate has been a two-year source of controversy, may actually offer advantages when it comes to locating the platforms to and from the trains, according to Wilcock.

Sketching the two sites on a pad, he pointed out that the platforms at Goff Avenue could be set directly across from each other, as typically preferred, but going from the far one back to the parking lot would require an elevator (needed also to assure handicap access) and possible connection to the Conant Street bridge, closed about 15 years ago and still waiting to be rebuilt.

The elevator would have to go “outside” the platform structure, subjecting it to weather, and the MBTA prefers not dealing with elevators due to maintenance issues, Wilcock said.

Conversely, the depot’s existing freight elevator shafts could be redeployed, Wilcock said, for passengers.

Although the platforms, if installed at the depot location, would not be directly across from each other, they could be offset and still overlap somewhat. The building itself, which straddles the tracks, could be the pass-through from one platform to the other, “one at the east end of the curve and one at the west end,” Wilcock said.

“The access costs (to get to the trains at the depot site) might be a little higher but it’s not a big cost factor, and it is also ease of use. It depends where the parking is,” Wilcock said, noting also, “These are all considerations that can cut both ways.”

Wilcock made those comments after his presentation. His slide show listed what the study had looked at: Ridership estimates (as high as 1,700 per day 20 years down the line, but about 600 to start), whether the depot slab is solid enough to be built on (yes), the requirement to avoid interfering with Amtrak’s regular and high speed Acela service or Providence & Worcester Railroad freight service, and how many stops per day could be accommodated by working around those restrictions (almost two dozen, including during the morning and afternoon peak commute, under a shortened 10-minute turnaround time).

The passenger “catchment” area or “ridershipshed” would extend up the Blackstone Valley and into North Providence as well as the two host cities.

VHB’s analysis forecasts that 20 to 30 years from now 1,100 commuters [will be] heading north to Boston and returning daily, another 250 to 550 going south to Providence, and 150 to 170 taking the T to T.F. Green Airport.

They would arrive 64 to 74 percent to park their cars, 13 percent by “kiss and ride” drop-off, 11 to 23 percent on foot, and a fraction on public transportation.

“We feel these numbers are fairly conservative” and a sound basis for planning, Wilcock said.

The current VHB study, funded with $100,000 through DOT and $200,000 from the Federal Transit Administration, after input from stakeholders and the public, should wrap up by January with a site recommendation.

City Planner Michael Cassidy said an additional $50,000 grant has been secured to study the transit oriented development impacts for a mile radius from the T stop location.

Jack Mitchell, one of the partners who bought the depot acreage last year, said last week they are moving ahead with a pharmacy planned on the Central Falls side of the property, but will strip off and store the front 18 feet of the depot building to provide traffic flow access, reiterated their desire to bring the T stop to their site.

“We’ve waited for two-and-a-half years. We’ve sat on the property. I don’t know how anyone could even question we want a T stop. We want the train station; we’re hoping we’re the ones they choose. We think our site makes a lot more sense” for its positive impact on those living and working in the nearby area, he said.

Greenbush line foes lose battle

Foes of the Greenbush commuter rail line may have lost their final legal battle.

A federal court judge has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers properly issued environmental permits for the $500 million project that could be transporting people by this time next year between the Greenbush section of Scituate and South Station in Boston, according to Wednesday’s Patriot Ledger.

The loss is the 12^th straight defeat in court for Advocates for Transportation Alternatives, the Hingham-based anti-train group headed by John and Martha Bewick opposing Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority expansion onto a former New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad branch line. It originally was part of the Old Colony Railroad, which merged with the New Haven around the turn of the 19^th Century.

The federal lawsuit, which was filed in early 2005, was the last active piece of legal action the group had in state or federal court.

In August, a state superior court judge dismissed a challenge by the group over environmental permits the state had issued.

John Bewick, a former environmental affairs secretary in Massachusetts, said the group is not yet sure whether it will pursue its lawsuits any further.

‘‘We’re evaluating our options with counsel,’’ he said.

Joseph Pesaturo, spokesman for the MBTA, said the agency was ‘‘not surprised’’ by the outcome and urged the group to end what has become a constant stream of lawsuits.

‘‘The MBTA has defended the Greenbush project before a court 12 times and all 12 times the MBTA has prevailed,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s time the opponents saw the writing on the wall.’’

Despite the lawsuits, work on the rail line has been progressing in Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham, Cohasset and Scituate. The project is scheduled to be largely finished in three months, with train service expected to start in mid-2007.

It’s an intermodal move:

Howland Hook gets trains again

When the 261,000-pound diesel locomotive clattered over the Arthur Kill Lift Bridge on Wednesday afternoon, it marked the first such trip in 20 years between New Jersey and the ship terminal at Howland Hook in Mariners Harbor, the Staten Island Advance reported today.

The engine’s arrival heralded a fast-approaching transformation in the way the 85,000 freight containers arriving each year on ships from all over the globe – filled with such cargo as shoes, bananas, CD players, pillows, pens and frozen shrimp – will be transported.

In upcoming months, the 400 trucks now leaving the New York Container Terminal at Howland Hook each week, weaving into thick traffic across the Goethals Bridge, will become history.

After a decade of planning and $180 million in city- and Port Authority-funded improvements in the long-dormant rails connecting New Jersey, Arlington Yard and the West Shore, the terminal will now be linked with the railway arteries of North America.

“What’s important is it has been completed; it’s a success; it will alleviate a lot of pollution; it will alleviate a lot of traffic over the Goethals Bridge – and it will happen,” said Borough President James Molinaro.

A staunch proponent of the freight rail project, Molinaro was the locomotive’s sole passenger on its trip from Elizabeth, N.J. “The idea is, rail is coming back,” he said.

Vancouver-based NYCT, Inc. bought the locomotive and will spend its days pulling containers from Howland Hook into Arlington Yard, about a half-mile down the tracks. There, it will assemble the containers onto chains of as many as 150 flatcars stretching as long as 10,000 feet, to be picked up by railroads coming over the bridge from New Jersey.

The rail system was originally slated to be operational by the beginning of 2006, but the improvement project took longer than anticipated.

With the infrastructure complete, only the agreements with CSX Transportation Inc., Norfolk Southern Corp. and other such freight rail companies remain to be completed. The trains could make as many as five trips a day from New Jersey to pick up the loaded flatcars for transport to the rest of the country and to drop off goods at Howland Hook to be shipped out for export.

“We’re just waiting for the paperwork to be complete and all the ‘t’s’ crossed and the ‘i’s’ dotted,” said Molinaro.

The amount of cargo off-loaded at NYCT now accounts for about 10 percent of the region’s port commerce. The former Howland Hook Marine Terminal reopened in 1996.

Business could grow by as much as 55 percent in the next year and a half, as a result of the freight train service and a new, direct rail link established with the Travis location of VanBro Corp. and Pratt Industries (the former Visy Paper company), said John Atkins, the company’s vice president of operations.

“It’s a win-win for us and for the businesses and the motorists of Staten Island,” he said.

“It’s a historic moment,” said Arie Van Tol, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey manager, as he watched the navy-blue and canary-yellow locomotive make its way over the bridge. “We had rail service for so many years since the late 1800s, and the city and the Port Authority have restored it.”

2006-10-04T16:45:00.000-04:00

CTA drops plan for airport express trains

The Chicago Transit Authority is shelving plans for express train service from the Loop to O’Hare and Midway airports-at least for now-in favor of pared-back, non-stop service that would be privately run.

Under a proposal quietly submitted to the CTA by a consultant last month, $10-a-ride a private company using CTA staff and equipment would manage train service. Sources close to the matter say the proposal by a division of consultant Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc. appears to have the backing of top agency officials and could be implemented by the end of 2008, according to Today’s Crain’s Chicago Business News.

However, the proposal stops well short of the 20-to-25 minute express service the CTA had envisioned in earlier planning documents. Instead, to save as much as $1.5 billion in projected capital costs, the private firm would run airport-only trains in between regular service on the Blue Line to O’Hare and Orange Line to Midway.

That means riders would get to the airports in the same time they do now, roughly 45 minutes to O’Hare and 30 minutes to Midway, but it would be considerably cheaper than taking a taxicab to either airport.

The report states that, “Single market services are not CTA’s traditional business. Therefore, it is recommended that the CTA tap into the existing domestic and international market of transportation service providers to enlist the private sector.”

The document states that setting up direct service from a $200-million superstation now under construction beneath Block 37 in the central Loop would cost only about $64 million – mostly the cost of acquiring and refurbishing old coaches from the CTA.

