Freight Rail Companies Stalling HSR?
Jennifer Levitz of the Wall Street Journal has a very good article out this week titled High-Speed Rail Stalls: Freight Carriers Balk at Sharing Tracks With the Faster Passenger Service. It tells a story familiar to readers of this blog: how freight rail companies like Union Pacific are fighting against high speed rail plans, even when those plans do not involve using their tracks:
But Norfolk Southern Corp., Union Pacific Corp. and other railroad companies are balking at sharing their tracks or rights-of-way with trains that would run between 90 and 200-plus miles an hour. They argue that mixing high-speed passenger trains with slower freight trains would create safety risks, prevent future expansion and cause congestion.
Cargo would be pushed to their competitors—trucking firms—the railroads argue, just as freight loads are picking up after the recession. Weekly average carloads in August were the highest since November 2008, according to the Association of American Railroads, the industry’s main trade group.
The first thing we need to remember here is that companies like Union Pacific are creations of the United States Congress. They were chartered and given huge tracts of land in order to spur the development of a nationwide railroad network that could move goods and passengers around the country. They exist to provide a public service that, in the 1860s, Congress believed was better handled by the private sector than the public sector. It’s not legitimate for UP, for example, to suddenly tell government it will obstruct improvements in passenger rail service.
Obviously there is an issue when, as is proposed in several other regional HSR corridors, high speed train service will share tracks with freight rail. That’s not to say that UP should be able to prevent such track-sharing. But it does suggest that the long-term solution needs to be the development of dedicated HSR-only tracks.
As Levitz explains, that’s exactly what we’re doing here in California – and still UP is unhappy:
The California High Speed Rail Authority proposes, in one plan, to place new tracks for more than 200 miles along Union Pacific’s tracks. But a Sept. 2 report by the authority said Union Pacific, the largest U.S. railroad, insisted in letters to the authority that “no part of the high-speed corridor” be located on the railroad’s right-of-way or near it.
The railroad said it would fight any attempts to take its land—or that of its customers—by eminent domain, according to the authority.
In a statement, Union Pacific Chief Executive James Young said the Omaha, Neb., railroad was “committed to working through the issues” related to high-speed rail nationwide. “We may not be able to get there on every project, but we will work toward that goal,” he said.
Rail authority spokeswoman Rachel Wall said Union Pacific’s objections could affect the timeline of the project in the Bay Area, and could “significantly increase costs,” because California may have to buy property from multiple landowners.
This is an interesting point – that UP isn’t just concerned about its own right-of-way, which hasn’t been under consideration for use in several years, but that they’re also arguing that they don’t want their “customers” cut off by HSR tracks. Of course, there are likely ways to make such a shared corridor work for customers, HSR trains, and UP – but UP doesn’t appear interested in exploring these solutions.
The CHSRA and UP have been in discussions for over a year now, which is welcome. But those discussions do not yet appear to have borne fruit. Because the easiest, lowest-impact, and cheapest way to build HSR tracks is to build them next to existing rails, it makes sense to put dedicated tracks in those places. Yet as the CHSRA’s Rachel Wall explained, UP’s intransigence could drive up project costs.
The solution here has to come from Congress. At minimum, California’s Congressional delegations, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, need to start putting pressure on UP to accept its obligations to help passenger rail and seek a more accommodating position. Ultimately, Congress may want to seek regulatory changes that either provide federal mandates forcing the freight railroads to accommodate HSR, or to grant state governments more power to regulate these railroads, power that was taken away by Congress during the height of the Gilded Age in the 19th century.
It’s not that we HSR supporters oppose freight rail. We strongly support expanded freight rail services as a way of providing for more sustainable cargo transportation. But those freight railroads should not have a veto over passenger rail plans.
This is the article I posted the link to yesterday. The UP is a stronger railroad than the Santa Fe and is leading the way with the correct position vis-a-vis the CHSRA. I suspect that eventually Buffet, if he has the attention span to keep the Santa Fe, will come to recognize the perils of having anything to do with a government-run hsr.
Instead of harassing the UP we should insist the CHSRA return to freeway routings and leave the freight railways alone. A good start would be to fire PB-Palmdale.
Of course if you wish to buy the UP and attempt to run freight and hsr that would be interesting. In the light of the government’s experience with Conrail I expect it would be sold back to private interests in short order. Take a good look at BART – it is on permanent government life support. Ditto for your wandering hsr. It is the transit system of the future and always will be.
The reality is that the government needs the freight railroads more than the freight railroads need the government. They were essential in winning two world wars and any in the future. That’s why deregulation was passed. So you want to repossess the railroad row’s? Please go right ahead and see how far you get. The US cannot get by without the UP’s and NS’s but it can sure survive without an hsr.
As of November the freight rr’s will have a much more friendly congress and I suspect they will want to address the issue of hsr seizure of railroad property then. They are far too business-like and decorous to do what I would recommend – put up the money to repeal the hsr and then buy PB and fire all the clowns who wanted to eff with their property.
political_incorrectness Reply:
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Just one problem, the 99 isn’t available. Comparing HSR to BART is apples to oranges yet again so *buzz* try again. Our country cannot survive without HSR. Our economy will go into the shitter once the oil price goes up again to $150. Either we invest in the future now or too late. Better now vs later.
synonymouse Reply:
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:08 pm
But I-5 sure as hell is. We own it.
Some analysts believe the actual price of oil should be about $10/barrel and it is only speculators who are keeping the price at $70.
Rob M. Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:48 am
“Some analysts believe the actual price of oil should be about $10/barrel and it is only speculators who are keeping the price at $70.”
