desertdogthey had to deal with the circumstances at the time: too little traffic to support excess infrastructure, or infrastructure that was badly in need of costly rehabilitation. Holding on to it with no evidence that future traffic would warrant it would have further weakened the ability of the carriers to deal the upswing when it finally occurred.
That very well may be true, but just the same, I don't see either 'the railroads involved did not have a crystal ball' nor 'BNSF doesn't want to short haul itself' as justification for expecting taxpayers to foot the bill to make the problems caused by rationalization to go away.
Let the entities that benefitted economically from rationalization pay to make it work.
poppylCurrently there is a glut of oil on the world market and prices are dropping to reflect this. Barrel prices are approaching levels at which it may be not as economical to extract light, fracked oil at current volumes from the Bakken. If prices stay where they are now or even go lower, Bakken supply (and related rail shipments) will contract lessening the pressure on the current rail infrastructure. If, when, and how much are the $24 questions that NS and others have to wrestle with in responding to the current situation. Poppyl
Quite possible. Or even if crude prices rebound, in five years or less a pipeline may takeover much of the volume. Customers who have become frustrated with rail service because of the temporary oil boomlet and insufficient capacity may leave, never to return. Convicted One pointed out the rails' short-sighted planning ~30 years ago. This may be an example of short-sightedness over a much shorter time frame.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I don't have a dog in this fight, but it seems like the rapid growth in the number of oil trains may be a contributing factor to the situation. And the question of whether additional capacity is needed or whether this may be a relatively short term phenomenon relates to the future of Bakken oil by rail.
Currently there is a glut of oil on the world market and prices are dropping to reflect this. Barrel prices are approaching levels at which it may be not as economical to extract light, fracked oil at current volumes from the Bakken. If prices stay where they are now or even go lower, Bakken supply (and related rail shipments) will contract lessening the pressure on the current rail infrastructure. If, when, and how much are the $24 questions that NS and others have to wrestle with in responding to the current situation.
Poppyl
MP173 The value of the UP land, track, and infrastracture would be far greater than $35.3b. Few things sell for book value these days. Ed
The value of the UP land, track, and infrastracture would be far greater than $35.3b. Few things sell for book value these days.
Ed
Probably so, but I'll bet eliminating property taxes and maintenance in return for "access fees" on their own and other lines would look pretty good. Couple that with getting a $35-45 bil. cash infusion, and it would be hard for the shareholders to pass up. By way of reference, the total market value of UP stock was $97+ billion on 10/1/14.
Convicted One MP173 Ok, the old NKP and L&N lines out of St. Louis are long gone. No reason to cry over that. Those lines will never come back, only to live in old Official Guides Not really "crying", just pointing out that the railroads are as much if not more "perpetratror" as they are "victim" to the overloaded plant. It irks me a little the way they solicit public funding to improve their own plant citing benefits to motorists, when they once had extra capacity that they squandered away (to save a buck). More succinctly, why should it be the motorists who pay now to fix problems caused by rationalization? Because they happen to be suffering as a result of prior cost saving strategy? Let the ones who actually benefitted from that cost saving strategy pay to unknot the problem.
MP173 Ok, the old NKP and L&N lines out of St. Louis are long gone. No reason to cry over that. Those lines will never come back, only to live in old Official Guides
Not really "crying", just pointing out that the railroads are as much if not more "perpetratror" as they are "victim" to the overloaded plant.
It irks me a little the way they solicit public funding to improve their own plant citing benefits to motorists, when they once had extra capacity that they squandered away (to save a buck). More succinctly, why should it be the motorists who pay now to fix problems caused by rationalization? Because they happen to be suffering as a result of prior cost saving strategy? Let the ones who actually benefitted from that cost saving strategy pay to unknot the problem.
The lines in question were rationalized thirty years ago, some even earlier. If anyone had a crystal ball, they might have seen what was going to happen in 2014. Lacking that crystal ball, they had to deal with the circumstances at the time: too little traffic to support excess infrastructure, or infrastructure that was badly in need of costly rehabilitation.
Holding on to it with no evidence that future traffic would warrant it would have further weakened the ability of the carriers to deal the upswing when it finally occurred.
John Timm
MP173 So, are you suggesting that the US Government own all row's? Or just selected ones? How would you value these row's for government purchase? Ed
So, are you suggesting that the US Government own all row's? Or just selected ones?
How would you value these row's for government purchase?
I do not see the Amtrak model continuing to work. Owning high speed row off of the freight lines makes sense to me operationally. Can it be profitable? I dont know. But running long distance passenger trains on high density freight lines is difficult at best.
I like what Amtrak is doing with the MIchigan line and also the St. Louis line. But, the problem with the latter is that line will be a joint operation with UP. All the infrastructure investment to 100mph will eventually result in sharing the row with a growing number of freight trains.
