Booming growth on freight railroads

[KJP]

I wonder if this seemingly innocuous project could provide impetus for trackwork that would begin to open up a Lakefront Bypass for freight trains (see http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=10544.0 or
http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3384.msg95259#msg95259 )...
______________

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1146558822175410.xml&coll=2

Historic brownfield new home for trucks
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Joan Mazzolini
Plain Dealer Reporter

Cuyahoga County provided a $1 million loan Monday to develop the site of John D. Rockefeller's first oil refinery, south of downtown Cleveland, to help a trucking company expand its freight distribution facility.

[KJP]

http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business/1151138187251370.xml&coll=2

Shippers hop aboard
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Peter Krouse
Plain Dealer Reporter

Have you noticed a greater number of freight trains rum bling through Cleveland in recent years?

Chances are you have. Perhaps on the Norfolk South ern line as it crosses Chester Avenue in Midtown, or maybe along the CSX track as it runs parallel to the Norfolk Southern near University Circle.

Shippers across the country have been putting more and more freight on trains as the economics of hauling by rail have become more favorable.

[noozer]

What this article doesn't say is that by addressing the critical need for increasing capacity on our rail system, it will also enable many of the passenger rail projects (like the Ohio Hub and Midwest Regional Rail) to move from the planning table to reality.  Clearly a federal rail infrastructure development and funding bill is needed.

[KJP]

Here's a map of the U.S. rail system that may be of interest... The colored lines not only indicate which lines are owned by which companies, but which lines are double-tracked (ie: has continuous sections of two parallel tracks like a two-way street). We here in Cleveland are fortunate to have two double-tracked rail lines -- CSX Transportation's and Norfolk Southern's east-west mainlines. Among other functions, they serve as a bypass route for Pacific-Atlantic ocean container traffic that can't go through the Panama Canal because the ships are too large. But I digress...here's the map:



While this map is slightly out of date, as more and more sections are seeing double track built/restored to handle booming rail traffic growth, it still saddens me that we lost so much capacity from the 1950s into the 1980s. Imagine the map having three times as much double-tracked rail lines as there are now...

[Robert Pence]

That illustrates one of the problems with US transportation policy. Railroads pay property tax on their infrastructure, including right-of-way, track and signaling systems. The business-school graduates who have taken over much of railroad management have no comprehension of the realities of railroad operations, including seasonal and cyclical traffic patterns, and a major component of their cost-control activity has been the removal of infrastructure they see as redundant, especially double track.

A notable casualty was the former Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad that was a major link in the PRR, later Conrail, New York - Chicago mainline. It once carried a lot of traffic, and prior to 1990 it carried two Amtrak trains each way, each day (Broadway Limited and Capitol Limited). It also served as a backup for the former NY Central route through South Bend in the event of major track work or accident-caused interruptions. One night when the Lake Shore Limited was detoured through Fort Wayne, I saw three Amtrak trains at Fort Wayne's Baker Street station at one time!

CSX got that route as part of the partition of Conrail, and removed the second track and the signaling system, and turned it over for operation to Chicago, Fort Wayne & Eastern, a RailAmerica operation. In its current state it can only handle local feeder traffic instead of supplementing the Water Level Route farther north.

[KJP]

You look at that map and consider your part of Indiana, which had four double-tracked (or better) rail lines passing through on the way to Chicago... New York Central (now NS), Baltimore & Ohio (CSX), Pennsylvania RR (now CSX-leased to RailAmerica) and Erie RR (gone). It's pretty pathetic that, at one point in the late 1990s, there was only one double-tracked line left in your area -- the former New York Central. So I guess we could say that things are getting better after CSX plunked down $200+ million to put the second track back on the old B&O!

[noozer]

Rush Loving Jr.: $60 billion annually in road tie-ups -- Trains answer to U.S. transport crisis
Providence (R.I.) Journal
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, August 9, 2006

THIS COUNTRY is facing a transportation crisis. Highways around most large cities are jammed. Drivers must wrestle with at least 10 urban bottlenecks between Boston and northern Virginia. Between Tampa and Detroit, truckers must thread their way through at least six major tie-ups. Even outside urban areas, interstates such as Route 95 are overcrowded and often closed because of accidents or breakdowns.