Name those analysts. I did some Google searches and can’t find anything beyond chat boards and those who foresee that a massive deflation could drive the price that low. Speculation works both ways. If the equilibrium price is below the spot price, it just invites other speculators to short the commodity, thereby driving prices back down toward equilibrium.
You can’t have it both ways. Government can’t be completely inept compared to private industry while at the same time private industry in the form of speculators are mis-pricing oil by seven times. The simple fact is that peak oil production is a reality while worldwide demand is increasing. Blame the speculators all you want for high oil prices, but you really only have yourself to blame for dissing the one thing that can truly take demand out of the equation: mass-transit.
synonymouse Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:49 am
It was CNBC about a week ago. I couldn’t relocate it on their site. But even the Saudis have taken the position that the high price of oil was due to speculators.
According to a new poll Jerry is ahead of Meg. Not surprising as Whitman always was the dark horse with Democratic registration much higher than Republican. She has done pretty well, as she is a real Republican, whereas Schwarzie would be considered a moderate Democrat in any other state.
The big question is if Jerry wins and raises taxes will there be a recall attempt right away. And whether Whitman will be motivated to put her money behind ballot measures. Interesting times ahead. Personally I think the welfare state momentum is so great California will have to hit bankruptcy, like NYC in the early seventies.
If you want to see where all transit is headed take a look at AC Transit. Probably a better indicator than BART, which sits alone at the top of the subsidy food chain.
political_incorrectness Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:21 pm
In case you havent noticed, it is usually one extremist who is analyzing. I usually do not trust those people as they go into theoretical issues and not the practical ones.
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:01 am
Ha ha ha. Of course the *SAUDIS* want people to believe that cheap oil will come back and be here forever! Cui bono!
Yes, we are hitting peak oil. It’s going to hurt the Saudis, because oil is their main export. They would like to convince everyone to keep buying their oil as long as possible. Meanwhile they are building electrified railways.
Peter Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:05 am
“Meanwhile they are building electrified railways.”
That is a VERY interesting point.
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:03 am
As for “welfare state”, the main form of “welfare state” in California is the massive prison system, which has morphed into a lobby seeking to imprison people so it can get more money. :-P Something should really be done about that.
PeakVT Reply:
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:35 pm
They were essential in winning two world wars and any in the future.
Good point, since we haven’t built a nationwide system of defense highways since then. *rolls eyes*
You’re just throwing up nonsense hoping something sticks, aren’t you? It isn’t working and you’re embarrassing yourself.
Ray Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Another factual distortion/oversight is your reference to the “Conrail experience.” Conrail was a success in what it was designed to do. Save the east coast transportation system from a massive failure of private sector operation Penn Central (at that time the largest corporate bankruptsy in history). Conrail was established as stop gap measure to pump in needed capital redevelopment and maintenance into a criminally mismanaged private sector enterprise. It was always designed to revert to private operation which it did successfully.
dave Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:51 pm
“Take a good look at BART – it is on permanent government life support.”
Your a jackass, you obviously don’t live here or know what your talking about!
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2010/08/11/bart-sees-4-million-budget-surplus-at-end-of-this-fiscal-year/
Joey Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 10:43 pm
It’s true that BART requires massive operating subsidies. What synonymouse (as usual) fails to acknowledge is that commuter/metro systems which require subsidies are the rule rather than the exception (there are a few systems in Asia for instance for which this is not the case but that doesn’t really matter). HSR systems which require operating subsidies are the exception rather than the rule (and I know of only one which is really more of a fast commuter system anyway). Even the pathetic Acela covers its operating expenses.
Also, BART’s budget surplus doesn’t say anything about subsidies. Just that its revenue (fares, subsidies, etc) were $4 million greater than its expenses (maintenance, payrolls, etc). So either they overestimated their expenses or they underestimated their revenue, or some combination of the two.
dave Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:25 pm
No, I know Bart requires subsidies but my point is that BART is the transit system that recoups most of it’s operating farebox in comparison to other public transit. My link was merely an example to fight the exaggeration that synonymouse put it as on”life support”.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 12:39 am
BART has tens of billions in capital subsidy which are used to make the operating costs comparatively low. (By normal world metro efficiency standards, it’s a basket case. The number of employees compared to the number of passengers is several times too high, and the per-hour operating costs of trains are out of control.)
Now just where do suppose those tens of billions of dollars might have from and what might they have cost? Here’s an little mental exercise: what happens to you if you go to the bank and ask for $100 billion in order to “save” a couple million a year by becoming “more efficient”? How does your real (non PR bullshit) balance sheet look after a year? Or after 10 minutes, for that matter?
BART’s far and away the biggest pig at the subsidy trough. But that’s OK, because only brown and black people need the inefficient old nasty buses: go ahead, slash away at the inefficiency, it will teach those people an edifying lesson about making the poor life decisions of not not living in Orinda and commuting to an nice white collar office job on the hardly-subsidised-at-all-oh-no train.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 2:10 am
By European standards, American metros, including BART, are somewhat below average on operating costs, though by Asian ones they’re utter crap. The reason there are so many employees per passenger is that ridership on US transit is really low, and BART is among the worst offenders. I’m sure you’ve read the comparisons between BART and the Washington Metro on the railfan/urbanist blogosphere; Metro is pretty bad (its operating costs per car-hour are actually higher), but its ridership is not nearly as wretched as BART’s.
The real sins of BART are not the operating practices. They’re the capital construction decisions, leading to the world’s most expensive rolling stock ($4.3 million per car, more than high-speed trains), subways to suburbia, terrible inner-city service, etc., etc.