A Chicago hub for operations to Detroit, Indy/Cincinnati/Louisville, Southern Illinois/St. Louis, Western Il, Milwaukee, Minneapolis makes sense to me, but not on freight lines.
How has the airline system worked out over the years?
In terms of Amtrak not operating well, an analogy might be: How well would UP run if it had to run many of its trains on a hostile and uncooperative BNSF?
Although this might provoke rage from some (just a speculative idea to toss out here), perhaps the US needs to take the long view on transportation, particularly infrastructure, another of those major issues that an increasingly ideologiclly gridlocked Congress cannot address. This might include rail right of ways being owned and maintained by a government agency and operations contracted to the private rails. The advantages for the railroads would be a huge cash inflow that could be used for investment in newer, better equipment and being able to concentrate on profitable marketing and operations. The rail system would become fairly similar in structure to our air and road systems.
What is that lesson? If an NS dispatch center in (fill in the blank) were damaged, would NS be able to resume normal operations with 14 days? I think so. There are redundancies built into the railroad dispatching system.
Perhaps a better analogy would be if O'Hare were under construction which reduce 4 of their runways to 50% capacity during the holiday season. Do you think operations would be normal?
Are the rails faultless in this? Absolutely not. As we have discussed, there are a number of issues which are at the root of this problem including terminal dwell in Chicago, capital investment for Amtrak, an influx of new business, and insufficient crews.
The government does certain things well. I am not sure running a railroad system is one of them (think Amtrak).
Certainly there is a big mess on the NS line in eastern Indiana. Various attempts at explanation have been given. It does seem that the problem is limited to the NS, so the Chicago bottleneck does not appear to be the cause. If it is some track work between CHi and Porter, the impact of that has brought traffic to a snarl for 15 days and counting, with no end in sight.
Blue Streak would know more, but even with extensive damage at the Aurora ATC center,air traffic was able to return to pretty high levels within 8 days in the Chicago area, and the repair work will be completed shortly, all told 14-17 days. Many people on these forums have a significant contempt for the government, but here is a case where it seems to have corrected a major problem very quickly. Perhaps there is a lesson?
It would be great to have some of those lines back now. I grew up in Southern Illinois and for years we drove to Mattoon, Il to see my Aunt Hulda (Uncle Lem was a railroader for the IC). I never saw a train in all those years on the NKP / NW line which ran from St. Louis to Frankfort. The B&O line thru my hometown of Olney dwindled down to about 3 or 4 trains per day.
The railroads had to jetison those lines in order to survive. It wasnt going to occur without rationalization of the plant. Fast forward to 2014 and those lines could be used.
I am amazed that the Smithboro interchange will be used. Look at the Google map and you will see that interchange has been gone for years. Creative thinking is in play here....let's find some capacity and use it. I read on other sites this afternoon that NS and BNSF are thinking of opening up the Peoria to more interchange. If BNSF is going to run to Peoria and invest in the line from Galesburg, then why not the TP&W. Throw some money into that line and run a couple of trains daily to Logansport (NS) or Reynolds (CSX).
Let's get the crayons out of the box and start coloring those maps. If this industry is truly going to be a growth industry, then capital will be required.
MP173Ok, the old NKP and L&N lines out of St. Louis are long gone. No reason to cry over that. Those lines will never come back, only to live in old Official Guides
MP173 n012944:I stand corrected regarding Smithboro. Thanks for the correction. On a map, that looks like a much longer haul, but if trains cannot make it thru Chicago, this could work out. I am not sure what the current status of that BNSF line is. A few years ago when I was running thru that area of Central Illinois on work, I would encounter that line and it was pretty much a coal hauling line of PRB down to the Ohio river for transloading. It was an unsignaled line with about 10 trains per day, if memory serves me. Was this line a test for PTC? or am I making that up? It will be interesting to see if the routing will be used for a Galesburg - Avon manifest train, oil trains, or even the daily BNSF/CSX intermodal train. The PRB coal trains to CSX could even be routed via Smithboro. That is a great first step (at least on paper) to relieve some congestion in Chicago. The question will be how many trains daily will make that trek. Ed
n012944:I stand corrected regarding Smithboro. Thanks for the correction.
On a map, that looks like a much longer haul, but if trains cannot make it thru Chicago, this could work out. I am not sure what the current status of that BNSF line is. A few years ago when I was running thru that area of Central Illinois on work, I would encounter that line and it was pretty much a coal hauling line of PRB down to the Ohio river for transloading. It was an unsignaled line with about 10 trains per day, if memory serves me.
Was this line a test for PTC? or am I making that up? It will be interesting to see if the routing will be used for a Galesburg - Avon manifest train, oil trains, or even the daily BNSF/CSX intermodal train. The PRB coal trains to CSX could even be routed via Smithboro.
