Amtrak Trains Fight to Go First

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Amtrak Trains Fight to Go First

Freight railroads are pushing federal regulator to change rule giving passenger trains priority over cargo trains



Amtrak is experiencing rising ridership. The railroad overall carried nearly 31 million passengers in 2015, compared with about 25 million in 2006. Photo: Mel Evans/Associated Press

By Laura Stevens and Andrew Tangel
[e-mail]
@laurastevenswsj
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@AndrewTangel

May 22, 2016 7:15 p.m. ET

Which train should go first—an Amtrak passenger train or a cargo train? That’s the question federal regulators are trying to resolve.

For more than 40 years, Amtrak says it has had the right to go first under law, meaning freight railroads have to pull over their trains whenever possible to let a passenger train pass or hold their trains in station to prioritize an Amtrak departure, except in emergencies. ... Freight railroads want that to change, but Amtrak, whose long-haul national trains are chronically late, is fighting it.

“Amtrak’s not being rigid here or inflexible,” D.J. Stadtler, chief operating officer for the national passenger railroad said. “In order for the network to work for the passengers, we’ve got to have a reliable and repeatable schedule that we’re held to.”

The decision is in the hands of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency that regulates railroads. In December, the board said it is reviewing the existing rule and signaled that it is open to changing the current state of play. A final decision is expected in the coming weeks. ... A spokesman said the board is examining the positions of parties who weighed in following the close of the commentary period in March, with no set timeline for releasing its findings.
....

[katmondoo]

1. I love the train

Go first and improve the arriving time.

[happyslug]

2. Norfolk Southern is #1...

Last edited Tue May 24, 2016, 09:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Norfolk Southern operates the old Pennsylvania Railroad main line from New York City to Philadelphia to Harrisburg to Altoona to Johnstown to Pittsburgh, and then to Youngstown, Cleveland, Toledo, Gary and Chicago.

In the 1960s, either before or after the Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the New York Central to become the Penn Central, that main line between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh was cut from four line to three. The justification for the cut back was the number of trains had dropped and thus no need to maintain four lines. The problem has been, you needed the four lines to keep trains flowing in the Appalachian Mountains. This has been a HUGE cause of the delay, and it has increased since Norfolk Southern took over that route and increase the coal trains on that route (Norfolk Southern started out hauling coal out of West Virginia to Norfolk Virginia and still does a lot of business in coal). Since at least the 1980s (and some have said since the fourth track was removed in the 1960s) there have been a push to reinstall that fourth set of tracks. The road bed exists, the bridges can handle the extra set of tracks, thus the only cost is installing the new track and maintaining those tracks. Norfolk and Southern cares less about on time performance of its own fright trains let alone AMTRAK, as long as the train gets to where it is going that day, Norfolk and Southern is happy. Shippers put in enough lead time to make sure they can survive any late shipments, and when it comes to coal, you just hold the coal in the coal cars till it is time to unload them and they often sit for days before that happens. The other big set of shipments are containers, including trailers, again another set of shipments that can sit around till someone picks them up. You rarely see box cars on those trains today, for they MAY have to be unloaded when they arrived, thus you see coal cars (and other bulk good cars, including syrup for Pepsi and Coke Products, bulk oil, bulk chemicals etc) and flatcars with containers or trailers on them.

My point is Norfolk and Southern has no incentive to improve service, as long as they primary source of revenue is the movement of bulk goods. Thus unless Congress or the Department of Transportation goes something and REQUIRE that fourth set of tracks, these delays will continue.

Now another source of delays for AMTRAK are the tunnels into and out of New York City. These are maxed out and Governor Christie of New Jersey canceled the deal to address that problem. Now most of the rail lines used on Amtrak on the East Coast is owned by AMTRAK itself. AMTRAK also owns the Tunnels between New York City AND New Jersey:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_River_Tunnels

