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Fred Frailey

148

The next Southwest Chief

Posted 5 years ago by Fred Frailey

Amtrak is struggling to find a fix for the dilemma facing the Chicago-to-Los Angeles Southwest Chief. From Trinidad, Colo., to west of Lamy, N.M., 200-plus miles, it is by law solely responsible for maintenance of a 79-mph railroad, because BNSF Railway several years ago ended all freight service over this route it continues to own. The costs are significant: $3 million a year in normalized maintenance and $50 million in due course in capital needs, including positive train control over portions...

80

Commuters in the crosshairs

Posted 5 years ago by Fred Frailey

A handful of commuter-train railroads, chief among them New jersey Transit, may face a painful choice come January 1: Either cancel some or all trains or face crippling fines for operating in defiance of a law requiring their trains be protected by positive train control, or PTC. This could occur should they fail to qualify for a two-year extension to meet the PTC deadline. Jersey Transit’s predicament is dire. To qualify for an extension of the December 31 deadline for having PTC fully o...

281

My big, bad new Amtrak

Posted 5 years ago by Fred Frailey

Richard Anderson wants Amtrak’s national network to better serve markets (i.e., not reach big cities in the dead of night) and to recover more of the costs. As a group, the long-distance trains, by Amtrak's accounting, racked up operating losses of $500 million in the fiscal year ending last September. You can almost bet he’s looking at ways to reshuffle the deck. I’ve been doing just that myself, and challenge you to do so, as well. The challenge is this: How would you rearra...

28

Living the life

Posted 5 years ago by Fred Frailey

I’m fascinated by on online piece this week in the New York Times about a gentleman named Mario Salcedo, a onetime business executive who burned out after 21 years of roaming the world. For the past two decades he’s made his permanent home aboard cruise ships. A resident of Royal Caribbean Cruises boats, he has lived 7,330 nights at sea. . . so far. The crew of Enchantment of the Seas calls him Super Mario. Writes Lance Oppenheim, who with his film crew spent five days with Salcedo,...

176

Meals on wheels. Oh my!

Posted 5 years ago by Fred Frailey

Nothing should surprise us anymore. Yet you’d have thought that Little Green Men had landed at the Richard J. Daley Center and planted their Martian flag on the Chicago Picasso. No more dining cars! Soon, no more long-distance trains! The world is ending! It calls to mind a magazine writer, Thomas Frank, who has a habit of starting his long articles by saying, “If such-and-such is true, then. . .” and launching into his thesis. I usually say to myself, “No, Tom, such-and-...

164

Mr. Anderson’s awkward start

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Richard H. Anderson has been sole CEO of Amtrak for three months. He’s a skilled airline guy who heads a public utility that has been largely rudderless since Graham Claytor retired a quarter century ago. He must be feeling as if he stepped into a time warp. Anderson goes to see his fellow CEOs at two Class I host railroads. They are dismissive. One tells him bluntly that Amtrak has a “broken business model.” The other simply calls Anderson’s company a “nuisance.&rd...

21

Room H

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

You’ll find me tonight on the southbound Silver Meteor, bound from Philly to Jax. It’s been a busy day. I started in Toronto, flew to Dulles Airport outside Washington, Ubered to Union Station, Acelaed to Baltimore for lunch with a friend, Acelaed again to Philadelphia and changed directions to go south on the Meteor. What a super room I have. I’d never explored a Viewliner sleeping car’s handicapped room, called Room H. It is awesome. I could sleep spread-eagled on the ...

18

Father and daughters

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

“Dad, why are we going so slowly?” That’s my daughter Barbara, head of academics at a Seattle girls school. “Because we’re in a siding,” I reply. “What’s a siding?” That’s the fun of a father-daughters vacation. I expected them to be curious about the intricacies of railroad operations as the three of us crossed Canada for four days and nights. After all, that’s their father’s obsession. But it’s obvious that if Bar...

48

Inside a CN meltdown

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

The chief executive of Canadian National Railway is reported to have lost his job over scenes such as I witnessed today, Canadian National was growing, but its ability to handle that growth fell behind across the Canadian prairies—too few tracks, too few people, or maybe poor management of both. In any event, what ensued this winter was a meltdown. And not one meltdown, but an unending series that simply sapped the railroad of its resources, and its vitality. Maybe you think I exaaggerate...

35

Guess who treats Amtrak best?

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

From Day One, the bane of Amtrak’s existence has been the freight train. (Ha! You thought I was going to say the U.S. Congress. That, too.) I’ve written about freight train delays to passenger trains until I’m sick of it. Congress mandates that Amtrak trains have priority, to a point. Amtrak has sued host railroads, to little effect And still, the problem persists, as of course it will—freight train-passenger train conflict is inherent in the private-public arrangement un...