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 8:59 am
The government took the unprofitable Conrail and made it profitable, successful, and attractive to shippers.
Then the Looters’ Lobby started agitating to privatize it. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. The entire Republican Party and all too much of the Democrat Party accepts and encouraging this form of looting.
So the record of Conrail shows that the government can run a damn great railroad, but if you don’t watch your Congressmen, Congress will sell it out from under you for less than its true value.
Just to correct you on *another* of your misapprehensions, Syn.
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:12 am
You really fail to understand the politics of railroads. Buffett knows *exactly* what he’s doing, and unlike the feckless idiots running Union Pacific, BNSF’s response to every government request has been to *name a price*. Whatever the government wants, it can have… for the right price. BNSF is *not* going to lowball prices, and it *is* going to get its money’s worth for anything it gives up, but it’s *also* going to retain a friendly relationship with the various governments.
Look at the huge sums of money BNSF has gotten for the Cascades Corridor.
If UP had the same attitude, we’d see it writing letters saying “We believe the value of future expansion in our corridor is $XXX billion dollars, and are happy to negotiate provided we are *fully* compensated.”
What I find amusing (and annoying) about UP’s position is that it and the other majors don’t exactly seek out every last potential rail customer. If a company isn’t going to send or receive dozens of carloads per week, the majors aren’t interested. It’s the shortlines that really need the room to throw down a new spur or siding to get another customer, and those companies don’t have much track near any of the projected HSR lines in California. The areas where the majors actually do a lot of switching are in long-establish industrial parks with a branch into the area, and then lots of little spurs off of that. Undoubtedly any existing branch with customers will be preserved.
UPRR would surely argue that it is providing a public service, i.e. moving bulk and container goods across 23 states at the lowest cost per ton-mile – even though it must build and maintain all of its infrastructure and pay property taxes on the land it owns. The fact that locomotive diesel fuel is not taxed does not compensate for the trucking industry’s comparatively huge fiscal boondoggle of taxpayer-funded roads.
Also, since it is a private for-profit company, UPRR will of course resist any government efforts that it perceives as raising its cost of operations incl. insurance to cover liabilities and/or constrains future revenue growth. There’s nothing surprising about UPRR’s stance, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.
Does this mean UPRR is being reasonable? No. In particular, the argument that the government must not ever fund fully grade-separated dedicated passenger-only tracks immediately adjacent to legacy freight tracks because a freight train might suffer a serious derailment and foul those tracks or their supports is an overreach.
The railroad’s core problem is that it grew by acquisition and now owns far more total miles of track and far more equipment than it can hope to maintain to a high standard and still make a profit. Therefore, it maintains many of its assets to just the minimum level required, resists expensive upgrades like positive train control and tries to develop new business in places no other rail operator can reach.
BNSF, by constrast, operates a much smaller network and focuses on high-volume repeat business (especially in California). This makes it much easier to afford proper maintenance and stick to a timetable. Using fewer track-miles more intensively means it can more easily accommodate passenger rail services on the land it already owns, via trackage fees and/or selling part of its rights of way.
In an ideal world, UPRR would change its business model to focus on its main lines and sell off the secondary ones (e.g. the California Coast Corridor) to competitors or public bodies (e.g. PCJPB, SCRRA) while retaining limited trackage rights. The problem is that there often aren’t any takers and UPRR can ill afford to lose any customers, let alone compensate them for abandoning the secondary and tertiary freight rail lines on which their business depends. Developing new freight rail business to either side of the main lines is not at all trivial, either – especially if new, dedicated passenger rail infrastructure complicates the construction of new freight spurs. Intermodal business is unlikely to pick up unless medium-to-long-distance trucking becomes more expensive, e.g. via higher taxes for on-road diesel or higher vehicle license fees/road tolls.
morris brown Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 8:08 am
I do not own stock in the UPRR. However, if I did I don’t think I would want to support Rafael’s position that the UPRR should change its business model. The stock is currently at its high point in the year of about $80 and since 1980 has risen from $10 to $80 per share.
So I think they know quite well how to run their business.
Risenmessiah Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 10:41 pm
The higher stock price is a reflection of the potential earning power of the company. It’s not a reflection of how well it’s run.
UP owns two of the four major transcontinental rail lines. The more goods shipped from Asia to the East Coast ensures that this is very valuable business to do. The issue for UP is that as Rafael alludes, they acquired the Southern’s Pacific’s rail holdings, which are irrelevant for transcontinental shipping now. But…those same tertiary lines are going to be valuable for shipping raw materials or foodstuffs to Asia. So it’s logical that UP would hold as much real estate in this regard.
The benefit to UPRR Row is that it already exists and in theory could be revoked by Congress. But honestly the state is better off if HSR picks the best alignment regardless of cost. This is because there are few other options to reform local land use controls at this time.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
On the contrary, of the UP’s two main east-west rail corridors, one (Sunset) was SP and one (Overland) was half SP and half UP.
Let’s see if my generational pattern fits:
James R. Young, President, is 57, could be borderline in the age area (current low break point is at or just under 60).
Charles R. Eisele, VP-Strategic Planning, is also 57.
J. Michael Hemmer, VP-Law and General Cousel, is 60.
Robert W. Turner, VP-Corporate Relations, is 57.
Links:
http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/exec/index.shtml
http://people.forbes.com/profile/james-r-young/82321
Matthew K. Rose, President, BNSF, is 50 (born in 1960).
