WEEKLY RAIL REVIEW
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, Feb. 09, 2007
BY: DAVE MEARS
(Posted by permission)
(NOTE: As
mentioned last week and from now on, Weekly Rail Review will sum the news for
the 7 days ending Friday instead of for the 7 days ending Saturday. I am making
this change because I have found that there is often more news about weekend
occurrences the next business day, usually Monday, than there is during the
weekend itself. Dave M.)
THE WEEK’S TOP
RAIL AND TRANSIT NEWS (in chronological order):
(MON) The New
York Observer reported that the long-proposed plan to convert Manhattan’s
Farley Post
Office Building
into the Moynihan Rail Station has gained new momentum. The effort was halted
in October, 2006 when New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver worked to
deny state funding for the project. According to the Observer, current efforts
are focused on much broader plans, first floated by project developers more
than a year ago, in which a new Madison Square Garden would be built at the
west end of the Farley Building and Pennsylvania Station would be rebuilt,
including opening it up to sky views. Also reported was that the Empire State
Development Corporation, which is overseeing the project, has signed a
memorandum of understanding that extends the time to purchase the Farley
Building from the U.S. Postal
Service until the end of March, 2007. (ffd: New York
Observer, Trains)
(MON) A wave of
extreme cold weather and substantial snowfalls covered portions of the Midwest
and Northeast U.S., especially in states near the Great
Lakes. CSX declared a Level 2 alert, during which freight train
service may be delayed, on its main and branch lines between Cleveland,
OH and Syracuse,
NY. Amtrak temporarily curtailed its Empire
Corridor trains west of Albany, NY
and on some of its short-haul routes out of Chicago,
IL. Those short-haul services continued to
be affected through the week, which Trains Magazine reported was in part due to
freeze-ups of the Horizon-Class passenger cars used on these services, which
have water supply and toilet configurations that, even after remanufacturing,
have continued to freeze in very cold weather. (ffd: Amtrak, Trains)
(MON) The Bush
Administration proposed a preliminary federal budget for Fiscal Year 2008. The
budget includes $1.4 billion in contributions for more than 30 current or
proposed commuter rail and transit projects. The budget further proposes $800
million in federal subsidies for Amtrak, about $500 million less than Congress
appropriated Amtrak for Fiscal Year 2006 and will likely appropriate for Fiscal
Year 2007. Several bills are pending in the Democrat-controlled Congress that
would increase Amtrak funding to several times that amount over a multi-year
period. (ffd: Progressive Railroading, Railway Age)
(TUE) The
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority marked the completion of two notable
commuter rail projects. Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen
drove a ceremonial golden spike in Braintree, MA
connecting the Greenbush Line, which is being rebuilt for commuter rail
service, to the MBTA’s Plymouth and
Middleboro commuter rail lines. Revenue service on the Greenbush Line, which
will run from Boston’s South
Station to communities on the South Shore
of the greater Boston area, is
expected to begin in October. Also on Tuesday, MBTA General Manager Daniel
Grabauskas official opened the newly expanded concourse at Boston’s
North Station. Under a seven-month, $5 million project, MBTA added 20,000
square feet of space in the concourse area, which now includes a larger
customer waiting area, larger restrooms, and an overhead electronic board to
provide schedule and track information. As part of the renovation, MBTA moved
tracks and platforms back almost 80 feet to relieve station congestion. (ffd:
NARP, Progressive Railroading, Trains)
(TUE) A CSX
freight train derailed 18 cars near Handley, WV. Including in the derailed cars
were several carrying toxic inhalation hazard (TIH) commodities, which resulted
in about 300 residents near the derailment being evacuated as a precaution.
However, none of the derailed cars leaked any chemicals and the residents were
allowed to return to their homes later in the day. (ffd: wire services)
(TUE) The
Federal Railroad Administration announced the start of a pilot project whereby
rail workers at Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard in North Platte, NE “can now
voluntarily and anonymously report ‘close-call’ incidents that did not but
could have resulted in an accident, and [do so] without fear of sanction or
penalty from their employer or the federal government.” A FRA spokesman said
that the UP, the United Transportation Union and the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers & Trainmen all agreed to the project. The spokesman added that
the project will be extended to BNSF’s yard in Lincoln,
NE and Canadian Pacific Railway’s yard in Portage,
WI in the coming months, as well as to a
to-be-determined location on a commuter railroad. (ffd: FRA, Railway Age)
(TUE) Four
Midwestern universities announced completion of a project to move a large
collection of endangered paper copies of railroad journals and books to
archival-quality microfilm. The 46 journal titles (totaling 1,319 volumes) and
217 books, all of which were becoming too fragile to be circulated, chronicle
activity on U.S.
railroads from 1832 to 1975. The universities participating in the project were
the University of Illinois
at Champaign-Urbana, the University
of Iowa, Northwestern
University, and the University
of Wisconsin at Madison.