Although most people do not realize it, a jammed transport system can seriously impair the nation's economy. Our leaders worry for good reason about the possible impact on America of terrorists, but they fail to recognize that growing highway congestion can also wreak serious damage. Fortunately no lives are lost, but the nation's economic strength does suffer.


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Online at: http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20060809_09loving.1bdb392.html

[Robert Pence]

Long-haul trucking consumes three to five times more oil per ton-mile than moving freight by rail. That's in addition to the costs incurred by highway congestion.

[noozer]

And yet we have no federal policy directed toward the redevelopment and expansion of our rail systems for handling either passengers or freight.

We need to be sending Loving's op-ed to each of our representatives in both Columbus and D.C.

[noozer]

This report is typical of what I've been seeing for well over a year.  The demand for moving freight by rail is steadily growing, but the capacity to move it is not keeping pace.  This is why significant federal legislation is needed.  This would not only increase capacity but create a train-load of jobs as well..... somebody's got to build this stuff.


U.S. Freight Railroads Traffic Gains


Contact: Tom White
(202) 639-2556
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U.S. Freight Railroads Traffic Gains

Carload Freight up 1.2 Percent for Week Ending Aug. 5

WASHINGTON, August 10, 2006 - Freight traffic on U.S. railroads rose during the week ended August 5 in comparison with the corresponding week last year, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported today.



http://aar.org/Index.asp?NCID=3814

[clvlndr]

I'm not a freight rail expert, but having grown up here and visited many other cities, even industrial ones, it appears Cleveland has a stellar system of freight lines in its city and metro area.  We seem to have a well organized system (esp with that belt line that can divert traffic off much of the lake and thru downtown).  We have a ton of lines that radiate from downtown -- a tribute, I guess, from our one-time prowess as a rail passenger hub (hopefully, we can recapture some of that w/ the new Amtrak plan).  We also seem to have a lot more grade-separation, esp inside Cleveland, than other cities.  Only Philadelphia, and, obviously, New York, from my observation, would best us in grade separation.  Of course, those 2 towns also are the only ones w/ extensive electrified commuter rail systems utilizing most of that grade separation.

Our wealth in such frieghtlines makes it easy to see why we opted to exploit them when we built the Rapid.  I know the Rapid routing isn't perfect for a number of reasons, esp viz the Euclid corridor where a subway should have been built, but laying transit track in extant ROWs makes a lot of sense for a city of moderate size and density (the Rapid does serve or go near a lot of the city's key neighborhoods).  The Van Sweringen's realized this early on when they built the 1st Rapid lines to Shaker and, in the process, completely segregated passenger rail through the new Union Terminal and off the lakefront -- the big fight during WWI among leaders, of course, was between the lakefront and Public Sq for our passenger terminal -- I'm certainly glad the Vans won. 

It's ironic, therefore, that a) the AMTRAK passenger station returned to the site where the grand Mall-crowning station would have stood and, b) today, there's a tug of war (carried over to this board) btw relocating the conv center from the lake to Public Square.

On a side note, I sure hope a plan (noted in the Matt Zone thread) to relocate thru frieghts along the outer-belt line away from downtown and the Lake becomes a reality.  Indeed, I don't see how the promising Amtrak Ohio Hub plan can become a reality with so many frieghts running through the proposed North Coast station area.

[KJP]

As far as passenger rail goes, Cleveland was less of a passenger rail hub than cities of comparable size. At its peak, Cleveland hosted 90 regularly scheduled passenger trains a day, whereas Cincinnati had 125 and St. Louis 260. Cleveland was a freight railroad hub, much of which was for getting iron ore off the lake freighters to places like Youngstown and Pittsburgh. Consider that it once had four routes to the southeast (Erie RR, Pennsylvania RR, New York Central/Lake Erie & Pittsburgh/Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, and Baltimore & Ohio), where as it had only two each to the west, southwest and northeast.

Chicago also has few grade crossings, as it long ago passed an ordinance requiring all railroads within city limits to have grade-separated rights of way. Cleveland never passed such a law, but a number of railroad grade-separated their lines anyway. Most active in this regard was the Nickel Plate RR, which in 1915-16 completely grade separated its right of way through Cleveland. Also, many older industrial cities like Cleveland have (or had) belt-line railroads, but ours was built to mainline quality standards. Many other belt-line railroads are (were) for industrial access and thus had lots of grade crossings and were fairly low-speed operations.