CSX has similar problems as Norfolk and Southern, favoring their Container and Coal (and other bulk shipments) over passenger service. While similar problems, CSX has less delays and what delays they have caused in the past will go down over the next few years. The reason for this is the Pinkerton Tunnel Cut in Somerset County PA is finally finished. The Pinkerton Tunnel was to narrow and to short for double stack flatcars, so CSX decided to "open it up" i.e. taking out the ground above the tunnel and making it a cut instead of a Tunnel. This was completed in 2015, but while it was being done caused all types of delays especially in the Capital Limited From Washington DC to Chicago. To a degree this opening up will also address some of the problems of delays by Norfolk and Southern, AMTRAK's schedule from Pittsburgh to Chicago for the Capital Limited goes from the CSX tracks to the Norfolk and Southern Tracks in Pittsburgh. Thus the delays caused by the opening up of the Pinkerton Tunnel lead to delays on the Norfolk and Southern Lines, which caused the conflicts between Norfolk and Southern Fright trains and AMTRAK Trains between Pittsburgh and Chicago (The delays on the CSX lines, caused even more delays on the Norfolk and Southern Lines).

The old main line, now run by the Norfolk and Southern Lines go from Three lines in Blairsville Pennsylvania to two tracks, but the third track does NOT end in Blarisville, but goes along the Kiskiminetas River to the Allegheny River, where it continued to Butler PA and Youngstown Oho to Chicago OR along the Allegheny River to Pittsburgh and rejoins the main line. Again the track is flat in that area so the need for another set of track is less important, but the Kiskiminetas River route can be expanded to two tracks, and the Direct Route to Pittsburgh can be expanded to three tracks,

More on the Pittsburgh Line:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Line

The Conemaugh Line of Norfolk and Southern (it follows the Kiskiminetas River):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conemaugh_Line

More on Pittsburgh Division Lines for Norfolk and Southern:

http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/companies/NS/NS%20Track%20Charts/NS%20Pgh%20Division%20Track%20Chart%202008.pdf

Blog on how to improve the old Main line to be High Speed Rail, right now speed on the Main Line is restricted to 45 mph, do to the fact most of the present Right of Way dates to 1905, but the most critical part dates to 1834, when it was built as part of the orginal old Portage Railway of the 1830s:

http://testplant.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. That's a great post.

Thanks for the NS track chart.

Here's a CSX Baltimore Division TT from 2005. It can also be found at multimodalways.org, but I've always retrieved it from the Johns Hopkins site.

The part of the B&O with the Pinkerton Tunnel still shows it as single track in 2005. Go to page 48 and head west from Viaduct Junction. I used to spend a lot of time at Sandpatch taking pictures of trains. I never did get back to those two tunnels.

One afternoon back in 1977 or 1978, maybe, I spent some time in the tower at Confluence. A few years later, a train derailed passing that tower. It knocked down the tower, killing the operator on duty.



As you know, coal traffic is way down on NS, this year compared to last. All the other coal haulers too, I'm sure.

Thanks again for the great post.

[happyslug]

4. The Pinkerton day-lighting job was a debacle for CSX

When the old B&O (now CSX) Pinkerton tunnel was day-lighted starting in 2010, CSX thought it would be an easy job, remove all of the relatively loose rocks that hung over both its remaining tunnel and the Pinkerton Tunnel used by the old Western Maryland railroad, which had been closed since the 1990s do to falling of such loose rocks.

This turned out to be a HUGE mistake. In 2011, Somerset county agreed to have the spoils from day-lighting the old B&O tunnel onto its land that had been turned over to the county in the early 1990s with the rest of the old Western Maryland Railroad line. Somerset ever offered to pay for the extra cost of daylighting the Trail's Pinkerton Tunnel, but all the CSX wanted was the right to move the spoils onto the land now owned by Somerset and part of the Great Allegheny Passage.

In 2013, the day-lighting of the CSX (ex-B&O) tunnel hit a stag, what everyone had thought to be one set of loose rocks, ended up being three sets of rocks. A loose set at the tunnel, another loose set at the top above the tunnel, but in between one of the stiffest, strongest set of rocks anyone had ever had to dig through. One report was that had CSX knew how strong that rock was, they would have drilled the tunnel up to that rock, removing all of the lower level loose rocks, for it would have been a lot cheaper then cutting through that rock. The problem was CSX was set up to daylight and could not shift gears halfway through the project. On the other hand the strength of the rocks caused all types of delays in day-lighting that tunnel. The Good news was CSX told the trail about the hard rock, so the Trail then contacted engineers who devised a relatively cheap way to remove that loose rock up to the hard rock and in the fall of 2015, the Trail's Pinkerton's Tunnel was opened.

