It Started a Long Time Ago

Early American railroad pioneer Colonel John Stevens was granted the first charter for a railroad in this country in 1815. It was from Trenton to New Brunswick in New Jersey, about where Amtrak's Northeast Corridor is today. But Stevens reported "... the public mind was not sufficiently enlightened to induce moneyed men to embark their funds in a project then considered wild and impracticable."

Move forward a few years to when Stevens was granted a charter to build a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia. Stevens' eyes were on the West and he thought of moving into the rich agricultural state of Ohio. Again private capital proved inadequate to this task. The Pennsylvania state government stepped in and directed its Canal Commissioners to layout a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia where it would connect to the state's canal system to the West. Surveying began in 1828, construction in 1829, and the line was officially opened in 1834. In 1836 locomotives replaced horses for all the road's trains and thus the Pennsylvania Railroad began.

In the first photo below the tracks cross from Lancaster, Pennsylvania's Dillerville Yard towards downtown Lancaster. Today the tracks end immediately after crossing the street. Once they carried all the passenger traffic into and out of the city center.


In the next photo below a "linear park" is all that remains of the old PRR tracks.

The Tracks Did Not Always Look Like Today

The first railroads like the Philadelphia and Columbia did not have steel rails cushioned on wooden ties and crushed stone ballast. They rode on iron strips on wood rails fastened to stone blocks called "sleepers". This example sits behind the depot in Christiana, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The 1829 Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad came through here on its way from the Belmont Incline in Philadelphia to the Columbia Incline in Columbia.

Two Steps Ahead of The Wrecking Ball

Trains magazine and The Center For Railroad Photography and Art are encouraging photographers to document their favorite railroad subject before it's gone forever. My favorite subject is Norfolk Southern Railroad and I'm going to document some of the aspects of the road's Dillerville Yard in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The easternmost, most historical section of this small yard is in the process of being relocated a short ways west. This will be of great benefit to the city as the rail yard has cut the city's northwest in two. For railfans it will represent the loss of some great subjects.

Let me begin in nearby Columbia, Pennsylvania. The photo below is of a street sign for Plane Street. The name comes from the early 19th century inclined plane which lowered and raised railroad cars from the Philadelphia and Columbia tracks to the level of the Susquehanna River in days when locomotives did not have the power to handle the grades required. The plane was 1800 feet long with a rise of 1 foot in 20, a total rise of 90 feet.

Old Safety New Safety Same Message

Above is a vintage grade crossing sign on display at Lewistown, Pennsylvania where the old PRR station I showed you last Friday (7/16) is located. Below is a contemporary version of the same located farther east in Myerstown, Pennsylvania. Their message remains the same: trains can come at any time from either direction; the train has the right-of-way at the crossing; it's up to you to "Stop, Listen, and Live".

High Speed Rail Could Ruin US Railroads

An article in "The Economist" gets at the problematic core of all the high speed passenger rail talk. The US has the best freight railroad system in the world and taking parts of it to run more more passenger rail of any speed could ruin it.

This blog has been maintaining for two years that plans for high speed passenger rail have to include plans for investing in dedicated rights of way for passengers. Rail owners (remember, unlike trucking companies, the railroads own their own roads) are worried about demands for very expensive train control technology that freight railroads don't need.

Don't run passenger trains over our freight rail network! One Amtrak train at 110 mph removes the capacity to run 6 freight trains on any corridor.

Read the article in The Economist, please. The problems facing America's freight rail system are mostly being created by dithering in Congress and the Federal Railroad Administration. Don't let them screw up the best transportation system on earth! Write your Congressional Representative and Senators and appeal to them to not interfere with one of the best free enterprise transportation systems in the world. Current talk in Washington sounds like the government wants a return to the old days of stifling regulation. Businesses can't make long range investment decisions in that sort of climate.

You Say "Tomato"

We call them "roundhouse" in the USA. In England it's "running shed". Under any name they were the home and maintenance clinic of the steam engine. This example is from the 19th century at the British-owned Rio Tinto mines near Seville, Spain. My grandfather, Herbert Carter, worked there in the late 19th century as a mechanical engineer. He married an English girl, fathered two children, and then lost his wife to cholera. He moved to Mexico where he worked as an engineer in the mining industry before becoming the Mexico representative of the Babcock & Wilcox boiler company. In Mexico he met my Mayflower descendant grandmother and at age 50 became a father to my dad. Our three generations now span almost 160 years.