C. W. “Wick” Moorman, President of Norfolk Southern, is 57.
Joseph Boardman, President of Amtrak–couldn’t find his age, but he should be about 60 based on his bio, but he looks a little younger. How old did you have to be to enlist in 1966? Did he lie about his age then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_H._Boardman
From previously posted material (with some modifications and corrections):
Railroad managers have a similar age demographic to the population as a whole. Those who believe in passenger rail are either very old retired men or the younger bucks, currently under 60 (maybe a bit younger in the conservative world that is railroading). The ones who don’t believe in it, who are afraid of having to jump through hoops for it, are most of the current top management, who are at 60 or above. (Note–may have to correct this guess in light of the above)
This middle group remembers how their industry got burned by overregulation and having to keep passenger trains on that lost money, which theatened at the time to sink their industry. They do not yet see the demographic shift taking place among the young, they believe America abandoned them–and for a certain generation, they are right. But there is a new generation, both in railroading and in the general public, that sees the need. Will they ever be given a chance to speak?
An interesting point–as the trains were dying in the 1950s and 1960s, one of the things that turned up was how important interconnectivity was. Many a train in this time period was making money on a portion of its route–but another company, losing money on its portion of the route (we are speaking of a route over multiple railroads with connectins), would discontinue this train, breaking the connection. As a result, the former money-making train also went into the red, and train-offs began to cascade through the system.
There seems to be an interesting corollary to this. Rattling around in my memory (but darn it, I can’t tell you where it was from or when) is a quote by one of Amtrak’s officers that Amtrak could become profitable with about three times the trains (and traffic) it had at the time. This suggests both the importance of more connections to more places, and an economy of scale that Amtrak currently doesn’t have. (It may also suggest to some wag that Amtrak needs three time the trains to pay for the three times the management it currently needs, but I will otherwise stay silent on that point.)
Alon Levy Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 6:44 pm
It couldn’t be an age thing; NS and UP are run by people of the same age, and yet their attitudes to passenger rail are diametric opposites. Buffett is 80, right square in the middle of the in-between age, and yet his railroad doesn’t have any problem with passenger trains.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Well, it’s really never just one thing, it’s always a bunch of things together (and you are always dealing with individuals, as you noted about Buffett not fitting the pattern). You also have some of these people right at the borders; i.e., “Wick” Woorman was born in 1953, just about the break point that would make him 20 in 1973 (time of first oil crunch, also time of then-Southern Railway’s steam program just hitting its stride, and he is bringing that back)–yet by being so close to the break point, he could have easily gone either way in this. The same applies to almost everyone in this list I have; all of them are at or near my current age 60 low break point–and all could have gone either way in this. I also have a hunch, or feel, that in railroading, we may have a bit of a delay in some of this, due to the conservative nature of the business.
The one exception in this list to ages that are right on the border (besides Buffett) is Matt Rose of BNSF, born in 1960 and now 50 (jeez, was the election of John Kennedy to the presidency really 50 years ago?)–and he may be the most cooperative of the bunch. And isn’t it interesting that he is in many ways a partner with the most senior member we’ve been talking about, Warren Buffett at 80?
Then again, there was a recent commentary (i.e., last 4 to 6 months or so) in Trains, I think, in which a BNSF signalman, riding an Amtrak train and noting the delays on UP, commented that BNSF simply cared about running a good railroad and taking care of any customers–simply cared, that’s all. That in turn suggests a somewhat different corporate culture, possibly one that is no longer as typical as it once was.
Could explain a lot of things in modern corporate America.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 2:15 am
What I’ve read elsewhere (much on this blog, so the other commenters know more than me) supports the corporate culture explanation. UP thinks everyone who’s not part of UP is an enemy; BNSF doesn’t. In addition, BNSF ships somewhat higher-value, more time-sensitive goods sometimes whereas UP does not, accounting for the difference in operating practices.
I’m not sure that Rose is more cooperative than Moorman. BNSF doesn’t mind passenger trains; NS actively supports them. NS went so far as issuing a press release saying that track improvements for passenger rail service to Norfolk could be done for much less money than Virginia and Amtrak thought. I doubt that it’s strategic misrepresentation – Amtrak’s capital construction costs are out of line in general, and if all NS wants is free money for its own tracks, it would propose doing more on the same budget, not the same amount on less.
Removing all pretense, Union Pacific is demonstrating yet again that is an extension of the political party, which is generally-opposed to high-speed rail, almost entirely because of the corrupting influence of the oil industry.
I’m ready to see the tracks and R.O.W.’s this corporation owns put under public ownership. No private enterprise should have this amount of control over the nation’s infrastructure. Let the railroads operate like the truck companies do over the highway system.
political_incorrectness Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 7:46 am
I full heartedly agree with this statement. This is how many social democracies work. Government owns the infrastructure while private enterprise is allowed to run over it paying the government a fee to use the infrastructure. It works well in telecommunications. I wonder how it would work with freight. I would like to see STRACTNET upgraded siginificantly though.
Robert — of course — knows better. The “easiest, lowest-impact, and cheapest way” is the Altamont corridor, which largely avoids impacts to UP. UP opposition made clear its position from the get-go; rather, it is CHSRA intransigence that is driving up project costs.
Tony D. Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:55 am
Congrats DE!
You’ve won today’s “Straw Man Post of the Day” award! Yeah, like there are no UP lines running from Fremont threw the Altamont (sarcasm). What the hell do you think ACE runs on?! And FYI, there are NO UPRR or other rail lines currently running threw Pacheco Pass, and the HSR line from SJ to Gilroy could avoid their ROW if truly necessary. But go ahead and stay drunk if you must!