118

Surviving in the face of adversity

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Railroad financial results look awesome, better than ever. But the reality of this business is deceiving. The business is shrinking, or at best treading water, and in a booming economy. Non-coal carloads are down almost 13 percent from their peak in 2006, coal loadings roughly 40 percent. And market share versus trucks? In a presentation for clients of Stifel Capital Markets, the analytic firm of Transportation & Logistics Advisors put it this way: Rail carload volume today would be 40 to 75...

48

How to really fix the NEC

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Lost in the fight between President Trump and U.S. Senate minority leader Schumer over fixing Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor—the blood between them now so bad that whatever one of them wants, the other opposes—is the fact that a credible solution to the steady deterioration of this asset lies in front of us. In theory, at least, this solution would not cost taxpayers anything. So you have to wonder: Why can’t this idea get a public airing? That idea is for Congress to order...

115

Isn't CSX fascinating?

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Obliterate it, and the railroad world would be boring indeed. In two decades, we have gone from the uninspiring leadership of John Snow to the railroad’s revival under Snow’s successor Michael Ward, to Ward’s own ultimate bewilderment on how to move the company forward, to Ward’s being thrust aside to let Hunter Harrison work his magic, to Harrison’s death after nine months of chaos at the company, to Jim Foote’s ascension to a job he frankly wasn’t prep...

62

The downfall of Luc Jobin

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Imagine yourself as chief executive of the most dynamic company in your industry. Thanks to your initiatives and some good luck, customers flock to you, whereas your competitors languish. Profits are up, though due to reinvestment in your infrastructure, not as much as investors expected. And yes, it’s true that you are behind in delivering the goods to your customers. How should your board of directors react to these mixed circumstances? You, of course, are Luc Jobin, the CEO of Canadian...

42

Bon voyage, Moonlighters

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

At 8:30 sharp tonight, VIA Rail’s Canadian should be leaving Pacific Central Station in Vancouver with scores of happy and celebratory passengers in its sleepers—the Moonlighters. That’s the name Bill and Linda Schafer gave their merry band of train lovers who join them every year, these sojourns beginning about the time Bill retired from Norfolk Southern a decade or so ago. (You don’t need an invitation from Bill to ride, but you do need a ticket.) Anyway, Moonlighters d...

52

Au revoir, Amtrak! It's official

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Hello, my name is Richard Anderson. I am president and chief executive officer of Amtrak. It is now clear that we are likely to face different scenarios where positive train control (PTC) is not yet operational by the end of the year. First, there will be carriers that have made sufficient progress to apply to FRA for an alternative PTC implementation schedule under the law. In these instances, Amtrak’s equipment will be ready for PTC operation, but additional work, testing or approvals ar...

136

Amtrak in crisis

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

We are in uncharted country. In its 47 years, Amtrak has been to the wall often. But those instances were political or funding dramas. This is different. Now the public is entitled to ask: Is it safe to board an Amtrak train? In December it was Tacoma. A train runs right off the rails doing 50 mph over the speed limit on a 30-mph curve. Safety violations were egregious. In January a train carrying Republican members of Congress hits a garbage truck at a gated crossing in rural Virginia. Again, ...

48

Who what when where why?

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Did any of you notice, as I instantly did this morning, that none of the stories in our nation’s Big Three newspapers addressed the central question about the collision of a special Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress and a garbage truck, in Crozet, Va., just west of Charlottesville? I was taught that any good news story should answer five questions, the most important of which is the last: Why? Why did that truck get into the crosshairs of the Amtrak train? Nine reporters...

35

Will you still love me tomorrow?

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

The news from Canada today is that oil producers are at loggerheads with Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways. Pipeline capacity to preferred destinations on the U.S. Gulf coast is almost nonexistent, and producers want the two railroads to haul their product at favorable rates. The railroads insist the oil companies either put some skin in the game—commit to long term contracts—or pay the publicly posted carload rates. This the shippers are refusing to do. You may wonder...

52

Confirming Batory, funding Gateway

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Thank you all for your responses to my blogs about the kidnapped nomination of Ronald Batory to run the Federal Railroad Administration. From the tone of some of your notes, there seems to be an assumption that I am opposed to the Gateway Project. This is because some of you seem to accept that we have a choice between confirming the FRA nominee or funding Gateway. That’s a false premise. Gateway Project would build two new tracks beneath the Hudson River, replace the ancient two-track li...