The report projects the service could carry 1.7 million riders by 2010, with patrons able to ride in one of nine four-car dedicated trains without the influx of other passengers between the Loop and the airports. In addition, the report argues service would be reliable, cheaper than other options and allow passengers to ride in cars with special baggage space.

“CTA should negotiate a concession agreement with a qualified team of service providers that can, working in full partnership with the CTA, deliver financing, customer service, management, pricing and revenue management,” the report stated. Such a private/public partnership “should be beneficial for both parties,” it stated, noting that express links have been successful in Singapore and other major cities.

The report also concluded that express service utilizing a runaround track in the median strip of the Kennedy Expressway and perhaps Union Pacific tracks near O’Hare could be established, but at a start-up cost of $770 million to $1.5 billion.

The CTA currently does not have a source for such an expenditure, but the report says that, over time, “There will be investment choices available to the CTA and its private sector partners to build the infrastructure needed to reduce airport train service travel times.”

Sources said the matter could come before the CTA board for approval at its November meeting. The agency already is seeking a financial adviser to help move the project to the next phase.

Railroads oppose surcharge regulation

The big four railroads have urged restraint regarding the Surface Transportation Board’s (STB) proposals focused on fuel surcharges, with Union Pacific Corp. saying the board’s “core conclusion” that rate-based surcharges are an unreasonable practice “is fundamentally flawed.”

Dow Jones Newswires via The Associated Press, reported from Chicago that comments, including filings from the railroads, were due Monday on the STB’s fuel-surcharge proposals, which stemmed from a public hearing it held in May that focused on surcharge practices used by railroad companies. Specifically, the board wanted to know about surcharges being computed as a percentage of base shipping rates and the means used to measure increases in railroads’ cost of fuel.

Fuel surcharges are typically put in place when a customer contract is negotiated or renegotiated. Railroads have employed hedges to protect against volatile fuel prices, but in the past couple of years, they have turned more to surcharges to cover the additional costs.

The STB proposed the measures in August, saying it wanted railroads to develop a way of computing a surcharge that more closely links it to the actual increase in fuel costs.

The board also said then that it wanted to end “double dipping,” whereby railroads charge customers for the same increases in fuel costs for the same shipment through both a fuel surcharge and the use of what is called a rate escalator. The escalator is based on an index that may include a fuel-cost component.

In addition, the STB wants railroads to use one uniform index for measuring increases in fuel costs. It would also have the railroads submit monthly reports, showing actual total fuel costs, total fuel consumption and total fuel surcharge revenue.

The railroads argued in their filings that, generally, the proposals would be time-consuming and difficult to achieve. They want more clarity on the proposals, and they questioned the STB’s legal authority to regulate fuel surcharges.

“The board has made some general, yet sweeping, proposals that are inconsistent with law and impractical to implement,” said Union Pacific, the largest of the Class I railroads by revenue, in its filing. “If the STB wants to pursue the proposals, it should do so with a more complete understanding of the facts.”

Regulation of fuel surcharges would put railroads at a competitive disadvantage, Norfolk Southern Corp. said. NS added that other modes of freight transportation have fuel surcharges yet there aren’t any government regulations regarding what those companies can or can’t do with the surcharges.

Railroaders get detailed security training, says AAR

The nation’s major freight railroads provide their employees with comprehensive security training that includes programs developed by the federal government, individual railroad companies, and Rutgers University’s National Transit Institute, according to the Assn. of American Railroads.

“The training encompasses topics such as what to do when an employee sees a stranger or suspicious activity on rail property; to whom to report the anomaly; the need to keep information about train movements and cargoes confidential, and the need to keep rail property safe and secure,” said Edward R. Hamberger, President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads on September 28.

The U.S. Senate recently adopted several rail security amendments as part of the port security bill, now headed to conference committee with a similar measure approved by the House in May. Thanks to the railroad industry’s proactive efforts, railroad security training already encompasses all the elements of the legislation – and more.

Testifying before Congress on Thursday, Hamberger noted that the industry submitted its security training plans to the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Railroad Administration for review last February.

“Earlier this week, we received notice from DHS that our program is relevant, up-to-date and does indeed help raise the baseline for rail security,” said Hamberger. “Going forward, rail employee security training will be documented and recorded, something that has not previously been done.”

Not only have individual railroads been providing their employees with security training since September 11, 2001, all railroad employees handling hazardous material receive additional training mandated by the federal government. The railroads incorporate security training into safety recertification programs, new-hire training, and new manager training. In addition, freight railroads adopted an industry-wide program based on training techniques developed by Rutgers University’s National Transit Institute.

Hamberger said the program includes four modules – What is Security; Vulnerability, Risk, and Threat; What to Look For; and Employees’ Role in Reducing Risk.

“The goal of the standardized curriculum is to provide rail employees with an understanding of their role and responsibility in system security, and how to implement their companies’ procedures upon detection of suspicious objects or activities,” he said.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Class I railroads quickly recognized the importance of security training for their employees and didn’t wait for a government mandate to start training programs.

Hamberger said employee security training is an essential part of the industry’s comprehensive security plan that was implemented shortly after 9/11. That security plan is a comprehensive, intelligence-driven, priority-based blueprint of actions designed to enhance freight rail security. The Assn. of American Railroads adopted the plan December 2001 and remains in effect today, said the AAR. Because of that plan, freight railroads quickly enacted more than 50 permanent security-enhancing countermeasures.

For example, access to key rail facilities and information has been tightened, and cyber-security procedures and techniques have been strengthened. Security awareness briefings were given to railroad employees, who were instructed to maintain high awareness and to immediately report suspicious activity. In addition, the plan defines four progressively higher security alert levels and details a series of actions to be taken at each level.

“Railroads are proud of the success they have achieved in enhancing security while keeping our nation’s vital rail network operating efficiently and safely,” Hamberger said, “and employee training is part of the reason for that success.”

Bad day at Amtrak

On October 2, Amtrak’s Cardinal, Train 51 of October 1 was rerouted via Canadian National following a collision and derailment at the junction of Norfolk Southern (NS) freight train and Belt Railway of Chicago which blocked all three main tracks.

Sources told AR the collision involved an NS train, which ran into the side of a CSX trackage rights train. Amtrak’s train was detoured west from Thornton Jct. via CN to Harvey, then north on CN to Chicago. The train was delayed 26 minutes at Thornton Jct. for a CN pilot, and lost another hour and 5 minutes on the detour.

This additional delay to No. 51 resulted in initial terminal delay to the Hoosier State, Train 318 of October 2 because there were no rested conductors and engineer to operate the train.

The underlying reason was because Amtrak had cut the engineers’ extra board at Indianapolis to only two. This now matches the two-man conductor extra board that has been running so short that on occasion, engineers have had to work as conductors on some relief assignments. The shortage of Indianapolis crews has led to Trains 50 or318 departing late every day this week.

After all that, Amtrak’s No. 318 of October 2, with Amtrak engine 455, stopped at Dolton Jct., 17 miles out of its departure point, Chicago, with its horn blowing continuously.

Mechanical advised the crew to cut out the horn, which they did. The train continued, flagging every grade crossing to Dyer, where Amtrak gave up due to the delays this was causing, and “bustituted” all 34 passengers. The equipment deadheaded to Indianapolis.