Peter Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 10:00 am
Not to mention that Altamont would not resolve the even bigger issues of routing through the CV.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:09 am
A hopeless twisty 19th century alignment through the Altamont Pass that nobody sane would consider using.
In other words: a strawman, just as one would expect. Your consistency is appreciated!
rafael Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:58 am
CHSRA’s original route alternatives via Altamont Pass did assume that UPRR would be prepared to share it right of way between Newark and Niles as well as between Pleasanton and Livermore. Amtrak CC and CE do run on the first and both of these short segments, respectively.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Ah yes. PB’s “alternatives”. PB’s “analysis”. Put forward by the world’s finest and very most ethical professionals, exhaustively scoped, rigorously developed, scrupulously evaluated, dispassionately judged.
All done totally unconnected from PB’s massively, obscenely, egregiously, limitlessly fraudulently profitable BART to San Jose scam.
rafael Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Hey, I’m no fan of BART to SV, either. I’d much rather they use the WPML for standard gauge tracks usable by multiple services, with an intermodal transfer station to BART in Fremont Irvington.
All I was pointing out is that Tony D.’s argument that ACE runs on UPRR tracks wasn’t a strawman just because CHSRA would have constructed brand-new alignments for the two short mountain sections (Mission Peak and Altamont Pass).
PeakVT Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 10:04 am
How would an Altamont alignment have less impact on UP? There are no UP tracks through Pacheo, but UP owns the tracks through Altamont, Livermore Valley, and Niles Canyon, as well as most of the approaches. UP is unlikely to develop new customers between San Jose and Gilroy because much of the land adjacent to the track is already developed.
synonymouse Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 10:49 am
The difference with Altamont is that the UP would recognize this is one place where there is no other way to go. It is the major exit route south out of the Bay Area, analagous to the Grapevine as the primary escape north out of LA in the San Joaquin Valley. If the CHSRA were to adopt the Tejon,I-5, Altamont alignment no doubt the UP would be supportive, as it represents a major new rail route which the UP could never do because of gradient limitations and worries about hazardous materials in base tunnels. This mostly new alignment would pose no threat to the UP and would be a point of pride for the entire railroad industry as it would be an engineering marvel at Tejon.
rafael Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 12:34 pm
What hard evidence – as opposed to your personal belief – do you have that UPRR would even consider selling part or all of its right(s) of way between Newark and Tracy for the purpose of constructing a dual track passenger-only rail alignment?
To date, they’ve been very clear and consistent: they are not interested in selling one square inch of their land to CHSRA, anywhere in the state.
They might well be more amenable to an alternative proposal to construct an additional track that its FRA-compatible freight trains would be permitted to use for a modest trackage fee. That, however, would be a standard-speed arrangement based on FRA-compatible passenger rail equipment. That might be worth considering as an upgrade for ACE (i.e. the “HST/commuter overlay”) but it wouldn’t be good enough for the HSR project in terms of safety, capacity or timetable robustness.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 12:50 pm
UP Inc will sell anything to anybody given the right number of trailing zeroes in the offer.
The useful thing about Altamont — not that CHSRA cheerleader fanboys will ever deign to think about it — is that (a) most of the way doesn’t involve the UP ROW (passing over or under it, but nearly entirely avoiding it) and (b) where it might, optionally/i>, involve the UP ROW (approaching and passing through Livermore) the existing ROW is generally both very wide very lightly used, surrounded by cheap light industrial land, and well suited to 100% segregated construction that addresses liability (ie UP freights spontaneously falling over, exploding and catching fire, as they tend to as a regular cost of doing business.)
But let’s not get in the way of maximizing the size and cost of Diridon Memorial Pangalactic Ultra-Modal and of the Gilroy Trans-Dimensional Gateway to Monterey.
Joey Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Just out of interest, how would you get through Fremont? There’s the UP centreville line and then there’s the SR-84 route, plus a few utility right-of-ways farther south which make for less-than-ideal alignments.
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:18 am
“UP Inc will sell anything to anybody given the right number of trailing zeroes in the offer.”
Well, maybe, but that’s *not their negotiating position*. You just described BNSF’s negotiating position.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Let’s hear an explanation of how UP didn’t sell off a ton of land between Fremont and San Jose to be dedicated to PB’s BART scam. Come on! This ought to be a really good story.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:06 pm
I’d also just love to hear about how UP didn’t sell off a massive parcel in Santa Clara to be dedicated to the gargantuan BART fraud. After all, freight on the peninsula is vital and profitable, and there’s no way they’d ever let go of such an important facility, for love or money, and UP would never sell off its Right of Way … at least when it’s not in BART contractors’ interests to lie about the issue.
rafael Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 2:56 pm
You’re right, of course. UPRR does sell assets when it can make do without them and someone puts enough cash on the table.
It didn’t need the WPML because someone in their infinite wisdom had already sold a short section of that near I-280 to a developer, precluding its use as a connector between Niles and south San Jose. UPRR does still operate a marshaling yard in Fremont Warm Springs, near the former NUMMI plant. Afaik, it is used for freight brought up the Central Coast corridor plus the SF peninsula plus the central East Bay.
UPRR can access this marshaling yard via the separate SPML that runs immediately west of the WPML between Fremont Irvington and Milpitas. The southern section between Milpitas and San Jose is still technically active, but in such a poor state of repair that any trains would be limited to 10mph. Basically, its just a backup in case the Alviso line becomes unavailable. Negotiating the bridge across 101 would be more expensive than using the level route through the marshes.