Hurricanes Hurt

Press Release from Kansas City Southern Railroad

Kansas City, Mo., July 20, 2010. Kansas City Southern (KCS) (NYSE: KSU) today reported that its Mexican subsidiary, Kansas City Southern de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (KCSM) estimates that if there are no new complications, its Nuevo Laredo gateway will be reopened for service sometime this weekend with the Anahuac Bridge repairs underway and expected to be in service by then. With the anticipated restoration of service, all current service embargoes imposed on July 3 are expected to be lifted early next week.

“I have just completed my third inspection of the area and am pleased to report that very significant progress has been made,” said David L. Starling, KCS president and chief operating officer from Mexico. “As a result, we anticipate, if there are no further unforeseen complications, the Anahuac Bridge will reopen sometime this weekend and that we can restore service to the KCSM Nuevo Laredo gateway at that time. As a result, we plan to lift all current service embargoes imposed on July 3 early next week.

Divers were at the Anahuac Bridge yesterday and today to inspect the bridge’s piers under the water line. After their inspection, no pier damage was found and a missing beam was located and will be reused in the bridge repairs which are underway. Reopening of the Anahuac Bridge will allow the Nuevo Laredo gateway and the main line to Saltillo to reopen.

A secondary route being used to divert some limited cross border traffic is KCSM’s Matamoros to Monterrey “F” line. That line has reopened and traffic is moving at reduced speeds. Ballast and large rock has been added to segments of that line washed out over the weekend, allowing restored service to this line on a restricted basis.

The “F” line was closed on Friday for 12 hours as local authorities in Reynosa prepared for flooding anticipated by the release of water from the nearby Falcon Dam upstream from Reynosa. On Saturday, July 17, the International Boundary and Water Commission had to open flood gates at the Falcon Dam where the water level was at 128 percent of capacity. As a result, the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande and Salado rivers overflowed and washed out track at two locations near Reynosa on Sunday afternoon.

KCSM continues to monitor water levels in various areas around the “F” line and is hopeful that they will continue to recede over the coming days. However, periods of rain fall are expected over the next couple days so this situation remains day to day for the time being.

Rail service in northern Mexico has been disrupted for all carriers as a result of Hurricane Alex, which made landfall in northeast Mexico on June 30. Highway infrastructure throughout northern Mexico also was severely damaged. The hurricane caused significant track damage around the Monterrey and Saltillo areas as well as on the lines to Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.

A Little "Spider"

Around 1885 or so my grandfather, Herbert Carter (second from the right), was working at British-Owned Rio Tinto mines in Spain as a mechanical engineer. This little 2 foot gauge 0-4-0T locomotive shows the name Arana, or spider. I think the British builder did not use the correct spelling Araña, but I know what they meant.

Our Rail System is Not Mired in The Past

Some folks keep pointing out how poorly Amtrak compares to Europe and Japan's high speed passenger railroads. You can even speed from Guangzhou to Wuhan, China at 220 miles per hour. The big difference is American railroads haul freight, those other folks haul passengers. In the USA we put more than 40% of our freight ton miles on rails. In Europe it's more like 15%. Our rails with their wooden ties and crushed stone ballast are sometimes a subject of jokes. There's a reason for what you see. Freight trains weigh many times what those Euro-Asian passenger trains do. A fully loaded freight car can weigh 150 tons. Compare that to 42 tons for a fully loaded French passenger car, or even less for a Japanese one.

Americans should realistically start considering buying new railroads rights of way and new tracks before even starting to think about high speed passenger trains. Our existing railroads were designed for 60 MPH heavy freight trains. They have too many curves and road crossings to be upgraded to passenger service. Let's get real!

In the meantime let's be thankful that America's freight railroads do such a good job at reducing the transportation carbon footprint.

More details in The Washington Post

The Oldest Remaining Pennsy Station

The oldest standing structure built by the Pennsylvania Railroad is the Lewistown station, across the Juniata River from Lewistown, about 60 miles west of Harrisburg on the old Pennsylvania Railroad (now Norfolk Southern) main line between New York and Chicago. This 1849 building is owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society and houses the extremely valuable Pennsylvania Railroad archives. It is the oldest continuously operated train station in the United States.

Lewistown is served by Amtrak's Pennsylvanian with one daily train in each direction between New York and Pittsburgh. Below is the Eastbound Pennsylvanian on a warm Summer day in July 2010.