2006-10-03T18:15:00.000-04:00

Sunset's future remains in doubt

By Leo King

As AR reported on Friday, Amtrak’s new president and CEO Alexander Kummant and members of the Southern Rapid Rail Transit Commission (SRRTC) met on Friday in an attempt to restart Amtrak's Sunset Limited service east of New Orleans. Nothing has changed yet.
They met in the Amtrak headquarters offices at Union Station in Washington D.C.
SRRTC attendees included Karen Parsons, SRRTC Executive Director, Col. Tom Atkinson, Louisiana transportation director, and Roy Woodruff, SRRTC Chairman. Amtrak employees included Kummant, vice-president Joe McHugh, Congressional liason officer Frances Bourne, Drew Galloway, and Amtrak West chief Gil Mallory.
Parsons said, “Several issues were covered, including new service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, new service between New Orleans and Mobile, and the Sunset Limited.”
The group has governmental and civic leaders in top posts, and they come from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
She added, “Resumption of the Sunset Limited service east of New Orleans remains problematic. Amtrak is concerned about the state of repair of the passenger terminals on the Gulf Coast after the Hurricane [Katrina] and the lack of capacity of the track to accommodate both growing freight volumes and passenger rail.”
Eastbound Amtrak train No. 2 has not traveled east of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region more than one year ago, nor has No. 1, its westbound counterpart.
The train currently originates three times a week in Los Angeles, and in New Orleans the other three days.
Amtrak will brief the SRRTC on October 20 at 7:00 p.m. in Meridian, Miss. on operations and cost for intercity regional service east of New Orleans. Meridian, Miss. Mayor John Robert Smith, a former Amtrak board chairman, is an SRRTC member.
“The SRRTC is expected to do what it can to support and promote this initiative for the good of the entire Gulf Coast,” she said.
Amtrak has been silent, so far, and would only say that when a decision is made they will publish a press release.
Parsons noted, “On-time performance was only at 9 percent, and thus they are not beating down the door to resume service.”
On another matter, Parsons said, “We briefed Amtrak on the status of funding for track upgrades for the proposed New Orleans to Baton Rouge daily service. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development and the Louisiana Recovery Authority feel this is a high priority for recovery and job access.”
The SRRTC, she explained, “is completing its feasibility study on the segment between New Orleans and Mobile. We have identified $260 million in projects to allow for the growth in freight and consistent passenger trains speeds of 79 mph for a 20-year build out. The difficulty to be overcome is the current politics to move the corridor north of I-10 or reroute the existing trains to the New Orleans Gateway on Norfolk Southern track.”
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, R, “is directing the Mississippi DOT to complete a feasibility study of those options. The governor and interested parties are working to convert the CSX rail right-of-way to a four-lane highway to support condominium and casino development on the Gulf Coast.”
Language in a Senate bill that would have permitted that was removed from a spending bill in September.
“While the SRRTC has taken a stand in support of keeping the CSX track for passenger use, the dollars needed to sustain new daily operations over this route must come mainly from the Mississippi state legislature, and capital needed to construct improvements are competitive and largely based on Mississippi clout in the Senate,” Parson said. She added, “Well-funded capital improvements and more frequent and reliable service could be a boon to land development on the coast.
“Our charge, therefore, seems to be advocating against the demise of passenger service and in fact, arguing for the opposite, more frequent passenger service with Mississippi constituents in hopes they command the attention of those that control the dollars. It is a slippery slope.”

2006-10-03T17:59:00.000-04:00

Leo King

Amtrak’s elderly K Tower would likely be demolished when construction begins over Union Station tracks. The existing tower is located at the end of the tracks 15-16 platform.

2006-10-03T17:30:00.000-04:00

Call it Burnham Place:
Complex to rise above Washington’s tracks

District of Columbia developer Akridge last Thursday got the air rights over the tracks at Union Station to build a 15-acre mixed-use complex, to be called Burnham Place at Union Station.
The U.S. General Services Administration and Akridge inked the deal on Thursday, but financial terms were not disclosed, according to the Washington Business Journal of September 29.
The D.C. Office of Planning envisions this project as a “regional draw,” said Patricia Zingsheim, associate director of revitalization and design for the office.
She expects that the shops and restaurants at Union Station to be linked to Akridge’s development and that street access will be provided from the main thoroughfares on K, H and First streets.
Burnham Place honors Daniel Hudson Burnham, a turn-of-the-century Chicago architect who designed Union Station.
Akridge plans to build offices, a retail center including a medium-sized box store, residential towers and a hotel. In addition, the developer will work on public improvements such as intermodal transportation at Union Station.
Real estate developers and planners believe the Akridge project will capitalize on the 18.1 million passengers who use the Union Station Metro annually and provide an entryway to the North of Massachusetts Avenue developments.
“Akridge will start working on the entitlement process right away,” said company spokeswoman Mary Margaret Hiller.
That is expected to take 18 months, followed by a year for design. Then work could get started on the major component of the project – the construction of the platform above the tracks, which would serve as the ground for the rest of the development. This is expected to take three years. Afterward, Akridge will start construction of residences, retail and offices.
Several authorities were involved in this negotiation including Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, AEW (the asset manager at Union Station), the D.C. Department of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration and Union Station Redevelopment.

2006-10-03T10:54:00.000-04:00

‘Sniffers’ to be upgraded in New York

Both Amtrak and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City plan to upgrade their chemical sniffing devices inside their stations – Amtrak at Penn Station, and MTA at Grand Central Terminal.

When security officials first installed a system of sensors at Grand Central to sniff the air for signs of a poison gas or chemical attack, they had to learn to tell the difference between a janitor and a terrorist.

Technicians found that a person walking by with a mop and bucket full of floor cleaner could trigger the chemical sensors, The New York Times reported today.

Now, two years after the system was rushed into place in time for the Republican National Convention in the summer of 2004, officials at the MTA are satisfied that they can use the equipment to distinguish between a real threat and Mr. Clean, and they are spending $3.9 million to further upgrade the network of sensors at GCT and install a similar system in Pennsylvania Station.

Amtrak said that in addition to installing the sensors in Penn Station, it would do so in Union Station in Chicago, 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and Union Station in Washington. The installation at the four sites will take place over the next two years at a cost of $5.5 million, said an Amtrak spokeswoman, Karina Romero.

The system, known as “Protect” includes sensors, also called sniffers, that continually suck in air and analyze it for chemical toxins and gases, said Jamie Edgar, a vice-president of Smith’s Detection-LiveWave, the company that manufactures and installs the equipment.

The acronym, Protect, stands for Program for Response Options and Technology Enhancements for Chemical/Biological Terrorism.

The sensors, housed in nondescript metal boxes around Grand Central Terminal, are combined with concealed video cameras that let technicians or law enforcement personnel observe the area around the monitors for signs of an attack – or for that telltale bucket and mop. Data is analyzed with software that can predict the direction of a chemical plume, to aid officials in coordinating an evacuation.

The system was developed by Argonne National Laboratory after the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995. It was first tested in the subway system in Washington in December 2001, and by 2003 it had been installed in several stations there. In the summer of 2004 it was installed by the Department of Homeland Security in Grand Central Terminal and in a transit facility in Boston, where the Democratic National Convention was held.

At Grand Central, the system is one of several safeguards, including radiation monitors and sensors that detect biological or germ warfare agents.

The biological detectors are checked manually once a day. The chemical sensors, however, are computerized and constantly feed data into a monitoring system that can alert the terminal’s security staff when a problem occurs.

Anthony J. Policastro, deputy director of the Infrastructure Assurance Center at Argonne National Laboratory, said that the system at Grand Central Terminal was initially meant to be temporary and that it was not until after the Republican convention that Homeland Security officials decided to leave it in place.

That required a good deal of additional work, including improving wired and wireless connections and adapting the system to the terminal’s unique conditions, he said.

Technicians discovered that Grand Central was both a dirtier and, in its way, a cleaner place than the Washington subway. People who worked on the system said that brake dust from trains fouled filters, which had to be changed more frequently. Fumes from diesel engines caused other problems – and then there were those janitors. The technicians encountered an array of cleaning products in the terminal, and adjustments were needed in the sensors and software.

“It’s a more difficult environment in that terminal, in terms of dust, dirt and chemicals,” Policastro said.

Last week, the authority’s board agreed to spend $611,000 to upgrade the system at Grand Central and $1.6 million to install the new system at Penn Station. A three-year maintenance contract covering both facilities, with an option for two additional years, will cost an extra $1.7 million.

2006-10-03T10:19:00.000-04:00

NS buys back more stocks

Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) reported today that it bought back and retired 17.1 million shares of common stock at a total cost of $730 million in the third quarter.

The railroad’s directors okayed the plan on Nov. 22, 2005.

Approximately 397 million shares of common stock remained outstanding as of September 29, excluding shares held by Norfolk Southern’s consolidated subsidiaries, and “diluted weighted average shares outstanding used in the calculation of diluted earnings per share for the third quarter were approximately 410 million shares,” according to the company.

NS’s directors has authorized repurchasing up to 50 million shares of its common stock through the end of 2015.

“Since the inception of the program, NS has purchased and retired 20.7 million shares at a total cost of $916 million,” according to the carrier. The firm noted, "Timing and volume of future purchases under this program will be guided by management’s assessment of market conditions and other factors."

2006-10-02T11:32:00.000-04:00

Supreme Court to take up FELA case

By Leo King

The U.S. Supreme Court begins its new session today. In about a week, it will hear oral arguments from a railroad vs. an employee.

On October 10, the court will take up a question, in Norfolk Southern Ry. v. Sorrell, whether a lower court in Missouri erred in determining-in conflict with the Supreme Court and multiple courts of appeals “that the causation standard for employee contributory negligence under the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) differs from the causation standard for railroad negligence.”