Yes, a debacle for CSX became a way to open up the Pinkerton tunnel at a relatively low cost.

Now, the problems with the rocks above the Pinkerton Tunnel is NOT new. Right after the original Western Maryland Railway tunnel had been built, its Pinkerton tunnel (Now the Great Allegheny Passage Bike Tunnel) collapsed. The line was kept in business by building a road bed around the tunnel. It started with a 90 degree bend then along the river, then another 90 degree turn when the bed reached the C&O line. It was only used for six months and then forgotten for 80 years. In the 1990s the ceiling on the tunnel collapsed again for it was unstable. The Trail was looking at the tunnel being a blockade on the trail, till some old timers told them of the long abandoned cut off. The Trail then scouted out the cut off, found out that they still owned it (it was been part of what CSX sold them when they sold off the Western Maryland Railway tunnel) and diverted the Great Allegheny Passage to it and around the Pinkerton Tunnel.

For the last decades that had been the route of the bike trail, for the Pinkerton Tunnels roof was to unstable to be trusted. Then in 2010 CSX decided to daylight the old B&O Pinkerton tunnel which CSX still owned and the above mention set of hard rocks were found to exist over both tunnels. That meant the Trail did NOT have to daylight its Pinkerton Tunnel, the trail could repair the tunnel relatively cheaply (and the trail did so, opening it up in the fall of 2015).

The cut off is NOT as smooth as the actual old Western Maryland Railway tunnel route, but it does follow the River, remember it was last used in the 1910s, the rest of the trail was last used as a railroad bed in the 1970s:

Here is a photo of the inside of the tunnel before it was reconstructed:

?resize=1200%2C901

http://www.tribdem.com/news/somerset-county-trail-tunnel-to-be-fixed/article_c8fe4102-9baf-11e4-94a8-cfbfff291eb8.html

Here is a photo of the Pinkerton Tunnel on the Great Allegheny Passage as it is today, steel lined but no fear that rocks will fall on the lining and crush anyone who happens to be below it (The Steel Lining is to prevent SMALL rocks from falling down and causing accidents):

?itok=M7ny1lgB

http://www.examiner.com/slideshow/rails-to-trails-sojourn-on-great-allegheny-passage-meyersdale-to-harnedsville

Photos of the Pinkerton Tunnels in 1975 just before the removed the rails:



https://gaptrail.org/explore/trail-alerts

Here is a video showing the Pinkerton Tunnel open, on the left you can see the cut for daylighting the B&O tunnel, and to the right where the spoils for that cut ended up:

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. More about the decline in coal traffic

US Class I Railroads: Why Are Coal Volumes a Concern?

By Samuel Prince
11 hours ago

How Did Major US Railroads Perform in 1Q16?

(Continued from Prior Part)

1Q16 coal revenues

Previously, we discussed the 1Q16 revenues for all of the US Class I railroads. Now, we’ll look at coal. Since 2015, coal has turned into a black hole in the universe of commodities hauled by these carriers. Let’s look at the coal revenues lost by these railroads in 1Q16—compared to 1Q15.



As you can see in the above graph, Union Pacific (UNP) saw its coal revenues fall by 43% in 1Q16 on a year-over-year basis. The immediate followers were Canadian National Railway (CNI) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe—owned by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B). They had a loss of 42% and 38.6% in coal revenues, respectively. However, investors should note that coal’s exposure in total revenues is merely 5% for Canadian National Railway—Canada’s largest railway. Coal’s exposure in total revenues is 16.3% for Burlington Northern Santa Fe—the United States’ biggest Class I railroad.

For the major eastern US Class I rail carrier, CSX (CSX), you should know that the coal revenue loss was 37% compared to 23.3% for Norfolk Southern (NSC) in 1Q16. What’s worrisome is the fact that coal’s share of CSX’s total revenues is 1% higher than rival Norfolk Southern’s 14.4% in 1Q16. In this scenario, Canadian Pacific appears to be relatively better off in the peer group. We would like to remind investors’ that this railroad’s coal traffic in Canada starts primarily from Teck Resources’ (TCK) mines in southeastern British Columbia. The good news is that Tech Resources intends to produce slightly more coal in the current year—compared to 2015.