As for the Newhall Yard in San Jose, UPRR no longer needs all of that, either. The rail freight business in the South Bay has all but dried up, especially since Hansen cement in Cupertino switched from mercury-laden coal to less polluting natural gas. That’s why UPRR sold the Vasona right of way to VTA.
None of this means UPRR has decided it can make do without the Altamont corridor, regardless of how much money is offered. It’s UPRR’s backup route for the Port of Oakland in case the preferred level tracks via Martinez and Antioch become unavailable. Each section of right of way has its own value for the owner-operator. The WPML and the Newhall Yard to the Altamont corridor – let alone the CA-99 corridor – are apples and oranges.
synonymouse Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 2:57 pm
As acquiring, keeping and modifying ROW is getting more difficult year to year all the railroads are likely to become more militant and more protective of their property. If I read correctly the Santa Fe had quite a bit of opposition over doubling tracking Abo Canyon and this was to eliminate a notorious bottleneck. A few more bigtime protests and their attitude might go the way of the UP.
My guess is that the UP of today would want to retain more possession of the Peninsula line than in previous days. Today’s rr’s aren’t as broke and beaten down as before.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
SP joyously and gleefully got rid of money losing line. If Caltrain didn’t own and maintain the line freight service would have been abandoned decades ago.
PeakVT Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:04 pm
This mostly new alignment would pose no threat to the UP and would be a point of pride for the entire railroad industry as it would be an engineering marvel at Tejon.
And once there was an “engineering marvel” at Tejon, we would all live in peace and every child would have a pony, too.
Good grief.
thatbruce Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:36 pm
If only this blog had an edit function, then synonymouse wouldn’t have missed the typo of ‘c’ostly. ;)
Incidentally, there are some lovely visualisations of earthquakes courtesy of SDSC.
You could view a simulation of a 7.8 quake in the Salton Sea and what it does to the region.
The word ‘costly’ appears to have been replaced
synonymouse Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Even “Miss Congeniality” wants world peace. But it doesn’t always happen that way. The worthies you want to buy, build, or otherwise bankroll your hsr are currently ramping up economic tension with us and territorial tensions with Japan. How do you think the public is going to regard your hsr, which is now the property of a hostile foreign government? Still want to go sovereign? Remember Freedom Fries? And there we are talking about stupid hissy fit over a trifle with a longtime ally.
Let’s talk about Acts of God. One of their most salient characteristics is unpredictability. So you kvetch that a quake on the Garlock is known to be inevitable. But the unknown is every bit as predictable, tho not so easily comprehensible. So PG&E blows up San Bruno and the guilty pipeline isn’t even on list of the usual suspects. So the Tehachapis could experience a devastating quake or a gasoline pipeline, for instance, next to the UP and next to the hsr could go up with more loss of life than a tremor in the Tejon tunnel. That’s why they call it an Act of God.
If the hsr can’t figure out a way to breach Tejon the hsr isn’t ready for prime time. Fire PB Palmdale and get someone else who can. Who knows but what your sovereigns might insist on using their own engineers to make sure they aren’t getting ripped off.
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:20 am
One difference is that all those other ‘catastrophes’ can be repaired at ground level. An earthquake damaging a Tejon tunnel across the fault tripoint… the tunnel would probably not be reparable at all. So it’s not really just about the loss of life, it’s about whether you could get service running again without building an entire new tunnel!
Peter Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Don’t get him started, he has it all planned out: There would be some bullshit large (expensive!) “gallery” where the tunnel crosses the faults so that “all” you’d have to do is reconnect the tracks. There would be no damage.
No matter that it would likely take over a decade to dig in the first place. Hell, even a tunnel through San Jose was going to take a decade to complete, including mining a station. I can’t even imagine how long an “earthquake gallery” would take to complete, deep below the surface in the middle of the mountains.
thatbruce Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:50 am
How do you think the public is going to regard your hsr, which is now the property of a hostile foreign government?
The public hasn’t noticed (in terms of throwing a hissy fit and renaming things) that a number of US transit operations are funded and/or operated by non-US companies. Your point is… ?
So the Tehachapis could experience a devastating quake … with more loss of life than a tremor in the Tejon tunnel.
Since the region around your proposed Tejon Tunnel is locked by the interaction between the San Andreas and Garlock faults, it doesn’t have ‘tremors’. It has infrequent ‘devastating quakes’ with corresponding effects to (currently minimal) infrastructure in the region. Your closest state-funded library should have appropriate reference books on the Geology of the San Andreas fault for you to peruse and hopefully understand the concept of risk mitigation as applied to earthquakes, or you could read the CAHSRA Frequently Asked Questions regarding routing decisions.
Likewise:
If the hsr can’t figure out a way to breach Tejon the hsr isn’t ready for prime time.
They have. It’s called “Forget blowing the whole budget on one mountain range and making the system prone to possible extended, multi-year closures while a rather expensive piece of underground infrastructure is repaired, let’s accept the marginally longer routing, significantly cheaper cost, and incidentally, service the growing communities of Palmdale and Lancaster.”
So … a gasoline pipeline, for instance, next to the UP and next to the hsr could go up
Indeed one could, at any point where a gas pipeline crosses the system. Fortunately, gas pipelines are easier to relocate than faults susceptible to large earthquakes can be.
jimsf Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 3:25 pm
OH MY GOD… would you please stop repeating your insane tejon, 1 -5 nonsense. Try to follow along…. THERE IS NO POINT IN BUILDING A NON STOP RAIL LINE FROM THE BAY TO LA THAT PASSES UP AN ENTRIE THIRD OF THE STATE..the THIRD OF THE STATE THAT WILL SEE THE GREATEST PERCENTAGE OF FUTURE GROWTH…the same third of THE STATE THAT IS CURRENTLY THE MOST UNDERSERVED BY ALL MODES. Building nothing at all would be the better choice than building a nonstop i-5 route.