The Supreme Court declined to consider another question, whether, under the comparative negligence scheme of FELA, “state courts may rely upon a jury instruction and verdict form mandated by state law that make it impossible for defendants and courts to determine whether and to what extent a jury found contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff, and which treat FELA defendants differently from all other litigants.”

Timothy Sorrell was an NS trackman. As such, he was a “general laborer,” and performed various jobs related to track maintenance. On November 1, 1999,according to NS lawyers, he drove a dump truck loaded with asphalt that would be used to repair rail crossings near Kendallville, Ind. He unloaded some of the asphalt at the first assigned crossing, and was on a gravel road headed for the next crossing when, according to Sorrell, another vehicle approached him. The approaching vehicle was another NS truck, driven by NS employee Keith Woodin.

Sorrell testified that he slowed down, and pulled far to the right because he did not believe the nine-foot wide trucks could pass one another. Just as the trucks attempted to pass each other, he testified, his front tire dropped into a four-foot ditch, and the truck tipped over onto its side.

Sorrell claims that, as a result of the accident, he suffered various “problems with his neck and back, right wrist and right shoulder.”

Woodin provided a different account of the accident. He testified that when he saw Sorrell approaching, he pulled his truck off the road, and was “basically stopped.”

Furthermore, he testified, Sorrell pulled his truck off the road when the two trucks were still 400-500 feet apart, and that was when Sorrell’s wheel fell into the roadside ditch.

When he saw that happen, Woodin drove to Sorrell, in order to assist him. At about the time that Woodin’s truck reached Sorrell, Woodin testified, Sorrell’s truck rolled over.

Sorrell brought suit under FELA, alleging that NS failed to provide him “a reasonably safe place to work,” “reasonably safe methods for work,” “reasonably safe conditions for work,” and “reasonably safe equipment, tools and appliances for work.”

He sought damages stemming from various claimed physical injuries, as well as medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. The case was tried to a jury and NS argued, among other things, that Sorrell was contributorily negligent in the manner in which he drove his own truck.

The jury returned a verdict against NS in the amount of $1.5 million. In accordance with the jury instructions, the verdict form did not reflect whether the jury had determined that Sorrell was contributorily negligent nor, if so, the extent to which the jury may have reduced plaintiff’s damages.

An NS motion for a new trial was denied.

On appeal, the Missouri Court of Appeals declined to rehear the case. NS then moved the Missouri Court of Appeals to rehear the case or to transfer it to the Missouri Supreme Court. Both motions were denied.

NS then filed an Application for Transfer with the Missouri Supreme Court, which was also denied.

Both sides offered considerable references to case law.

Sorrell counters FELA Section 1 provides that a railroad will be “liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier… for such injury… resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier.

Sorrell’s lawyers noted, consistent with Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., decided in 1957, and relying on that decision, “respondent Norfolk Southern Railway Company repeatedly argued in the courts below that the FELA’s “in whole or in part” language lightened the causation standard for railroad liability. Indeed, Norfolk Southern objected only to a jury instruction regarding contributory negligence, because it understood that instruction to require proof of proximate causation, and it remained silent in the face of an instruction regarding railroad negligence that incorporated the FELA’s ‘in whole or in part’ language. Such failure to object is an absolute waiver under Missouri state law of any challenge to the instruction on railroad negligence. It is only in this Court, and only in its merits brief, not in its Petition for Writ of Certiorari, that Norfolk Southern, for the first time, argues that this statutory language in the negligence instruction – language which it previously thought the jury would interpret as relaxing the causation standard for contributory negligence if it were included in that instruction – does not authorize liability on a showing of less than proximate cause.”

Norfolk Southern’s “support for a proximate causation standard for railroad negligence comes too late, and, in any event, is manifestly contrary to this Court’s prior decisions, the courts of appeals’ uniform interpretation of the FELA, and the policy purposes of the Act.”

The defense’s description of the events leading up to the accident was similar to NS’s version.

On November 1, 1999, Sorrell sustained serious injuries when his nine-foot wide company truck flipped onto its side after another nine-foot wide truck driven by Woodin attempted to pass on a sixteen-foot wide gravel road.

“Only invasive surgery, which involved placing a metal cage in his neck, has provided any measure of relief for the neck and shoulder pain Sorrell has experienced since the accident. He continues to experience debilitating lower back pain during most everyday activities.” As a consequence, NS has concluded that Sorrell is no longer physically able to work as a trackman. Moreover, it will not permit him to apply for any other position within the company, because, with only a tenth-grade education, Sorrell failed the requisite examinations.

Sorrell, therefore, “lost his job and the health insurance upon which he and his wife, who has multiple sclerosis, relied.

Sorrell brought suit against NS in Missouri state court under the FELA, alleging that it negligently failed to provide him with, inter alia, a reasonably safe place to work, and that its negligence resulted in his severe injuries.

Sorrell sought damages to compensate for his medical expenses, lost wages, and the pain and suffering that resulted from this permanent disability.

The Supreme Court’s decision is not expected until 2007.

2006-10-02T08:47:00.000-04:00

Sound Transit

Beacon Hill Station platform under construction

Sound Transit’s Beacon Hill light rail station is under construction in Seattle, and so is its southbound platform. The Tunnel Boring Machine is visible in the background. The machine will be moved through the underground station and re-launched at the east end of the station to complete digging the southbound tunnel to the East Portal.

2006-10-02T08:40:00.000-04:00

Railroad leaves mess after cleaning up

For weeks, Gerald R. Chudy watched workers clean up the New England Central Railroad line that runs next door to his Three Rivers business, Chudy Oil in Palmer, Mass. – but when they left almost two weeks ago and didn’t take their mess with them, he contacted the Board of Health.

There were a load of steel, a broken telephone pole, a heap of garbage bags and empty buckets of hydraulic fluid, along with railroad ties, and piles of brush, the Springfield Republican reported last week.

“The garbage was starting to smell, that’s why I called the Board of Health,” Chudy told the Springfield Republican on Friday.

Chudy is also concerned about oil spills – dark spots were seen on the ground, and containers of Rotella motor oil are mixed with the trash. Chudy is concerned because he said spills should be reported to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

“I’m actually surprised the environmental people haven’t showed up here,” he said.

Chudy contacted Board of Health member John Lukaskiewicz, who visited the site and took photographs.

Charles D. Hunter, general manager of New England Central Railroad, told reporter Lori Stabile that this was the first he was hearing about a problem.

“If there’s garbage and it’s our property, we would pick it up,” Hunter said. “We haven’t heard from anybody about any problem.”

Hunter said workers have been cleaning the entire 350-mile freight railroad, which runs from the Canadian border to New London, Conn.

Lukaskiewicz said he had trouble initially getting in touch with a railroad representative, but said when he talked to Hunter on Friday, Hunter told him a crew would clean up the mess next week.

Lukaskiewicz noted that the town owns the land in back of Chudy’s, which is at the corner of Main and Bridge streets, so some of the debris is on town property. Lukaskiewicz said he has also contacted an environmental protection department representative about the spilled oil.

Boston ski trains returning

In the early days of North American skiing, trains carried eager skiers to the slopes of New England and New York, but the proliferation of automobiles led to the demise of the ski trains.

Now, however, as gasoline prices remain high, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail Company (MBCR) are reviving ski trains by introducing commuter rail service to Wachusett Mountain this winter, according to Online Ski Magazine of September 28.

Skiers and snowboarders will be able to take the commuter rail from Boston’s North Station to nearby Fitchburg, Mass. on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the ski and snowboard season. The current scheduled weekend ski train service will leave North Station at 8:35 a.m. and arrive at the Fitchburg commuter rail station at 10:06 a.m. Wachusett will then arrange to have customers picked up and shuttled directly to the mountain, approximately 10 minutes away. Wachusett will then arrange to shuttle customers back to the Fitchburg station for a 5:35 p.m. departure back to Boston, arriving at North Station at 7:00 p.m.

“In this day of high gasoline prices, the ski train provides our Boston-area customers with an incredible option for public transportation to the mountain,” said David Crowley, Wachusett General Manager.

“There hasn’t been a transportation option available like this since the era of the gasoline shortages.”

FEC double-tracking grows

Florida East Coast has added some three miles of double tracking on its mainline between Indian River City and Frontenac. The route was tied together on Saturday. Power crossover switches at milepost 158.5 were put in service and named CP 158.5. The double-tracking ends near MP 162, for now. Eventually it will connect southward to an existing siding between MP 162.2 to166.8.On the north end, it will connect at MP 158 to another existing siding ending at MP 154.7. Upon completion, the double-track will be about 12 miles long.