That is a great first step (at least on paper) to relieve some congestion in Chicago. The question will be how many trains daily will make that trek.
Ed this has been under development all year. Last word I got is that they start with one oil train each way a day and work up as experience and crew bases develop. They were also going to reconfigure the transfer track to be less strenuous. Don't know if that has been done. May also explain the slow start.
Fred
schlimm BaltACD What is happening at Chicago has more to do with Terminal Capacity than it does with the capacity of the lines into Chicago. If the terminal facilities could handle the traffic - FOR ALL CARRIERS - you would not be seeing the line back up exemplified by the NS. Terminal capacity is more than just yard trackage - it includes the crews and routes to keep trains that interchange from carrier to carrier moving and that would appear to be the biggest problem at the present time. If that were the case, wouldn't one expect delays similar to those of the NS on UP, BNSF, CN, CP and other lines west, south and north from and to Chicago?
BaltACD What is happening at Chicago has more to do with Terminal Capacity than it does with the capacity of the lines into Chicago. If the terminal facilities could handle the traffic - FOR ALL CARRIERS - you would not be seeing the line back up exemplified by the NS. Terminal capacity is more than just yard trackage - it includes the crews and routes to keep trains that interchange from carrier to carrier moving and that would appear to be the biggest problem at the present time.
What is happening at Chicago has more to do with Terminal Capacity than it does with the capacity of the lines into Chicago. If the terminal facilities could handle the traffic - FOR ALL CARRIERS - you would not be seeing the line back up exemplified by the NS. Terminal capacity is more than just yard trackage - it includes the crews and routes to keep trains that interchange from carrier to carrier moving and that would appear to be the biggest problem at the present time.
If that were the case, wouldn't one expect delays similar to those of the NS on UP, BNSF, CN, CP and other lines west, south and north from and to Chicago?
I don't know the mix of NS traffic between interchange to foreign carriers and traffic that terminates on the NS in Chicago and what the NS facilities are for handling that traffic. Each carriers problem areas and traffic mix are unique to that carrier.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
MP173 Fred Frailey discussed potential interchange of BNSF and NS at Smithboro, Il. Ed
Fred Frailey discussed potential interchange of BNSF and NS at Smithboro, Il.
Smithsboro is going to be a BNSF CSX connection, and is scheduled to go into service on December 1st.
An "expensive model collector"
Balt:Do you have any suggestions as how this could be handled? Is CREATE a viable solution? Everything seems to slow down as it approaches Chicago. Some days things seem to flow well, but then there are times it just plugs up.
Convicted one:You make sense, but I think there are a few flaws....not in your reasoning, but in the execution. The Wabash line is a great piece of railroad, on the map. I do not have the information necessary to discuss this completely, but my recollection is that this line is single track CTC. The problem might be that the line would have difficulties handling 10000 ft stack trains. Perhaps someone has the resources at hand to discuss the sidings on the Wabash line.
Second, BNSF and UP will shorthaul themselves by handing freight off at KC. At some point in time, that will not be an issue as the benefits of interchange at KC will greatly outweight the added revenue of hauling to Chicago. Fred Frailey discussed potential interchange of BNSF and NS at Smithboro, Il.
Ok, the old NKP and L&N lines out of St. Louis are long gone. No reason to cry over that. Those lines will never come back, only to live in old Official Guides. But, the B&O line to Cincinnati still hangs on as does the PRR line from Chicago thru Ft. Wayne and the TP&W.
I think the rails are waiting to see what happens with oil. If this is a five year gusher until the pipelines are built, then adding $B of expansion will see delayed benefits. Perhaps, as I suggested earlier, the rails should tie up some of that oil business as long term committments, such as the pipelines do....then planning and capex can proceed.
Andrew Falconer The NS managament has to install new automated sidings along the mainline tracks, anywhere they can fit them.
The NS managament has to install new automated sidings along the mainline tracks, anywhere they can fit them.
As I am well aware, they have multiple projects stalled by outside entities beyond their control. It's frustrating. (and their consultants are also in a bind coming out of the recent business slump/ unsteady economy with similar issues)
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
Is the unspoken but overriding issue here that no railroad wants to shorthaul itself by handing off its trains to some sort of belt line before reaching its farthest possible terminal (Chicago in this case) and thus leaving money on the table? If so, it would certainly explain why Chicago continues to be the Gordian Knot of the railroads. Would it not be possible to cobble together such a bypass from existing lines and/or old rights-of-way and be owned equally by all the majors with some sort of revenue sharing formula (not that any of that would be easy).
schlimm First I have to say I am not entirely clear what the status of those former trunk lines is: downgraded, sold off to short lines or abandoned. If the feds get involved in upgrading an abandoned RoW, they should simply take it through eminent domain and use it as a dedicated, passenger-only HSR route linking the east coast with the midwest with a viable service not subject to meltdowns due to short-sighted freight railroad strategies.