HAve you ever even been outside your house?
synonymouse Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 6:30 pm
And your Loopy Route ignores Sacramento, the most important city by in the Valley. Gimme a break.
jimsf Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 6:40 pm
No, it doesn’t. Did you see the plan. You know the one where the train goes to Sacramento? ( and by the way while SAC is important in the Sacrmento Valley, is is not very important in the San Joaquin Valley, that honor goes to FNO, the heart of the valley’s agricultural industry.
The Central Valley is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions. On less than 1 percent of the total farmland in the United States, the Central Valley produces 8 percent of the nation’s agricultural output by value: 17 billion USD in 2002
Four of the top five counties in agricultural sales in the U.S. are in the Central Valley (2002 Data). They are Fresno County (#1 with $2.759 billion in sales), Tulare County (#2 with $2.338 billion), Kern County (#4 with $2.058), and Merced County (#5 with $2.058 billion)
so, the train goes there, see?
thatbruce Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:53 am
The plan
Peter Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:10 pm
What does going south to LA have to do with connecting to Sacramento?
Welcome to the latest iteration of whack-a-rodent.
Missiondweller Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:19 pm
^^^^^Beating the dead horse.
Poor Rich M. is totally and utterly miserable over this Pacheco over Altamont/BART to SJ stuff…I LOVE IT!
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Hey Tony D,
Good for you! One can only hope that you’re on the receiving end of the consultant mafioso cash firehose. (tony d.aniels!)
Otherwise, enjoy ponying up the extra $30 billion or so and enjoy living with the massively higher ongoing operating costs indefinitely. The gift that keeps on giving.
Why should anybody concern themselves with such piddling trifles? Hey, look over there! Kewl shiny pointy train! Shiny!
jimsf Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Richard please direct us all to the capitalist country that is free of graft and corruption. I still have two weeks of vacation to use and I’d love to spend it visiting Utopia. Perhaps you can supply the google map link.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Singapore. Finland. Norway. Sweden. Denmark. Iceland.
jimsf Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 8:44 pm
The Nordic model refers to the economic and social models of the Nordic countries (Iceland, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Sweden and Norway). This particular adaptation of the mixed market economy is characterised by more generous welfare states (relative to other developed countries), which are aimed specifically at enhancing individual autonomy, ensuring the universal provision of basic human rights and stabilising the economy. It is distinguished from other welfare states with similar goals by its emphasis on maximising labour force participation, promoting gender equality, egalitarian and extensive benefit levels, large magnitude of redistribution, and liberal use of expansionary fiscal policy
not exactly american style capitalism a) and b) if you think they are free of graft and corruption you’re being naive. Corruption is wherever people are.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 2:36 am
Yes, Scandinavia has government programs that even Democrats would consider communist. But Singapore has just one (public housing), counterbalanced by many that Republicans would salivate over (no minimum wage, no unemployment benefits, strikes are illegal, social security is defined-contribution, capital punishment is common). But if you want English-speaking countries, it turns out that Transparency International now ranks New Zealand as the world’s least corrupt state, with Australia and Canada not far behind.
So yes, in those countries business is significantly less corrupt. There’s still corruption – the Singaporean government is a lot less transparent than it pretends to be – but measurably less.
jimsf Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 5:12 am
I’ll stick with palm springs then for vacation. I prefer my corruption and graft in a poolside setting.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 5:56 am
They have pools in those other countries, too. As a bonus, you don’t even need sunscreen – Singapore is perpetually cloudy, and the rest are too far from the equator.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
UV passes through clouds quiet easily, very easy to get sunburnt when it’s cloudy
jimsf Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
its true, I get a burn on foggy days in sf.
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Singapore might better be described as a quasi-fascist country, really. Not exactly free market capitalism. It’s quite transparent: be a corporation in favor with the ruling class and you win, don’t be and you don’t. I guess that counts as “not corrupt”, since it *is* transparent.
I’ll give you NZ, Canada, and Australia. They all differ from the US in having parliamentary forms of government, and the smaller amount of corruption *is not a coincidence*.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Italy has parliamentary government, too.
There is the law extant, 49USC 24308, which obligates the railroads (they are common carrier railroads, not freight railroads) to give priority to passenger trains. It is routinely ignored, by one carrier in particular. The likelihood of the Congress or any other branch of government having the backbone to take on the Class Ones on the HSR access issue is zero to none. Note how quickly LaHood backed down on the proposed rule making. Either back to the drawing Board or out with the cheque book.
jimsf Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Much like the banks and certain other companies, Union Pacific should never have been allowed to grow to its current “too big for it’s britches” size. Its just short of being a monopoly in some areas. The railroads, airlines, and oh, remember good ol ma bell, are subject to growth, merger, takeover, regulation. I get a sense that UP is to railroading as Fox “news” is to television. One giant tool of the right.
Perhaps its time to treat railroad infrastructure, the way we treat airport and air traffic infrastructure and auto/trucking infrastructure. Public rights of way funded and maintained by taxes and user fees. This frees up the private companies from direct maintenance costs ( which ultimately winds up meaning less capacity as they remove infrastructure in order to save money) and allows greater flexibility as any railroad can use any row, and any row can be used in any way deemed suitable.
synonymouse Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Please explain why the government sold Conrail?