2006-09-29T14:11:00.000-04:00

USDOT IG to examine Amtrak’s directors;

questions whether board operates properly

USDOT’s Inspector General will be taking a close look at some of the passenger carrier’s board of directors practices over the next few weeks.

David Tornquist, Assistant Inspector General for Competition and Economic Analysis, told Amtrak Chairman David Laney and the board in a letter dated September 26, that in March 2006, the majority members and the Democratic members of the Amtrak Working Group issued separate reports summarizing their findings.

The Democratic members included among the recommendations in its report, “Our investigation indicates that some of the deficiencies cited in the GAO report represent a failure of Amtrak’s Board of Directors. Accordingly, we intend to request that the DOT IG conduct an investigation of whether the Board of Directors is adequately carrying out its legal and fiduciary responsibilities.”

Tornquist said the work will be carried out in Washington. The program director is Mitchell Behm, and Debra Mayer is the project manager.

On October 25, 2005, House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young asked Rep. Richard Baker to “lead a working group to evaluate information from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Amtrak Inspector General, and the USDOT Inspector General regarding Amtrak’s management and performance,” the letter stated.

The request was prompted, in part, “by issues raised in the October 2005 GAO report, Amtrak Management: Systemic Problems Require Actions to Improve Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Accountability.

In March 2006, the working group members issued separate reports summarizing their findings.

So, the USDOT IG “plans to conduct a review” of how Amtrak’s directors carry out their responsibilities.

“In addition, we plan to review the board’s expenses from Fiscal Year 2002 to the present as requested. “

The objectives are to determine “The rules, procedures and authorities under which the board operates, whether the board has followed established processes and procedures, whether the board has set long-term goals and performance objectives for Amtrak, whether the processes and procedures that the board follows are sufficient for ensuring oversight of, and requiring accountability from, Amtrak management, and whether the board members’ expenses comply with corporate guidelines and whether those guidelines are sufficient to ensure prudent use of corporate resources.”

The results of the review “will aid in identifying whether potential reforms to improve the board’s performance are needed.”

2006-09-29T12:21:00.000-04:00

Ink’s editor says ‘adios’

Longtime Amtrak Ink editor Leslie Beers is retiring from the railroad today.
She joined the staff – indeed, she was the staff – for more than 10 years. She recently married and changed her name to Reed. Ink is the railroad’s monthly internal organ for employees. Her replacement has not yet been named.

2006-09-29T12:01:00.000-04:00

Sunset’s future is today’s topic for Kummant

New Amtrak CEO Alex Kummant is expected to meet with Gulf Coast officials today which will eventually lead to restarting Sunset Limited service between New Orleans and Orlando. The service ended following Hurricane Katrina’s devastation on CSX tracks from New Orleans, across Mississippi and into Alabama.
Responding at a House Subcommittee on Railroads hearing yesterday to a question from Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., Kummant said, “We are meeting with the Southern Rapid Rail Transit Commission” on Friday.
“We have to come up with relevant, reliable service – even the service on the eastern portion of the Sunset was three times a week, and at night. I know that a number of the stations have yet to be rebuilt, so there are some challenges there.”
He added, “We are reaching out to the states, and we need to work through that.”
The Southern Rapid Rail Transit Commission (SRRTC), is a tri-state group of business leaders and professionals in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
At a recent meeting, Amtrak government affairs officials were there, as were consultants. The SRRTC was vocal in denouncing the plan to remove CSX from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, according to a source.
The SRRTC has been described as supporting two round trips a day between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala. That short distance is about 145 miles. The distance to Jacksonville is 622 miles, and to Orlando is769 miles.

2006-09-29T10:27:00.000-04:00

Labor tells House mandatory training is needed

The lack of any comprehensive, mandatory security training for rail and transit workers five years after September 11, 2001 is “difficult to believe,” a transportation labor leader told the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security yesterday.

Ed Wytkind, President of the Transportation Trades Dept., AFL-CIO, said “Despite multiple attacks on transit and rail systems around the world, the federal government still has not stepped in to provide the necessary funding, oversight, and guidance to ensure that railroad and transit systems address their immediate security needs.”

He complained, “Hundreds of thousands of employees work on our nation’s transit and rail systems, and the fact that they have not been prepared to respond in the event of a terrorist threat or attack is unconscionable,” said.

Wytkind added, “It is common sense that training workers is a highly effective way to secure and safeguard our transit and rail networks.”

The labor leader focused his testimony on the need for mandatory training.

“The problem is that if rail and transit systems are not required to provide security training, it will not be universally implemented by systems across the country.”

Rail and transit workers remain poorly trained.

“A recent survey of transit workers conducted by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) found that even five years after 9-11, approximately 60 percent of ATU members working for U.S. transit systems remain untrained,” Wytkind pointed out.

He said rail workers have not been given access to the resources they need to be in a better position to recognize irregularities or discover suspicious activities. “The training materials are not tailored to any specific job responsibilities and are not designed to impart any specific skills – they simply tell works to be vigilant.”

Wytkind noted that proposals to require security training for rail and transit workers are being considered in negotiations on the pending port security bill. He urged these provisions be included in the final bill sent to the President. “Training is too important to ignore or delay another day and Congress has the opportunity to address this problem. Congress must act now.”

2006-09-28T17:44:00.000-04:00

Leo King

No sparks were flying today in the House Railroads Subcommittee hearing with Amtrak's new CEO, Alex Kummant. He told the panelists he supports passenger rail, and Amtrak in particular.

2006-09-28T17:31:00.000-04:00

Kummant makes first

appearance before Congress

By Leo King

Amtrak’s new boss faced a House subcommittee for the first time today. On balance, he got a pass without fireworks. Alexander Kummant started his new job September 12. He prefers to go by “Alex.”

The Ohio native is a former Union Pacific Central Division vice-president. He oversaw “six-thousand transportation, engineering, construction, mechanical and other employees supporting an 8,000-mile rail network,” he told the House Subcommittee on Railroads and Infrastructure Thursday morning.

“The opportunity to join Amtrak is more than just another job for me. It’s a chance to get back into an industry that has kept its hold on me and to advance something I believe in – namely, passenger railroading.”

He said he viewed the Congress as Amtrak’s primary shareholders.

I believe we are at a pivotal point in the history of rail passenger service. I’m committed to operating a national system of trains. I believe long-distance trains are an important part of the nation’s transportation network, and I believe it’s our challenge to run them in the most efficient and effective way.”

He remarked that the fastest growing service Amtrak has are “in rail corridors. Those states that have the vision to develop their state rail systems are beginning to see the benefits of that service.”

He asked the House panel members questioned but veiled it in a statement.

“To me, having been on the outside I’ve always wondered why the Amtrak debate is so emotional and, at times, acrimonious. It really needn’t be, especially now. At a time of high oil prices, growing highway and airport congestion and record freight volumes, problems which beset and constrain our transportation system, we should be embracing rail, developing it as quickly and responsibly as we can.”

He said he would roam around the system being on trains, in the shops, on the platforms and at the stations.

“I find the best ideas are oftentimes are the ones given to you by those who are out there doing their jobs every day.”

He reiterated, “I believe in rail passenger service, and believe in Amtrak.”

Although the subcommittee meeting was not televised on C-SPAN, it was carried live on the internet.

Subcommittee Chairman Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, noted “I do think we’ve reached the point where if we’re going to have viable passenger rail service and Amtrak as a part of it we need to think outside the box, and not just have this annual appropriations fight.”

Freight rail capacity was also on LaTourette’s mind. He said he recently spoke to a railroader who retired after 46 years on the Union Pacific. The man told him, “I never thought I’d say this as a railroader, but we’re sold out, and we do have a severe capacity crunch in this country… which you share for some of your service.”

He asked Kummant, “What do you think of how we can get around in improving the on-time performance of Amtrak trains?”

Kummant responded, “ I think we have to have this debate or dialogue clearly with the context of record volumes on the freights. In the end, the answer has to be capital of some sort, from some direction. We need work with the freights on the particularly troubled lanes, and ask them to come up with a plan. At the end of the day, we do have contracts with the freights, and we do need to hold them to those contracts, but we have to look for ways of funding and perhaps there’s a way Amtrak can be involved in justifying capital in key lanes.”

LaTourette asked what Kummant would do about labor agreements. Some unions have been without contract for up to seven years.

