Traffic jam on the railroad tracks

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by eolafan

Good times for railfans are coming, do da, do da.

Don't count you chickens before they hatch.
EDIT. Come to think of it. Some of UP Trains are already over Two Miles long.

[eolafan]

Good times for railfans are coming, do da, do da.

[tree68]

Boy - people are going to be real happy with two-mile-long trains....

When I read the title of this thread an image jumped into my head of trains backed up in traffic, blowing their horns....[:D]

[canazar]

Wow. Sounds like good times a comin'. Thanks for the post.

[zardoz]

MULVANE, Kan. -- The chief executive of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. wasn't happy when he found out during a visit here last month that a stretch of new railroad tracks being installed to help ease freight congestion might not start carrying trains until September, according to Daniel Machalaba of the Wall Street Journal.

"August," Matthew Rose snapped back, in a message to employees of the second-largest U.S. railroad by revenue to speed up work on the eight-mile-long project to meet their boss's deadline.

The push shows how much BNSF and other major U.S. railroads have riding on improving notorious bottlenecks in their networks in time for the next peak shipping season, which begins this month and builds through the summer and fall in an effort to stock shelves before the holiday shopping season.

Still, some customers worry that current expansion projects still won't be enough to ensure timely deliveries.

Cargo shipments from Asia to the U.S. have been growing by about 10% a year, and much of the freight that arrives by ship and is headed for the Midwest or East Coast is transferred to trains for the final leg of its journey.

Meanwhile, a lack of drivers is causing some trucking carriers to shift shipments to trains, and demand is surging for coal that moves by rail to electric utilities.

Trains now carry 41% of U.S. freight as measured in ton-miles, or one ton moved one mile, up from 35% in 1986, according to the Association of American Railroads, a trade group.

While few experts are predicting a repeat of the meltdown in 2004, when a dockworker shortage and problems at Union Pacific Corp. caused dozens of container ships to back up at ports in Southern California, major railroad customers are expecting another nail-biting peak season.

Some rail users predict that railroads are likely to fall even further behind the surging freight volumes.

"Everybody is bracing for congestion," says Robin Lanier, executive director of the Waterfront Coalition, a trade group of retailers, importers and exporters. Some retail chains are planning to carry four or five days of extra inventory to help cushion them from delays and other snarls during the upcoming peak season, compared with two or three days last year, said Ms. Lanier.

BNSF's push in Mulvane (pop. 5,575) is part of a plan to add by the peak season a second set of tracks to 38 miles of the company's 2,214-mile route between Chicago and Los Angeles. Freight on the line, one of four cross-country U.S. rail routes, has doubled in the past decade, with much of the volume bound for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and other retailers.

Side-by-side tracks would allow multiple trains to travel the same route at different speeds and in opposite directions without trains having to stop or use sidings, which are tracks that allow trains to pull in while another goes by.

By the end of 2006, BNSF will have spent $700 million since 1994 to bring the route to more than 95% double track, and fewer than 50 miles of single track will remain after this year.

The final double-track sections will cost about $200 million and are expected by BNSF, of Fort Worth, Texas, to be finished by the end of 2008.

The new double-track sections are being built with concrete crossties, which last at least twice as long as wooden ties, and enough space between the tracks for maintenance work to continue on one track while trains run on the other. In Kansas, completion of double-tracking will increase the route's capacity to 120 trains a day from the current 80.

Having two sets of tracks is helping BNSF lengthen its train size to as much as 8,000 feet, up from about 5,000 feet long five years ago, allowing them to pack more freight. Some trains eventually could grow to 10,000 feet long if recent container-traffic increases continue.

Other railroads are racing to expand the amount of freight that they can haul. Union Pacific, based in Omaha, Neb., and the largest U.S. railroad, is adding 52 miles of double track this year to its 760-mile long route between Los Angeles and El Paso, Texas.

CSX Corp., Jacksonville, Fla., is spending $300 million this year to add new track sidings so freight trains have more places to pass on routes between Chicago and New York and Florida.

Still, it isn't clear how much of a difference the building boom will make during the peak shipping season. "It is somewhat frustrating that the rails in general are not moving any faster today than they were 20 years ago," says Norman Black, a spokesman for United Parcel Service Inc. The Atlanta company spends more than $750 million a year to move packages by rail.

Yellow Transportation, a trucking unit of YRC Worldwide Inc., Overland Park, Kan., has complained to BNSF executives for several months that BNSF trains are arriving late in California, delaying Yellow's shipments and causing it to miss delivery commitments to customers.

Mr. Rose, BNSF's 46-year-old CEO, acknowledges that performance has slipped as train routes have become clogged with freight. He expects the double-tracking project to help improve overall train speed and the percentage of items that arrive on time, and additional improvements are likely if the railroad industry wins a proposed 25% federal tax credit on capacity-related investments. Industry officials say prospects for such an incentive appear good in the long run.

Besides new double-track sections, BNSF is trying to squeeze more capacity from existing tracks and freight yards, while coaxing customers to move shipping containers out of the railroad's terminals or pay penalty fees.

(This item appeared in the Wall Street Journal April 4, 2006.)

http://www.utu.org/worksite/detail_news.cfm?ArticleID=27378