[Robert Pence]

... At its peak, Cleveland hosted 90 regularly scheduled passenger trains a day, whereas Cincinnati had 125 and St. Louis 260. ...

I read once that Fort Wayne rail passenger traffic peaked in the years shortly after World War One with 110 daily scheduled passenger trains, not including five interurban lines that radiated out from the city. The major steam roads were Pennsylvania, Wabash and Nickel Plate, and the same article said that about 40 of those 110 trains were on the Pennsylvania.

One of the interurbans ran frequent service to Indianapolis and Louisville, and the other ran multiple daily trips to Lafayette through Huntington, Wabash, Peru and Logansport. The interurbans stole passenger traffic from the steam roads with convenience, cleanliness and short-haul speed, and by the late 1930s the interurbans were dropping like flies before the onslaught of automobiles and paved highways.

[KJP]

Paved highways was the key point. The so-called love affair with the automobile wasn't possible as long as cars were stuck in the mud.

[clvlndr]

Chicago also has few grade crossings, as it long ago passed an ordinance requiring all railroads within city limits to have grade-separated rights of way. Cleveland never passed such a law, but a number of railroad grade-separated their lines anyway. Most active in this regard was the Nickel Plate RR, which in 1915-16 completely grade separated its right of way through Cleveland. Also, many older industrial cities like Cleveland have (or had) belt-line railroads, but ours was built to mainline quality standards. Many other belt-line railroads are (were) for industrial access and thus had lots of grade crossings and were fairly low-speed operations.

You may be right about the law, but there are still quite a number of grade crossing in town.  I once rode in town on the Metra from Shamburg and was quite surprised by the number of grade crossing practically all the way into Union Station in the city.  Also, don't forget the famous South Chicago branch of the old IC/Metra electric that has big, bi-level electric commuter cars trundling down the middle of 71st (?) street as though it were Shaker or Van Aken.  Also, I know of at least one L line (Brown Line) that, toward its end, drops down onto street level, through the backyards and crosses a number of streets at level, exposing pedestrians to the live 3rd rail which, unlike other systems, Chicago's doesn't seem to cover for some reason.

... your comments about Cleveland's relative lack of historic passenger rail traffic is interesting.  I guess the Vans were groundbreaking (no pun intended) in putting their rail terminal at the center of business district underground while developing air rights overhead.   New York's the only other city I've seen do this.  Most passenger terminals are at the periphery of their downtowns, some (Cincy, Baltimore, Detroit) weren't/aren't downtown at all... But from what I understand -- in accord w/ your comments -- the Vans blew in rolling the dice on passenger RRing in Cleveland in the late 20s; that plus the Depression cost them their empire -- and ultimately, their lives.

[KJP]

I believe Chicago's ordinance applied only to the steam/freight roads and not to interurbans, streetcars or other passenger railways. The purpose wasn't to segregate the traffic as much as it was to keep street traffic from being blocked by long, slow freight trains -- especially with all the interchange traffic and rail yards in Chicago. That may explain why the IC electric's South Chicago branch was allowed to remain on 71st Street.

As for the Metra Elgin Line you rode in to town from Schaumburg on, consider how far out Schaumburg is. I'm not saying you didn't see what you saw, but you traveled more than 20 miles before you got to the Chicago city limits, with another 9-10 miles from there to Union Station. And I believe there are still some grade crossings left on that line in Chicago -- one of them being right outside the entrance to Union Station.

BTW, lots of big-city train stations were built in the late 20s or early 30s, though the planning for them tended to start right after WWI. Cleveland Union Terminal was no different, as voters awarded a station-construction franchise to the Vans in 1919.

[John Schneider]

A friend of mine who works in economic development in Cincinnati said that inquiries about new plants in our area are almost always today accompanied by questions about the availability of rail. Five years ago, those kind of questions were never asked.

[noozer]

Not only that, but I can tell you with some authority that the availability of rail service is often a deal maker or deal breaker.  Most companies are turning more and more to using rail because it is simply more cost-efficient than long-haul trucking.  One of the reasons Maytag/Whirlpool closed it's flagship plant in Newton, Iowa and brought those jobs to two locations in Ohio was because rail access was better and that the Ohio Rail Development Commission worked with the communities and the company to help fund improvements to the rail infrastructure.
 