Kummant replied, “All of our people need to get fair pay and need to be competitive in the marketplace. It has to be fair to them, and it’s also a critical, strategic issue for the operation to retain the critical skills we have in this market.”

He added there are work rule issues labor and management will have to work through. He said he does not like back-room deals.

Ranking Democrat James Oberstar, D-Minn., said, “We need to have a capital infusion in Amtrak, get its infrastructure right, get its passenger service right, relaunch this system and make it work.”

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who is perennially described as anti-Amtrak, said today he is just the opposite.

“Sometimes I read these blogs and these commentaries that ‘Mica’s an opponent of Amtrak.’ I just want to et the record straight as you begin your important work, that you couldn’t find a stronger advocate of both long-distance and high-speed service.”

By “long-distance, he said he means “A national system and not a half-baked system.”

He added he wants the railroad to separate the Northeast Corridor.

“Once we do that, and give the private sector an opportunity to help build and expand service there. In Congress, we’ve never been able to really been able to look at all your finances and determine what things cost, and how things are operating.”

He noted, “Congress is never going to give Amtrak the $18 to $35 billion it needs to develop that corridor and make it truly high-speed.”

He suggested the congress would simply continue to give Amtrak a “starvation diet.”

The 90-minute interview was rich in ideas, one railroader suggested, and held out hope the Bush White House would not prevail in its dealings with Amtrak. Funding legislation is still pending in the Senate, but now is not expected to be taken up until after the November elections.

2006-09-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

Another good week for freight rail

Intermodal traffic on U.S. railroads was at its second total ever during the week ended September 23, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported today.

Intermodal volume of 256,193 trailer or containers during the week ended September 23 was up 6.3 percent from the comparable week last year. Container volume rose 10.3 percent for the week while trailer volume declined by 5.7 percent.

Carload freight totaled 338,141 cars, up 1.0 percent from last year, with loadings up 4.1 percent in the West but off 2.7 percent in the East.

Total volume was estimated at 34.0 billion ton-miles, up 2.4 percent from 2005.

Among individual carload commodities, grain loadings rose 8.6 percent from last year, while coke was up 27.7 percent and petroleum products gained 20.7 percent. On the downside, primary forest products were down 19.5 percent, lumber was off 18.5 percent and motor vehicles and equipment fell 15.3 percent. In all 13 of 19 commodity groups were up from last year.

Cumulative volume for the first 38 weeks of 2006 totaled 12,790,904 carloads, up 1.3 percent from 2005; 8,944,964 trailers or containers, up 6.3 percent; and total volume of an estimated 1.27 trillion ton-miles, up 2.6 percent from last year.

On Canadian railroads, during the week ended September 23 carload traffic totaled 76,329 cars, down 2.6 percent from last year while intermodal volume of 48,663 trailers or containers was up 5.8 percent from last year.

Cumulative originations for the first 38 weeks of 2006 on the Canadian railroads totaled 2,831,035 carloads, down 1.1 percent from last year, and 1,713,129 trailers and containers, up 5.8 percent from last year.

Combined cumulative volume for the first 38 weeks of 2006 on 13 reporting U.S. and Canadian railroads totaled 15,621,939 carloads, up 0.9 percent from last year and 10,658,093 trailers and containers, up 6.3 percent from last year.

The AAR also said that during the week ended September 23 Mexican railroad Kansas City Southern de Mexico (KCSM) reported total carload volume of 11,024 cars, down 9.2 percent from last year. KCSM reported total intermodal volume of 4,770 trailers or containers, up 14.9 percent from the 38th week of 2005.

For the first 38 weeks of 2006, KCSM reported total cumulative volume of 429,737 cars, down 4.3 percent from last year, and 150,845 trailers or containers, down 3.7 percent.

The AAR is online at http://www.aar.org

2006-09-27T18:11:00.000-04:00

Leo King

Nighttime is the time when most Acela Express trainsets are inspected and serviced, such as this trainset in Boston’s Southampton Street Yard. Amtrak officially too over its own maintenance on the fast trains today.

2006-09-27T18:09:00.000-04:00

Amtrak now fixes its own Acelas

Amtrak is now making all repairs on its Acela Express trainsets.

The railroad took full responsibility for maintenance today, formally ending its day-to-day relationship with a Canadian carbuilder that built the railroad’s fastest trains.

The transfer of management and oversight from Montreal-based Bombardier Inc. and French engineering group within the past couple of months is seven years earlier than originally planned, Amtrak said.

Reuters writer John Crawley reported from Washington Amtrak and Bombardier would not comment on the cost of the contract, which had included strict reliability terms for the high-speed trains. The manufacturers will still provide advice and parts, if needed, Amtrak and Bombardier said.

Transfer of maintenance stemmed from an agreement between Amtrak and the consortium in 2004 that settled a legal fight involving Acela’s production and delivery snags and early service setbacks. Acela began service in 2000.

Problems ranged from integrating high-speed rail technology with an aging U.S. rail infrastructure at the start of the decade to bathroom doors that would not close properly.

The worst problem occurred in April 2005 when Amtrak idled its 20 Acelas over parts of five months because of potentially disastrous brake rotor cracks.

Amtrak said it has settled a dispute with the Bombardier-Alstom group and other supplier and maintenance companies over the brake problem.

Financial terms of that resolution, reached in August, are confidential, but Amtrak said the agreement clarifies brake system maintenance and inspection.

Most recently, Amtrak cut power to outlets for laptops, cell phone chargers and other electronic equipment used by passengers because of short circuits. The problem has been fixed, Amtrak said.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said last year a smooth maintenance transition was crucial for avoiding further financial turmoil at Amtrak.

Acela, despite its tumultuous history, is popular with passengers, especially business travelers. It accounted for about half of Amtrak ticket revenues on its flagship Northeast Corridor between Boston and New York and a quarter of all ticket sales or $298 million between last October 1 and August 31, the railroad said. Acela carried 2.4 million passengers during the period, which is Amtrak’s fiscal year.

Under the new arrangement, Amtrak must order parts, run the maintenance schedule and supervise the work, which has always been performed by Amtrak employees. Acela maintenance facilities are based in Boston, New York and Washington.

Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black, in Washington, said the railroad hopes to conduct Acela maintenance more efficiently and that the change did not increase costs.

David Slack, a spokesman for Bombardier, said the consortium will have an advisory role.

“The main point is that Amtrak, at some point, decided for strategic or business reasons to bring this in house. You do what your customer wants and we’re working along those lines.”

Acelas are inspected and serviced daily and undergo periodic overhauls of critical systems.

2006-09-27T18:08:00.000-04:00

Chris Preovolos/Stamford Advocate staff photo

A Secret Service official believes an abandoned train car in a tunnel two stories below the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City may have been used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

2006-09-27T18:01:00.000-04:00

Old ‘bag’ abandoned in tunnel;

FDR may have used it in 1940s

Richard Staropoli is trying to crack a case that’s been stuck in a tunnel for more than 60 years.

About two stories under the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on 50^th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan is an abandoned car, that appears to have been a baggage car or possibly a mail car, on unused tracks leading out of Grand Central Terminal.

Metro-North Railroad officials said the car has been there since at least 1946 and possibly before, the Stamford Advocate reported today.

Although some historians have dismissed the abandoned vehicle as an old postal or freight car, Staropoli, assistant to the special-agent-in-charge of the New York bureau of the U.S. Secret Service, has noticed some unusual features: light armor plating on the outside; detailed wheel suspensions under the car that would provide maximum comfort for the train’s cargo; and markings indicating the car was once used by the U.S. military.

Because it is just a few feet from a secret platform and elevator connecting the tunnel to the Waldorf, which was most notably used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, Staropoli believes the vehicle is more than just a freight car.

“This may be a car that was kept here whenever (Roosevelt) was in New York,” Staropoli said during a recent visit to the site. “This is not just a train car built to carry tools.”

About 100 feet to either side of the abandoned car are tracks still used by Metro-North trains in the Park Avenue tunnel, but the section with the abandoned car remains unused and unkempt. The ground is littered with broken concrete, pieces of metal piping and plastic soda bottles. Railroad officials are not even sure whether the third rail in the area has power. And some wonder whether the car could be carted out if a rightful owner is determined. It may be fragile and unable to run on the existing tracks.

Those are all questions Staropoli plans to address after he finishes his investigation, which started about three months ago after he watched a television show on what exists in the tunnels under New York City.

It included an interview with Dan Brucker, a Metro-North spokesman, who speculated that the car might have been used by FDR, but Brucker, and the show, provided no empirical proof. That’s what Staropoli wants to collect.