Spain - Rio Tinto Mines 19th Century

The British mining company, Rio Tinto, had large open cast zinc mining works near Seville, Spain and its seaport, Huelva. This 3 Ft. 6 In. gauge 0-6-0 tank engine is by a maker unknown to me. What I do know is the gentleman with his foot up on the locomotive step is my grandfather, Herbert Fuller Carter (1853-1936), mechanical engineer, of London. He started his engineering education as an apprentice in the drawing room of the Great Western Railway in Swindon, England. He signed a contract with Rio Tinto Copper & Zinc in 1875. In Spain he married an English girl, fathered a boy and a girl, and then buried his first wife (a cholera victim).

New Jersey to get More Trains

This year (2008) regional public rail transit company New Jersey Transit is planning to add more weekend and off-peak trains to relieve crowded New Jersey Highways. Additional service has already been added to the Pascack Valley line between Spring Valley, NY and Hoboken, NJ. Additional rush hour service was also added to the Raritan Valley line between Raritan and Phillipsburg.

Opposition to the service expansion was raised by nine New Jersey municipalities who brought a lawsuit on the grounds that new sidings would permit long freight trains carrying toxic materials to operate. Since the line dead-ends at Spring Valley, NY the long freight train argument amounted to a red herring. As a result of settlement agreement the new sidings were not built and some of the new trains skip some of the stations.

New plans for New Jersey Transit include additional service on the Montclair-Boonton line including rehabilitation of the ex-Lackawanna Broad Street Station in Newark.

It's not easy for public transit officials. The public wants expanded service and relief of road congestion as long it is not in their backyard.

Freight on High Speed Passenger Rails

One bright spot now (2010) is the proposed high-speed passenger line from Orlando, Florida to the Tampa Bay area using dedicated rails between the lanes of Interstate Highway 4.

OK, I think I've established that Amtrak, our national passenger rail service faces big problems affecting whether it can operate into the future, or even into the next year. One of the biggest problems is Amtrak does not have any tracks of its own outside the Northeast Corridor; and it doesn't even have full operating freedom there.

In most of the United States Amtrak operates on tracks owned by freight railroads, mostly the "big four": Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific. These and other freight carriers are experiencing operating problems due to limits on their rail capacity. Solutions include laying more track and increasing traffic density with more sophisticated signaling and dispatching. All the solutions mean big capital expenditures, mostly of the private type. At the same time we expect these roads to give some kind of priority to passenger trains that do not yield them much income.

Lets look at Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, the 457 miles from Boston South Station to Washington Union Station. Two segments of this route are owned by others. The 38 miles from South Station to the Rhode Island state line are owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The 57 miles from New Haven, Connecticut to New Rochelle, New York are owned by those two states. Over the entire route Amtrak shares the tracks with six local commuter lines and a multitude of freight railroads that have running rights over Amtrak's rails.

The freight railroads operating over Amtrak's rails are charged the full allocated share of overall costs of running their trains on the Northeast Corridor. On the other hand Amtrak only pays the "incremental costs" of running their trains over the country's freight rails.

Amtrak says that 2006 payments from Norfolk Southern, CSX, Providence & Worcester, and Conrail Shared Assets Organization amounted to $16 million.

This questions remains unresolved: "How can you operate regional commuter lines and freight over a true high speed passenger line?"

Stay Alive

You want to get a picture of that locomotive. You figure you'll just walk up between the tracks for a ways and shoot one. The locomotive doesn't look like it's moving fast. It's hardly moving. The horn's blowing for some reason. It should be OK to shoot a photo from the center of the tracks, shouldn't it?

It's actually going 55 miles per hour. That's 81 feet per second and you're about 3 seconds from the end of your life.

Railroad tracks are private property. Stay off! Stay Away! Stay Alive!

There are plenty of safe places to take train photos. I do a lot of photo shoots without trespassing. You can too.

Check out a great safety website by clicking here.

CSX Transportation photo.

Heat Wave and the Rails

The heat wave in the Northeast this week is causing a rash of slow orders on practically all railroads from the commuter lines to the freights to the Northeast Corridor. Lots of inspectors are out on rail kink alert.

Good report here from PBS.