[DaninDC]

your comments about Cleveland's relative lack of historic passenger rail traffic is interesting.  I guess the Vans were groundbreaking (no pun intended) in putting their rail terminal at the center of business district underground while developing air rights overhead.   New York's the only other city I've seen do this.  Most passenger terminals are at the periphery of their downtowns, some (Cincy, Baltimore, Detroit) weren't/aren't downtown at all.

I would guess this has more to do with the geography of downtown Cleveland than anything else.  Considering that Public Square sits 70 feet above the level of Lake Erie, the underground train station was easier to build than if elsewhere, as it would be more an excavation than a tunneling project.  The development above the station was likely used to finance the construction of the terminal.  Anyone more knowledgable, feel free to correct me. 

While Baltimore's Penn Station is in the Mount Vernon Square area uptown, Camden Station (B&O) is smack downtown, right behind the warehouse you see in right field of the baseball stadium.  Unfortunately, that station is only used by a handful of commuter trains a day.  Kinda curious as to how Grand Central Terminal fits into this picture, though.  While not downtown, it certainly is in the middle of a large business district.... 

[KJP]

My take Dan is that it would have been easier for the Vans to build a surface station on Public Square, based on the elevation issue. For westbound trains heading out of Cleveland Union Terminal, they had to negotiate a relatively sharp curve and climb a 1%+ grade on the Cuyahoga Valley viaduct. That's not a great way to come out of a station. But the Vans wanted a subterranean station above which they could build their real estate portfolio -- which is what the Vans ultimately were all about.

[DaninDC]

I'll buy that.  I'm sure it was far easier to build CUT, though, than Grand Central Terminal or New York Penn, which involved a heck of a lot of tunneling through rock.

[KJP]

Don't forget the statistic that the Cleveland Union Terminal was the largest excavation project since the Panama Canal. And I seem to recall it may have even been larger than that. Although, like you said, it didn't involve blasting through rock.

[Eigth and State]

KJP, are there any good books about the Cleveland Union Terminal project?

[KJP]

Yes, a few of them. One of them is actually posted on-line at

http://www.clevelandmemory.org/SpecColl/cut/dedbk/cut.html

It's a reprint of a book published in 1930. I bought a reprint of it during CUT's 50th anniversary.

Another book is "The Terminal Tower Complex" by Jim Toman and Dan Cook. It is Volume I of the Cleveland Landmark Series and published by Cleveland Landmarks Press Inc. (at least my 1980 copy was!).

But probably the best book of all is "Invisible Giants" by Herbert H . Harwood Jr. The book is about the Van Sweringen brothers and how they built their empire. They initiated a development and used it build something larger, and used that to build something even bigger, and so on. Thus, ultimately the book leads up to the construction of the Cleveland Union Terminal complex (a $1.6 billion investment in today's dollars). Fascinating stuff! Here is a link to a description about the book:

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=20113

The book is also available at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0253341639/103-2895885-9319003?v=glance&n=283155

[Robert Pence]

Also, The Nickel Plate Story, by John A. Rehor. It's 400+ pages and went through five printings from 1965 through 1994. It's now out of print, and good used first editions are somewhat collectible, going for as much as $50 - $75. It covers the history of the Nickel Plate Railroad from end to end, and for just about the entire life of the company, and Cleveland and the Terminal Tower project are a significant part of that history. The book has photos of the stations and other facilities that were replaced by the project.

[noozer]

http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2006/09/04/daily7.html 

Heartland Corridor project receives $95M in federal funds
Business First of Columbus - 2:29 PM EDT Tuesday

The Federal Highway Administration said Tuesday it is releasing $95 million for construction of the Heartland Corridor, giving Norfolk Southern Corp. and the states of Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia the green light to begin raising overpasses on a rail route across the region.
 

[noozer]

September 5, 2006

Agreement Reached On Federal Funding For Heartland Corridor

NORFOLK, VA -- The States of Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia, Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC), and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) at the U.S. Department of Transportation announced today that the three states and Norfolk Southern’s operating subsidiary, Norfolk Southern Railway Company, have entered into Memoranda of Agreement with FHWA that govern the release of $95 million in federal funding for the Heartland Corridor rail double-stack clearance project.