86

Free Ron Batory!!!

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Foolishness by the senators from New York and New Jersey continues. Six months ago, these four Democrats—Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Bob Menendez and Cory Booker of New Jersey—put a “hold” on the confirmation vote for Ronald Batory to run the Federal Railroad Administration. Bear in mind that Batory, a career railroad officer, is the only person actually qualified to hold this job since the early days of the agency. The reason for the hold, you w...

150

The legacy of Hunter Harrison

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

We would all agree that he was a genius at breaking down railroad operations to its simple components and running trains economically. Hunter Harrison learned railroading at the knee of a brilliant, profane Texan, William (Pisser Bill) Thompson, who was on his way to becoming VP-operations of the Frisco in the late 1960s when Hunter encountered him at Tennessee Yard in Memphis. “Young man,” said Thompson, spreading his arm toward a sea of freight cars, “what do you see out ther...

71

Canadian arrival: Please be late

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Updated 9 a.m. Dec. 7 In the fading light of an overcast December afternoon, the Canadian twists and turns in harmony with the North Thompson River, 30 miles away still from Kamloops, B.C., where we should have arrived at 11 last night. An hour from now, at 4:45 p.m., it will be dark. I prepared for my westward trip across Canada with certain assumptions. One was that VIA Rail No. 1, would take me past certain places during the eight-hour period of daylight and other locales at night. The othe...

22

Scaling Mount Edmonton

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

How do I explain Edmonton and the effect it has on the Canadian? Edmonton stands at the center of Alberta’s booming energy economy and appears to generate a substantial amount of traffic for Canadian National. Although CN’s facilities in Edmonton are spread over miles and miles and appear enormous to me, the railroad always seems overwhelmed. In other words, getting there on any day, either way, is a female dog. Edmonton appears as an anti-magnetic force, pushing back against objects...

44

Postcard from Goodeve

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

In Texas we have towns with sensible names like Ben Franklin, Dime Box, Cut and Shoot and Pecan Gap. In Saskatchewan we pass Goodeve, Undora, Xena and Allan with an “A.” Englishmen must have built the Canadian National through the province. In any event, it has been quite a morning on the Canadian, out among these towns with odd names. Let me give you the flavor of things. We pull into Melville at 7:15 a.m. in complete darkness to change engineers. We had just passed a westbound man...

35

The news from Sioux Lookout

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

We left Toronto on VIA Rail’s Canadian at 10:45 Sunday morning, almost 13 hours late, due to the even later arrival of our equipment on our eastbound counterpart. There are roughly 60 of us spread over 13 cars, 30 each sleeping car and coach. VIA put us up at a so-so Toronto hotel (coach passengers included) Saturday night—that is, everyone but yours truly. I asked to go to the Fairmont’s Royal York across the street from Union Station, and my wish was cheerfully granted. May...

82

The death of diesel

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Did you read about the public debut of Metrolink’s new Tier 4 diesel locomotive the other day? Made by Caterpillar’s Progress Rail to meet the latest environmental rules, it pulled a special train to be greeted by the public and LA area politicians in Newall, Cal. But the train never got to Newall, its locomotive crapping out repeatedly and finally giving up for good within sight of the station. The failure of Progress Rail’s latest and greatest is a metaphor for the state of ...

32

The Worst Case Scenario

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

Those of you who have read this blog long enough know of my affection—my love—of Via Rail Canada’s Canadian. (For a sampling of what I've written, go here or here or here.) If I could, I’d ride it once a month and still feel deprived. This despite its chronic (and lately worsening) track record for lateness. My attitude has been that being late gives you more dome car time for the same low price. Of course, I too have my limit, which is somewhere in the 12-hours-late area...

61

There he goes again!

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

The senior hypocrite from New York made it to Long Island last week to demand crossing gates or flashing lights at a seldom-used road-rail crossing near Garden City. All it took, in fact, was this photo (posted on the Facebook page of a Rockville Centre attorney) to get Senator Chuck Schumer to Garden City and in front of a microphone. He insists the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration underwrite the cost of so equipping this crossing. Let’s think about it for a moment. The cost of insta...

85

The senior hypocrite from New York

Posted 6 years ago by Fred Frailey

One thing about Chuck Schumer, the senior U.S. senator from New York: You can’t fault his commitment to railroad safety. But I’ll do so anyway. My colleague Bill Stephens reports on the Trains News Wire that at least one safety expert is publicly calling the senator two-faced. On the one hand, Schumer will go anywhere there is a microphone to promote safe transportation. My own personal tabulation of his pronouncements just this year regarding railroads: January 8: He demands a co...

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