(ffd: Trains)
(TUE) Union
Pacific, which has aggressively been addressing an impending worker shortage,
opened a storefront hiring office in North Platte,
NE where applicants may apply for jobs,
print off completed applications and check application status. The new office
was opened in partnership with the North Platte
Career Center,
which is next door to it. UP has said that nearly 100 percent of its workforce
will turn over by 2012 and that it is presently hiring about 20 new employees a
month for train service and about five a month in each of several other
departments. (ffd: North Platte Telegraph)
(WED) U.S.
Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) endorsed the repeal of a law he had written
in 1985 banning further subway construction in and near Los
Angeles, CA. Mr. Waxman had authored the law after
more than 20 persons were injured in a methane gas explosion that year related
to subway digging. The House subsequently passed the repeal and the Senate is
expected to pass it shortly. Los Angeles
is looking to expand its subway line from its present western terminus at Wilshire
Boulevard and Western
Avenue to the ocean about 13 miles away over the
next decade or so. (ffd: Los Angeles
Times)
(WED) The U.S.
Department of Transportation released approximately $25 million of an intended
$100 million in funding for the Chicago, IL
area CREATE project. The project looks to relieve rail bottlenecks in and
around the city with a planned total of $1.5 billion in improvements over
several years. A CREATE spokesman said that the $25 million will go toward
several needs, including crossing improvements and installation of reverse
signaling on the commuter rail line between Chicago and Joliet, IL. (ffd: NARP,
Railway Age)
(WED) CSX
announced that it would spend $8 million this year to double capacity at its Charlotte,
NC intermodal terminal. A CSX spokesman
said that planned improvements to the terminal will double its lift capacity
from 80,000 units to 160,000 annually. The spokesman added that CSX has already
announced plans to expand or upgrade intermodal terminals in Chicago-Bedford
Park, IL, Buffalo, NY and Tampa, FL and will, this coming September, also open
a new facility in Chambersburg, PA, the first new CSX intermodal terminal in
nearly a decade. (ffd: CSX Corp., Progressive Railroading)
(THU) Civil
rights activist Jesse Jackson and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI)
announced that they would launch an investigation to try and determine why at
least three dozen rail workers were dismissed due to directives from the U.S.
Transportation Security Administration. “We want to determine whether these TSA
policies are being imposed properly,” said Mr. Conyers. Mr. Jackson said that
the workers, all of whom he said had clean employment records, appear to have
been fired after background checks of them were provided to TSA. (ffd: wire
services)
(THU) Philadelphia,
PA commuter rail operator SEPTA said that
it was scrapping its commuter rail ticketing machines because they could not be
converted to accept new dollar bill designs. “They were antiquated and could
not accept the new paper currency,” said a SEPTA spokesman. “Because of that,
they were essentially useless.” The spokesman added that, at some stations where
the machines had been in service, ticket office hours will be lengthened or
riders will be able to buy tickets aboard trains without penalty. (ffd: Philadelphia
Inquirer)
(FRI) Amtrak
debuted new advertising artwork for its Acela Express and long-distance
services. An Amtrak spokesman said that, for Acela Express, the artwork
“becomes a visual metaphor for the many amenities Acela Express provides” and
that, for long-distance trains, the artwork “will transport the audience from
landscapes seen from the train to the unique experiences on board the train.”
The spokesman added that the Acela Express artwork was created by Christoph
Niemann, whose work has included New Yorker Magazine covers, and the
long-distance train artwork was created by San Francisco-based Michael Schwab,
who has done previous advertising artwork for Amtrak. (ffd: Amtrak)
(LATE FRI
NIGHT): Canadian National was struck at 12:01AM
Saturday by the United Transportation Union, which represents approximately
2,800 CN train and yard service employees in Canada.
A CN spokesman said that the strike is only against CN’s Canadian operations
and that CN’s U.S.
operations should not be affected, and that CN and UTU have agreed to operate
commuter rail services out of Toronto, ON
and Montreal, PQ
during the strike. The spokesman added that CN will put management personnel in
place of UTU personnel to try to operate during the strike. (ffd: Canadian
National Corp.)
STATS –
TRAFFIC:
(THU) For the
week ending February 3, 2007,
U.S. rail
volume grand totaled 32.3 billion ton-miles, down 6.1 percent from the
comparable week last year. U.S.
carload rail traffic was down 7.2 percent, down 9.7 percent in the East and
down 5.3 percent in the West. Also for the week, U.S.
intermodal rail traffic was down 2.4 percent, Canadian carload rail traffic was
down 1.6 percent, and Canadian intermodal rail traffic was up 2.1 percent.
For the month
of January, 2007, U.S.
rail volume grand totaled 157.6 billion ton-miles, down 5.6 percent from the
month of January, 2006. U.S.
carload rail traffic was down 6.8 percent. There were no notable traffic
increases; notable traffic decreases included motor vehicles and equipment down
21.8 percent, crushed stone, sand and gravel down 18.7 percent, and coal down
2.3 percent. Also for the month, U.S.
intermodal rail traffic was down 1.6 percent, Canadian carload rail traffic was
down 3.9 percent, Canadian intermodal rail traffic was down 0.5 percent, Mexico’s
Kansas City Southern de Mexico’s carload rail traffic was down 12.8 percent,
and KCSM’s intermodal rail traffic was up 9.3 percent. (ffd: AAR)
MORE STATS –
OPERATING PERFORMANCE:
(NOTE:
Effective October 1, 2005,
railroads that had been furnished operating performance statistics to the
Association of American Railroads began applying a new standardized
definitional framework, aimed at eliminating differences in calculation
methodology. Concurrent with but unrelated to these changes, Canadian National
elected to no longer furnish these statistics.)