The Heartland Corridor will enable double-stacked international maritime and domestic containers to be transported by rail between the Hampton Roads region of Virginia and locations in the Midwest by raising tunnel clearances and modifying other overhead obstructions in western Virginia, West Virginia, and through to Columbus, Ohio.

Through mutual agreement among all the parties, FHWA’s Eastern Federal Lands Highway Division will serve as project leader.

The Heartland Corridor Project is a public-private partnership whose purpose is to expand capacity, improve service consistency and reduce customer availability times by up to one day for intermodal traffic between the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest, providing opportunities for economic development in all three affected states, as well as benefits to the nation overall.  The Heartland Corridor was designated as a Project of National and Regional Significance under the recently enacted SAFETEA LU legislation.  Improvements in the efficient movement of international and domestic containers will be achieved under Heartland via rail, providing an effective alternative to over-the-road movement of freight.

With all of the funding agreements in place, the parties to the agreements can now move to complete the engineering and environmental studies required, with the goal of
beginning construction of the project soon thereafter.  The parties expect the clearance construction to be completed by the end of 2009.

“This is an important public-private partnership that will result in significant public benefits, including increased access for the Port of Virginia and increased movement of freight by rail as opposed to on the highways,” said Virginia Governor Tim Kaine.  “I’m pleased with the multistate and federal partnership that has enabled this project to advance.”

“Harnessing the strength of the Port of Huntington Tri-State, which ranks as the seventh largest port and the largest inland river port in the United States, with the Port of Virginia and Port of Columbus creates an 1100-mile corridor of unprecedented economic opportunity,” said West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin. “Bringing both the public and private sectors together proves that not one, but three states have a greater capacity for potential economic development.  The Heartland Corridor presents another opening for business opportunity for West Virginia to participate in the global market place.”

“This is an important step to address the critical and growing need to increase the capacity for our rail systems to move freight, especially at a time when so much of it is moving by container between our nation and international markets”, said Ohio Rail Development Commission Executive Director James Seney.  “Coupled with the Rickenbacker Intermodal Hub now being built near Columbus, getting the Heartland Corridor Project underway will increase efficiencies for shippers and further strengthen our region's strategic importance in the global economy.”

“This project is a prime example of how a public-private partnership can result in major benefit to the economy,” said Norfolk Southern CEO Wick Moorman. “The expanded rail capacity and improved transit times between Hampton Roads and the Midwest will stimulate economic growth throughout the region and enhance the nation’s ability to compete for international trade.”

“Transportation will play a huge role in our nation’s ability to remain competitive in the global marketplace—five, ten, fifty years into the future,” said Federal Highway Administrator J. Richard Capka. “This transportation improvement provides an efficient alternative to over-the-road freight movement and promises to reduce congestion.”

###

Norfolk Southern contact:
(Media) Robin Chapman, 757-629-2713, (robin.chapman@nscorp.com)

http://www.nscorp.com/nscorp/application;JSESSIONID_nscorp=E92iHqUXG15ReWfVJ2NWRA0nqLgeo1QkW3ixcsmgVuyWY2ZxZKyr!-621522835?origin=content.jsp&event=bea.portal.framework.internal.refresh&pageid=NS+News&contentId=english/nscorp/news/whats_new/whats_new/news080506.html

[noozer]

Central Ohio expected to see economic boost from railroads

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RICK ADAMCZAK
Daily Reporter Staff Writer
09/07/2006

Columbus is expected to get an economic boost for years to come from a source of economic development that has existed for more than a century: railroads.

read more at:
http://www.sourcenews.com/news/today/cdr_b.lasso
"These projects are all connected and multi-dimensional," said Nicholson.

[KJP]

Can someone who has a subscription to Crain's Cleveland Business post an article from this week's edition? The article is about more shippers choosing rail over trucks in the face of high fuel prices. Thanks in advance.

[noozer]

Rail workers hustle to keep profit on track
Crews trim time that trains spend idle to keep up with demand
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Josh Funk
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. — Something is almost always moving on the tightly packed 315 miles of railroad track here that Guinness World Records says is the world’s largest rail yard.

Readd more at:
http://dispatch.com/business-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/10/01/20061001-B2-01.html