First I have to say I am not entirely clear what the status of those former trunk lines is: downgraded, sold off to short lines or abandoned. If the feds get involved in upgrading an abandoned RoW, they should simply take it through eminent domain and use it as a dedicated, passenger-only HSR route linking the east coast with the midwest with a viable service not subject to meltdowns due to short-sighted freight railroad strategies.
Well, the real issue is that the freight lines continue to choke Chicago as a matter of their preference, they go there in spite of the crowding because they WANT to go there. So it's a little dishonest to place the burden of untangling the resulting mess onto anyone BUT themselves.
The Railroad's speil that "each double stack container train takes 250(+/-) trucks off the road, and with 100+ trains per day the railroads divert 25,000 semis from NOT congesting Chicago freeways" (therefore Chicago taxpayers should feel obliged to support programs such as CREATE, because the taxpaying motorist benefits most) is a bit of a whopper.
First of all that claim conveniently overlooks that 25,000 truckers wouldn't ALL opt to go through chicago if they didn't have to. Put freedom of choice into each truck cab and most of those truckers would opt for I-70, I-40, or various other routes as a means to get from one coast to the other without stubbornly ramrodding it all through Chicago.
Perfectly serviceable RR lines from St Louis (among others) to points east were rationalized during the consolidation era, so the railroads could save a buck. Why now expect the taxpaying public to further reward the Railroad's stockholders by paying to fix problems caused by rationalization in the first place?
The former PRR's Vandalia and Panhandle lines combined would have been one servicable alternative to Chicago, And the old Clover leaf coupled with the east end of the old Nickle Plate would have been another. In fact the NS's former Wabash would serve a chicago by pass right now if the Railroads genuinely WANTED to avoid Chicago.
Have BNSF hand off intermodal bound for the east coast to NS at WB junction in Missouri, run those up the former Wabash line to Butler Indiana, and then onto the Water Level route to points east, and chicago never comes into the equation
Fred Frailey Ed, I'd love to rent a room in your house for a week. You live in the middle of the storm. Just for fun I turned on the Chesterton camera and booted up the NS Chicago Line on ATCS Monitor yesterday while I worked. I swear that hours went by without a train going through Chesterton. Every so often I heard an off-camera whistle from a Michigan Line train. I guess the definition of gridlock is when nothing moves. Felt like that yesterday. I think that Amtrak did the right thing. At some inconvenience to its passengers (a 200-mile bus ride) it delivered them within a semblance of the schedule. Last night the westbound Capitol got decent handling by CSX (21 minutes late arriving Pittsburgh) but is now almost 3 hours late approaching Toledo, where it will terminate. Apparently the wb Lake Shore is already terminated this morning in Toledo. The new normal, indeed. Fred
Ed, I'd love to rent a room in your house for a week. You live in the middle of the storm. Just for fun I turned on the Chesterton camera and booted up the NS Chicago Line on ATCS Monitor yesterday while I worked. I swear that hours went by without a train going through Chesterton. Every so often I heard an off-camera whistle from a Michigan Line train. I guess the definition of gridlock is when nothing moves. Felt like that yesterday. I think that Amtrak did the right thing. At some inconvenience to its passengers (a 200-mile bus ride) it delivered them within a semblance of the schedule. Last night the westbound Capitol got decent handling by CSX (21 minutes late arriving Pittsburgh) but is now almost 3 hours late approaching Toledo, where it will terminate. Apparently the wb Lake Shore is already terminated this morning in Toledo. The new normal, indeed.
Fred:We will keep the light on for you. I am in a pretty good location, as long as the scanner picks up the action.
Today I had to go to Westville (near MP470) and then into Chicago. Between MP470 and 482 (at our office) there were 3 non moving NS trains.
On my return from Chicago around 1pm I heard the CSX dispatcher comment to a track inspector that he couldnt have time and track as he was single tracking from Pine Jct to Walkerton. This is 49 miles of trains parked on main 1. So...CSX's troubles have returned. Recrews were all along the way. Q500-4 recrewed. That is the Cincinnati - Chicago train of Saturday. It normally would have passed thru around noon Sunday. Oops...2 days late. Q393-03 left Selkirk on Friday and just now Q`147 tied down in East Gary.
Meanwhile the CN and NKP lines keep moving along...for now. Why doesnt NS move some oil trains over to the NKP? The train lengths are 6500 ft, just about the same as the sidings. Throw a couple of oil trains each day and relieve the pressure.
Fred, let me know your arrival date!
MP173 [snipped - PDN] . . . Meanwhile the NS NKP seems fluid.
- Paul North.
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