(WED) For the
week ending February 2, 2007 and versus the comparable week last year, average
total cars on line was as follows: BNSF, 228,069 cars versus 219,585 cars;
Canadian Pacific, 80,311 cars versus 79,716 cars; CSX, 223,735 cars versus
223,971 cars; Kansas City Southern, 28,866 cars versus 29,303 cars; Norfolk
Southern, 202,324 cars versus 207,263 cars; and Union Pacific 312,666 cars
versus 327,964 cars.
Also for the
week ending February 2, 2007 and versus the comparable week last year, average
train speed was as follows: BNSF, 23.4 mph versus 22.6 mph; Canadian Pacific
Railway, 23.9 mph versus 25.7 mph; CSX, 20.3 mph versus 20.3 mph; Kansas City
Southern, 23.8 mph versus 20.0 mph; Norfolk Southern, 21.8 mph versus 21.3 mph;
and Union Pacific, 21.3 mph versus 20.9 mph.
Finally for the
week ending February 2, 2007 and versus the comparable week last year, average
terminal dwell time was as follows: BNSF, 24.4 hrs versus 25.0 hrs; Canadian
Pacific Railway, 22.5 hrs versus 21.1 hrs; CSX, 23.7 hrs versus 26.0 hrs;
Kansas City Southern, 24.4 hrs versus 29.8 hrs; Norfolk Southern, 20.8 hrs
versus 24.3 hrs; and Union Pacific, 25.2 hrs versus 28.4 hrs. (ffd: AAR)
STILL MORE
STATS – 4TH QTR AND FULL YEAR 2006 RESULTS:
(WED) For the
fourth quarter of 2006, Kansas City Southern Railway reported net income of
$35.7 million, compared with $2.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2005.
Revenues were $442.4 million, compared with $388.1 million in the fourth
quarter of 2005. KCSR’s operating ratio was 80.1 percent, improved from 87.7
percent in the fourth quarter of 2005. (ffd: KCSR Corp.)
For the full
year 2006, KCSR’s net income totaled $89.4 million, compared with 2005’s total
of $91.4 million. Revenues totaled $1.659 billion, compared with 2005’s total
of $1.352 billion. KCSR’s 2006 operating ratio was 81.7 percent, improved from
its 2005 operating ratio of 88.3 percent. (ffd: KCSR Corp.)
EXPANSIONS,
CONTRACTIONS AND ALIKE:
(TUE)
Birmingham, AL-based Boatright Enterprises announced that it was purchasing the
St. Marys Railroad. The railroad, which operates between St.
Marys, FL and Kingsland,
FL, was purchased from LandMar Group, which
had purchased it from Durango-Georgia Paper Company just 6 weeks earlier. (ffd:
Florida Times-Union)
(THU) The State
of Washington announced that it
was purchasing, from shortline holding company Watco, the “third branch” of the
Palouse River & Coulee City Railroad, which runs from Coulee
City, WA to Cheney,
WA and Spokane,
WA. The state had purchased the railroad’s
other two branches in 2004. A state spokesman said that operation of two of the
branches will be put out to bid and that the branch running from Hooper, WA to Thornton,
WA will continue to be operated by Watco.
(ffd: State of Washington)
APPOINTMENTS,
ACHIEVEMENTS AND MILESTONES:
(MON) Norfolk
Southern announced that its VP-Human Resources, Thomas Mullenix, would retire
on March 1. Succeeding Mr. Mullenix will be Cindy Earhart, NS’s current
VP-Information Technology. Succeeding Ms. Earhart will be Tom Werner, NS’s
current AVP-Technology. (NOTE: We congratulate Ms. Earhart and Mr. Werner, the
latter a Weekly Rail Review reader since its 1999 startup.)
(WED) Kansas
City Southern Railway appointed Scott Mylin AVP-Revenue Accounting &
Disbursement. Mr. Myline was most recently with DST Output. (ffd: KCSR Corp.)
(THU) Kansas
City Southern Railway appointed Steve Evans AVP-Sales & Marketing-U.S.
Carload Business Unit. KCSR also appointed Matthew Franko AVP-Sales &
Marketing-International Agriculture & Minerals Business Unit. (ffd: KCSR
Corp.)
* * *
Weekly Rail
Review is edited from public news sources and published weekly to those working
in, or interested in, rail and transit. Send an e-mail to weeklyrailreview@aol.com
<mailto:weeklyrailreview@aol.com> to receive it, with my
compliments.
BE SAFE AND
PROSPER,
Dave Mears
Cherry
Hill, New Jersey, USA
Posted: 02/19/07