Staropoli hasn’t seen the car’s interior because its doors are padlocked. Inside, he believes there may be serial numbers detailing who owns the car. But while he waits to see the inside, he has collected evidence from what is on the outside.

With a small flashlight, Staropoli shined a beam on some lettering on the train’s side – MNM CX.

During the 1930s and ’40s, a train marked with “MNM” likely would have belonged to the Minneapolis Bulk Corn Processing Co., Staropoli said.

But it was the “X” that really caught his attention.

“An ‘X’ marking usually indicated that it was something not owned by a legit railroad,” Staropoli said. “Anything that was classified by the military, was marked with an ‘X.’”

MN are also the letters for Metro-North.

There’s more evidence suggesting the car has a military connection. It is covered with a thick coat of reflective blue paint, dubbed “MTA blue” by Staropoli because it matches the colors of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. But on the rear of the car, some of the blue has peeled off, revealing a military green surface.

The exposed surface also shows no signs of rust, despite the dark, dank conditions in the tunnel. That’s because the car was made of industrial-strength steel, Staropoli said.

The train most closely recognized with FDR’s visits to Grand Central is the Ferdinand Magellan, which served as “Presidential Rail Car U.S. No. 1” from 1943 to 1958.

That observation car was acquired by the Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami-Dade County, Fla., in 1959.

Skeptics have asked Staropoli why a second rail car would have been used exclusively by Roosevelt, when he had the Ferdinand Magellan.

But Staropoli says Roosevelt had the second car so he could get away without drawing attention during an emergency.

NS amends governance guidelines

Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) reported today that its board of directors has amended the company’s corporate governance guidelines to include majority voting for election of directors in an uncontested election.

The amended guidelines provide that any nominee for director who receives a greater number of “withhold” votes than “for” votes for his or her election will resign. The board’s governance and nominating committee then will consider the resignation and recommend to the board of directors whether to accept or reject it. The board of directors will act on the committee’s recommendation within 90 days after the annual meeting of shareholders.

Norfolk Southern will disclose the board’s decision on a Form 8-K furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission within four business days after the decision, including an explanation of the process by which the decision was reached.

The complete text of the corporate governance guidelines can be found on the company’s website at www.nscorp.com under the “Investors” tab.

Norfolk Southern Corporation is one of the nation’s premier transportation companies. Its Norfolk Southern Railway subsidiary operates approximately 21,200 route miles in 22 states, the District of Columbia and Ontario, Canada, serving every major container port in the eastern United States and providing superior connections to western rail carriers. NS operates the most extensive intermodal network in the East and is North America’s largest rail carrier of automotive parts and finished vehicles.

Labor demands Amtrak stop outsourcing

Transportation labor leaders today called on Congress to stop Amtrak’s Board from trading away the safety, reliability and efficiency of the national passenger rail system through “destructive and misguided efforts to break-up Amtrak and outsource as many jobs as possible.”

At the biannual meeting of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), the organization’s 31 member unions endorsed a policy statement that stresses the need for Amtrak management to recognize the critical role that Amtrak employees play in the success of the passenger railroad.

Edward Wytkind, president of TTD, said, “Congress must stop the Amtrak Board’s outsourcing agenda. Amtrak workers are specialized and highly trained men and women with a vested interest in the survival and success of the carrier. Lawmakers must send a message to Amtrak’s Board and the company’s new CEO that they reject outsourcing that gambles away the future survival of our national passenger railroad and threatens the livelihood of 20,000 Amtrak workers.”

“Amtrak workers are already the lowest paid in the industry and many have gone seven years without updated contracts or wage increases,” Wytkind declared.

“Using outsourcing schemes to lower wages and slash benefits at a carrier supported by taxpayers is simply outrageous and should not be tolerated by Congress,” he document continued.

Amtrak targeted outsourcing of jobs ranging from reservationists to food service to maintenance repair.

In the statement, transportation unions call on Amtrak’s management to “include its workers and unions in determining how to provide services to passengers in a manner that is cost-effective, efficient, and reliable.”

2006-09-26T10:30:00.000-04:00

FRA meets public over grade crossings

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is holding a series of public meetings across the country, and the next will be in Raleigh, N.C. on September 27.

The FRA is billing it as “A new national effort to improve safety and save lives at private highway-rail grade crossings.”

The purpose is to gather information to help FRA better understand the safety issues at locations where non-public roadways cross over railroad tracks used by freight and passenger trains, the federal agency stated in a press release.

“Approximately 400 vehicle-train collisions and 30 to 40 fatalities occur at the nation’s 94,000 private crossings each year.”

Since private crossings are not subject to the same federal rail safety regulations that public crossings are, FRA is seeking comments on several topics, including how to define when a private crossing has a public purpose; how improvement and maintenance costs should be allocated; whether current warning devices for motorists are adequate; and if there should be a more uniform State or Federal approach to improving safety at private crossings.

Establishing responsibility for safety at private crossings is one of the primary goals of the USDOT’s Highway-Rail Grade Crossing and Trespass Prevention Action Plan issued in 2004. Increased focus on private crossings will complement FRA’s ongoing comprehensive program to improve safety at public crossings.

The public meeting will be held Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the McKimmon Center, North Carolina State Univ., 1101 Gorman St., Raleigh. The first meeting took place in Minnesota. Other meetings are scheduled in California and Louisiana later this year.

The FRA has also opened a public docket so that interested parties may submit written comments for public review and consideration. The public docket is available at http://dms.dot.gov (FRA-2005 – 23281).

The FRA topic can be found online at http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/1712.

2006-09-26T06:53:00.000-04:00

Nationals’ Amtrak train derails in Delaware

An Amtrak charter train carrying the Washington Nationals derailed early this morning near Wilmington, Del., but no one was injured.

Amtrak spokeswoman Tracy Connell said it was a “minor derailment” with just the rear wheels on the locomotive leaving the track. It happened about 1:30 a.m. during the trip from New York to Washington. The engine and all three cars remained upright, The AP reported.

The major league baseball team was traveling home from New York after their 7-3 win over the Mets on Monday.

Nationals radio engineer Jack Hicks, who was on the train with the team, said the lights went off and the train came to a slow stop. Others said they didn’t know there was a problem.

“I didn't feel a thing,” Nationals broadcaster Charlie Slowes told WTOP Washington radio. “Some people say they felt a minor jolt.”

About 50 passengers on board were transferred to another train shortly after 3:00 a.m. and have arrived back in Washington.

Calls to the team were not immediately returned.

It was not clear what caused the derailment, Connell said.

Amtrak says the derailment will cause minor delays of about ten minutes this morning in the Northeast Corridor.

2006-09-26T05:56:00.000-04:00

Amtrak’s Saluki starts in October

Beginning October 30, Amtrak will more than double Illinois state-sponsored passenger rail service. The roundtrips will increase from three daily roundtrips to seven between Chicago and downstate destinations - including the Saluki, the new Chicago-Carbondale train.

A saluki is an ancient breed of tall, slender dog developed in Arabia and Egypt with a smooth, silky, variously colored coat.

Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich said yesterday that the expanded service comes after news that all state-sponsored Amtrak routes posted record ridership levels for Illinois’ fiscal year 2006; the expansion includes an additional round-trip on the Chicago-Carbondale line.

Tickets for the new routes go on sale today.

Blagojevich said, “Amtrak is an affordable travel option, and in many communities it’s the only form of public transportation.”

Last spring, the Illinois General Assembly increased state funding for passenger rail service by Amtrak from $12.1 million to $24 million.

The Illinois DOT (IDOT), which is the partnering agency with Amtrak, has chosen the Saluki as the name of the new Chicago-Carbondale train. Another train, the Illini, will continue to operate on its current schedule on the route. So will the City of New Orleans, the third train.

The state-supported trains will operate as reserved service, stated Amtrak in a press release, with the lowest fares ordinarily available with the most advanced purchase, and offer food and beverages in the café car. Ten-ride tickets will also be available, as will business class

Still ahead are the schedules for increased service on the two other state-sponsored corridors, Chicago-St. Louis and Chicago-Quincy.

Daily train service between Chicago and St. Louis will increase from three roundtrips to five, three of them state-sponsored. Daily train service between Chicago and Quincy will increase from one round-trip to two round-trips, also state-sponsored.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

2006-09-26T04:28:00.000-04:00

New Amtrak President

to testify At House hearing

Amtrak’s new president and CEO will appear before a Congressional panel on Thursday to outline his plans and management strategy for the passenger rail system.