Sooner or later you are going to see a nationwide merger – say UP & NS. Why – because railroads require enormous amounts of capital. The alternative is no maintenance and eventual abandonment, which is just what happened to many lines.
Once again from the top: freight makes money; passenger service loses money. Some railroad historians claim that passenger service was already in the red in the 20′s but the archaic accounting methods of the day didn’t reveal it. Railroad management lives by this observation.
The hsr will lose money and require operating subsidies. Do you think the government wants to make freight an operation that has to be subsidized as well?
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 7:05 pm
As I recall, the decision to sell Conrail was rather controversial at the time. Interestingly, part of the reluctance some people had about the sale was that the railroad became profitable on the government’s watch, and wasn’t it nice to have a government enterprise that, for once, contributed to the bottom line? This was especially of concern after all the money that had to be poured into Conrail to get it in shape; I’m not sure even now if all that money has been recovered from the sale.
There were also concerns about one carrier or another having a true monopoly in the Northeast. This was resolved by actually splitting up Conrail between CSX and NS. It was a most gut-wrenching maneuver, and as far as anybody could recall at the time, the first time something like this had been attempted on such a large scale.
Interestingly, what eventually came out was almost what had been proposed for a round of mergers in about 1960. The partners then would have been the Baltimore & Ohio, Chesapeake & Ohio, and New York Central in an enlarged NYC, and the Pennsylvania being alligned with the Norfolk & Western, which would have been almost traditional, as PRR had long held a large stock interest in the N&W. For us railfans, this influence in the otherwise very independently operated N&W included red paint on passenger cars instead of the more common Pullman Green, and a position light signal system. N&W, also like its northern neighbor, went in very heavily for building a lot of its own equipment, including hundreds of steam locomotives, some of them as advanced as anything you saw elsewhere. I’ll get some clips of these up later on; I think Jim SF will like them. . .
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Oh, I nearly forgot–why was Conrail sold in the first place? From what I remember, it was largely an ideological position–government ownership and management bad, private good. Could be totally wrong. Can anyone correct or confirm?
Norfolk & Western homemade and streamlined steam for Jim SF, courtesy of YouTube and the discontinued (and recently revived) steam excursion program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w79_jAdeQcM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ehs9qP07gQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmynQ4nbI3A&feature=related
Have fun!
Alon Levy Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 2:38 am
Part of the reason was the monopoly. Conrail was the dominant freight carrier in the East, so it was split up between NS and CSX to reintroduce competition.
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:27 am
The Conrail privatization was largely due to knee-jerk ideological attitudes, and the Looting Lobby.
The split-up was actually after the privatization had started.
That *was* on anti-monopoly grounds. It failed utterly at that (one carrier in the Southern Tier of NY, one in the Empire Corridor, and a reduction from three to 2 in railroads serving Chicago from the east). However, it *was* better on monopoly grounds than the alternative proposal, which was an outright purchase of the already-privatized Conrail by either CSX or NS.
rafael Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 4:23 pm
@ Paul -
afaik, the law refers narrowly to passenger trains operated by the National Passenger Railroad Corporation (NPRC, consumer brand name Amtrak) on tracks owned by and also used for freight haulage.
In California, the objective is to operate modern, lightweight equipment that does not comply with FRA buff strength (and other) safety regulations at speeds well in excess of 79mph on brand-new tracks dedicated to HSR passenger service. CHSRA is (optimistically) forecasting sufficient demand to warrant 7-8 trains per hour each way during peak periods by the 2030-2035 time frame on the SF-LA-Anaheim starter route alone.
Therefore, 49USC 24308 doesn’t really apply in this context. What CHSRA had originally hoped for is that UPRR would be willing to sell a slice of selected rights of way for the purpose of constructing the new, dedicated, high speed tracks. The company has stated quite clearly that it is not willing to do so.
synonymouse Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
But harassment of freight railroads by hsr bureaucrats could very well bring about a change in attitude towards Amtrak, especially if Amtrak is seen as an hsr ally.
Maybe it’s time that big trucking companies were forced to provide passenger service.
I am afraid the railroads are right, why the hell would they open up their row… only to loose their own capacity.
Further, the sharing of tracks…an analogy could be like asking bicyclists to share a bikeway with motorcycles. Except in this case, its not the cyclist getting creamed.
Joey Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Not so. Most of the freight right-of-ways that could be used by HSR are single-tracked, with lots of extra space. The HSR project would move the freight track to one side of the R.O.W. at NO cost to the freight railroad (diagrams indicate that double-tracking might even occur in some cases but there’s no real indication either way of this). HSR would occupy the other side of the R.O.W. Result: Freight railroad has NO net loss in capacity (perhaps even a gain) and no new R.O.W. has to be constructed for HSR.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
September 23rd, 2010 at 7:45 pm
future capacity
Nathanael Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Enough room will be left for double-tracking all the freight ROWs, IIRC. Given modern operating practices, there is no route in the country which justifies triple-tracking (outside yards and sidings) for freight alone, and there will not be for a very long time.
YesonHSR Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:05 am
The segment of the UP from SanJose to Girloy is nothing more than a branch line and its 2 daily Amtrak trains and it will never be anything… No way will anyone down there let some large industry move into that area that needs hundreds of railcars.. this is pure bunk by UP for this segment. if anything it will be more slurb housing tracts and strip malls
Peter Reply:
September 24th, 2010 at 9:10 am
UP had already offered to sell that section to VTA. VTA let the purchase option lapse, though.
Galgiani Named chair of high speed rail assembly committee.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2010/09/23/1581897/galgiani-named-chair-of-high-speed.html