Hazmat Alert Near Me

This morning between 1 and 4 a road crossing Norfolk Southern Railroad's Dillerville Yard in Lancaster, Pennsylvania was closed while Lancaster County hazmat crews and Lancaster City firemen investigated a reported leak from a tank car that turned out to be carrying styrene. The photo above shows the road crossing (top left) near where the leak was detected by a railroad employee.

The problem turned out to be a malfunctioning relief valve on the tank car owned by Shell Oil. The load originated in Canada and was consigned to the Lancaster County plant of Dart Container. Dart uses styrene in the manufacture of plastic foam cups.

No railroad employees or firemen were injured in the event.

Are We in a Double Dip?

This article from the Wall Street Journal would seem to argue against the double dip based on current statistics from American railroads.

Although markets are on double-dip alert, the recovery in U.S. rail volumes has so far stayed pretty much on track.

Over the past two months, combined weekly traffic for new carloads and intermodal shipments is about 14% higher than a year ago, according to the Association for American Railroads.

That compares with an average 12% annual gain in March and April and 2% in the first two months of the year.

Certainly, early 2009 was a weak point for rail traffic. Yet, in some cases, volumes are getting back toward pre-meltdown levels. For intermodal shipments, those that move by more than one type of transit, volumes in late June hit their highest since November 2008.

Market analysts are expecting big US railroads like CSX to report very strong results for the second quarter of 2010.

Regional Commuter Rail Challenges

From 10/9/2008

The economic meltdown, currently underway, keeps changing the transportation landscape daily. It makes the job of keeping track of rail transportation complicated to say the least. Fuel costs are high but dropping quickly. Capital markets for investing in new transportation needs are quickly shrinking as well. Capital costs of commuter rail of both the light and standard rail types are largely funded by public bond issues. Reports keep coming in about difficulties in issuing new bonds to pay for public transportation expansion and refurbishment.

See this report from Kansas in Business Week Magazine.

or from Texas in the Houston Chronicle.

A Government Bailout That Worked

A trucking company owner (whose trucks operate on state-built, state-owned highways) I was talking to earlier this year referred to Conrail as “Communist Rail”. I did not directly respond to his characterization, but told him that in my opinion Conrail saved railroading in the Northeast.

Source: Bulletin of The National Railroad Historical Society, Winter 2005

On April 1, 1976 Conrail took over seven bankrupt railroads as mandated by the Regional Rail Reorganization Act 0f 1973. The new company was named Consolidated Rail Corporation. Fifteen percent of the company’s stock was reserved for the company’s employees and 85 percent for the U. S. Department of Transportation. The company’s early demise was widely predicted.

After a slow start, Conrail rebuilt the tracks and rolling stock fleets of its predecessors: Penn Central, Central of New Jersey, Erie Lackawanna, Lehigh Valley, Reading, Lehigh & Hudson River and Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines. Along the way the new carrier shed the local commuter operations they had been initially saddled with. Congress, at the same time, gave railroads more authority to set their own freight rates.

After 45 months of intensive rehabilitation, Conrail in 1979 began to provide a level of service that met most of the rail transportation needs of its shippers in the Northeast and Midwest regions. In 1981, L. Stanley Crane, retired Southern Railroad president, became chairman and CEO of Conrail. Together with senior vice president-operations Richard B. Hasselman, Crane cut costs, streamlined operations and built a reputation for providing fast and reliable freight service. In 1981 Conrail captured the Golden Freight Car, one of the rail industry’s most prestigious marketing awards. That year also saw Congressional approval of the Northeast Rail Service Act, which in effect gave the railroad more time to become profitable by laying out a timetable for “an orderly return of Conrail freight service to the private sector.”

If there was one marketing development that offered flexibility for Conrail and its major customers is was the shipper contract. Forbidden under the Interstate Commerce Act from 1887 until 1980, when the Staggers Act loosened governmental restraints, the contract was where innovative pricing and tailored service came together. Conrail was a pioneer in exploiting this opportunity, negotiating more than 180 contracts by 1982. One example was unit-train service instituted for Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, which led to a ten-year contract for transporting oil between Albany and Oswego, N.Y. The utility had previously shipped by barge and was forced to stockpile a supply during the winter months when the Great Lakes were frozen.

Elizabeth Dole became U.S. Secretary of Transportation in 1982. She was quite confident that the sale of Conrail would be a crowning achievement of her career. Dole picked Norfolk Southern who had bid $1.2 billion for the government’s 85 percent ownership of Conrail’s common stock. She believed that NS had the “deep pockets” to see Conrail through tough times and could provide the most cash to the government. Staking much of her reputation on this choice, Dole declared that NS offered the best deal for the American taxpayer. With that, the proposed sale to NS became an objective of the Reagan Administration. Dole had not reckoned on L. Stanley Crane.