Alexander Kummant, who assumed his new duties with Amtrak on September 12, is the only scheduled witness for the hearing.

The hearing by the House Railroads Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. in 2167 Rayburn House Office Building. A live webcast of the hearing will be available at the Committee's website, http://www.house.gov/transportation.

Amtrak's previous CEO, David Gunn, was fired by the Amtrak board in the fall of 2005. The Subcommittee held a hearing shortly afterward on Amtrak governance issues.

While a search for a successor was conducted, David Hughes, then head of the Amtrak engineering department, was appointed acting CEO. Kummant was selected by the Amtrak board in early September 2006 and began work on September 12.

Amtrak is a District of Columbia business corporation, is governed by a Presidentially appointed board of directors. The president of Amtrak is a nonvoting ex officio member of the board of directors. The Amtrak president, like other corporate officers, “serves at the pleasure of the Board” and must be a U.S. citizen.

Monday, Monday 25, 2006

2006-09-24T23:05:00.000-04:00

Jim Haag

A double-stack intermodal container train moves along Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh line, severed on Tuesday until Saturday by a landslide. The photo is from June 23, 2002 at Lees Cross Roads, Pa.

2006-09-24T23:03:00.000-04:00

NS back in business in Pennsylvania

Work crews opened all three Norfolk Southern Ry. tracks adjacent to Ohio River Boulevard in Kilbuck, Penn., where Tuesday’s massive landslide at a shopping plaza construction site shut down the railroad line and busy traffic arteries.

Between 70 and 90 trains a day typically travel on the line, including Amtrak’s Nos. 29 and 30 between Washington and Chicago. Both trains were rerouted.

A parallel highway, four-lane Route 65, remained blocked, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported yesterday.

Rain made the task especially messy and difficult, a PennDOT official said, but it should not impede progress. The disturbed soil is loose and can act like a sponge, so heavy rain will add to the weight of the earth and could be a stabilizing factor, he said.

Heavy equipment operators are hoping to have dirt and other material cleared from two the lanes this morning, which were buried under more than 30 feet of debris.

The landslide began Tuesday night on land ASC Development, Inc. started excavating at a former hospital site. The land is being developed into a shopping complex.

The landslide moved up to 600,000 cubic yards of earth being used to create a plateau for the shopping center and an expansive parking lot, but PennDOT officials estimate that 250,000 to 300,000 cubic yards of material actually slid, with 50,000 cubic yards coming to rest on Route 65.

On Friday, NS told its customers it had “issued an embargo of all shipments normally moving via this route.”

Impacted shipments included freight between NS points – or interchange – in the West or Midwest, “including Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky and points in Pennsylvania east of Pittsburgh, as well as all stations in New Jersey and Delaware.”

NS stated, “The embargo does not apply to unit train shipments, which will be held and moved as conditions permit or rerouted. However, trains likely to encounter significant delays.”

In a note to customers with “committed service agreements, the railroad stated it “invoked force majeure effective 1:00 p.m., September 21 on all traffic moving through this area.”

2006-09-24T22:59:00.000-04:00

StadlerRail AG

Austin’s commuter rail trains from Stadler of Switzerland will be similar to this train.

2006-09-24T22:56:00.000-04:00

Austin commuter rail

construction set to start

Austin’s Capital Metro’s commuter rail gamble passed a critical green light last week, and the $90 million project is about to get underway.

The 32-mile commuter rail line runs from Leander to downtown Austin, KVUE Austin reported last week. To operate the line, the public transit agency has committed to spending $34 million to buy six coaches and powercars. They are sleek with a sloping bullet nose at both ends. Stadler Rail AG of Switzerland is building the first train, and it will be in Austin in less than 12 months.

“We are on time, on budget, and looking for 2008,” said Andrea Lofye, Capital Metro spokesperson.

Test runs of the trains are expected in October 2007. If all goes well, according to Lofye, the final roll out schedule could be adjusted. Initial service, when it begins in 2008, will be during the morning and evening rush hours. Trains will run every 30 minutes. It’s estimated that a trip from Leander to downtown will take about an hour.

2006-09-24T22:53:00.000-04:00

AP Photo/Joerg Sarbach

2006-09-24T22:39:00.000-04:00

23 dead in German maglev crash

A high-speed magnetic levitation train traveling at nearly 125 mph crashed Friday in Lathen, in northwestern Germany, killing 23 people and injuring 10 in the first fatal wreck involving the high-tech system, officials said.

Karl-Heinz Brueggeman, a rescue services official, said the death toll rose to 23 after a search in and around the wrecked train, which derailed after smashing into a maintenance cart. It was the first fatal wreck involving the high-tech system.

Transrapid International, a joint company of Siemens and ThyssenKrupp, makes the train. Munich-based IABG operates the guideway, which runs between the towns of Lathen and Doerpen near the border with Holland.

APTA: Public transportation ridership rises

The American Public Transportation Assn. (APTA) reported on Friday that public transportation ridership has increased by 3.2 percent in the first six months of 2006, as Americans took nearly 5 billion trips on public transit.

“In the first six months of this year, more and more people rode public transportation and transit ridership grew by 3.2 percent, said APTA President William W. Millar.

In the first six months of 2006, light rail – modern light rail, streetcars, trolleys, and heritage trolleys – had the highest percentage of ridership growth among all modes of transportation, with a 9.4 percent increase. Some of the areas reporting the highest increases in light rail ridership opened new services over the past year. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority of San Jose showed the largest increase at 33 percent. The light rail systems in the following areas showed double digit increases from January through June 2006: Minneapolis, (23.4 percent); the state of New Jersey (15.1 percent); Boston, (13.4 percent); Buffalo, (12.2 percent); Los Angeles (11.9 percent); Philadelphia, (11.9 percent); and San Diego (11.9 percent).

Commuter rail grew by 3.4 percent and three areas showed ridership increases in double digits during this six month period: Chesterton, Ind. (13 percent); Dallas (12 percent); and, Harrisburg (11.6 percent).

Heavy rail (subways) ridership grew nationally by 2.6 percent during the first six months of 2006. Two areas showed double digit increases in ridership: Los Angeles (15.9 percent) and New York’s PATH (10.3 percent).

Some free rides in Boston

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority started a free ride campaign on Friday to promote the five-minute commute from Back Bay Station to South Station. The stations are one mile apart.

Free rides are on tap for a month, between now and October Commuter trains are operating between both stations and travel one stop to the Financial District. At South Station, riders can connect with Silver Line connections to the South Boston Waterfront, the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and Logan Airport. The ‘T’ is running 85 weekday and 60 weekend departures between the stations.

2006-09-24T22:33:00.000-04:00

Canadian Pacific

Royal Canadian Pacific on a bridge at Ottertail Point in British Columbia

2006-09-24T22:32:00.000-04:00

CPR’s luxury train wins World Travel Award

Canadian Pacific Railway’s luxury rail service, Royal Canadian Pacific, based in Calgary, Alberta, has been chosen the world’s best luxury train service by over 167,000 registered travel agents and travel professionals.

Royal Canadian Pacific (RCP) has won the “World’s Leading Luxury Train” award at the 2006 World Travel Awards ceremony at the Turks & Caicos this week. The RCP received the award in a challenging competition with five other luxury train services – the Blue Train of South Africa, the Eastern & Oriental Express in Asia, Pride of Africa-Rovos Rail in Africa, Palace on Wheels in India, and Europe’s Venice-Simplon Orient Express.

“This is world recognition of the exclusive train service provided by the Royal Canadian Pacific heritage fleet,” said RCP Director Mark Ramsay, who was in the Turks & Caicos to accept the award. “The award is the result of six years of effort by a dedicated team whose prime focus is on service excellence, professional staffing and guest satisfaction. Their attention to detail is evident in the sophisticated elegance of our restored vintage carriages. This recognition confirms us as world leaders in tourism and hospitality.”

Ramsay added, “this major award will certainly benefit Royal Canadian Pacific in making more people aware of our exclusive service, especially as we prepare to open our new world sales facility in Calgary.”

Since 1993, travel agents from more than 200 countries have been choosing the world’s best in more than 70 different travel-industry categories.

Friday, September 22, 2006

2006-09-21T21:18:00.000-04:00

Union Pacific

The main line passes on the north side of the new UP intermodal terminal in Salt Lake City. The blue sections are for container parking with two tracks passing through the facility. Car storage tracks, in beige, lie between the main and the intermodal loading and unloading tracks. Highway West 700 South is at the top, West 100 South at the bottom, South 5600 at the left and South 4800 West at the right.