By 1986, following much lobbying in congress, Conrail was sold to the public in an IPO that netted the U.S. Treasury $1.6 billion. By 1989 Conrail had earned $2.5 billion on gross revenues of $26.2 billion over the 8 years of Crane’s leadership. In 1997, following a bidding war by NS and CSX to buy Conrail, the railroad was sold to NS and CSX for an astounding $10.2 billion, with NS paying the larger share. On June 1, 1999 Conrail operations came to an end.

While Conrail as a separate entity existed for only 23 years, its leadership and rank-and-file employees can be justly proud of what they accomplished in that short time. The turned a collection of threadbare, bankrupt properties into a profitable, efficient system which provided a new standard of service to the Northeastern United States. While many have referred to the region as the ‘rust belt,” Conrail demonstrated that the prudent investment of government money can pay off handsomely in economic benefits for the entire nation. The Conrail experience has helped restore the good name of railroading in the eyes of industry and government professionals, and has benefited the millions of customers who depend on low-cost, efficient transportation to enhance the American way of life.

Can Passenger Rail be Self-Supporting?

If you read into the implications of this report, the answer might be “no”.

Source: The Wall Street Journal 10/3/2008

Bush to Sign Bill to Nearly Double Amtrak Funding

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush will sign legislation that boosts funding for Amtrak and other passenger-rail services, setting up a broader debate next year over federal transportation spending that highlights differences between the two major candidates seeking to succeed Mr. Bush.

The White House announcement Thursday came a day after the Senate approved the bill by a 74-24 vote. The House passed it last week. The legislation provides roughly $13 billion for Amtrak and passenger-rail funding over five years, nearly double current spending levels. The bill also contains a mandate for rail operators to equip trains with collision-avoidance technology that could have prevented last month's head-on crash in California that killed 25 people.

The number of riders on Amtrak, commuter rail and rapid-transit services has soared this year along with gasoline prices, leading Congress to increase federal support. The shift to rail and away from cars -- Americans have been driving less for nearly a year now -- will also affect next year's debate on a transportation-spending bill that could cost as much as $500 billion. Currently, the federal government spends more than $40 billion annually on highways, roughly $10 billion on mass transit and about $1.4 billion on Amtrak. Advocates of shifting those ratios in favor of rail and mass transit hope to seize on the opportunity presented by rising energy prices.

The debate over how federal dollars are distributed will take place with a new president in the White House. The Amtrak vote offered a preview of how Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama would approach the issue.

Sen. McCain, the Republican nominee, a consistent critic of the nation's money-losing long-distance rail provider, voted against the measure. Sen. Obama, the Democratic candidate, voted for it; he routinely advocates an expansion of passenger-rail service.

In opposing the bill, Sen. McCain emphasized accountability and the need to set priorities at a time when the government is considering a $700 billion package to stem the financial crisis.

"With the financial situation facing our nation, this multibillion-dollar commitment of taxpayers' dollars could be dedicated to addressing far more important national priorities," a McCain spokesman said in an email Thursday.

The spokesman also singled out an earmark in the bill that would steer $1.5 billion over 10 years to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which operates bus and rail service in the nation's capital.

After casting his vote Wednesday night, Sen. Obama issued a statement in keeping with his broader calls to invest in roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure.

"American businesses and families deserve to have safe, reliable and efficient transportation options," he said. "For far too long, our nation's lack of investment in too many aspects of our infrastructure has undermined that important goal."

The competing views reflect a long-running argument between the Bush administration and many in Congress.

The administration had proposed lower Amtrak funding and a diminished federal role in transportation spending, calling instead for greater private investment and fewer earmarks. Many Democrats have pushed back, insisting on more rail funding as well as more spending on bridge repairs and transit systems.

Going forward, debate will also focus on whether to allocate federal dollars differently. Several Democratic leaders who will play key roles in the coming transportation debate say concerns over congestion, pollution and oil consumption should lead to greater spending on passenger-rail service.

"We spend more than $40 billion each year on highways...but only a little over $1 billion on rail, and we had to fight tooth and nail to get that," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. "This is going to change."

Coming up: A Successful Government Bailout