MOBILE, Ala. — In a filing with the Surface Transportation Board earlier this month, CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern asserted the railroads’ freight operation will suffer a “catastrophic meltdown” if Amtrak is allowed to add two daily passenger round trips between New Orleans and Mobile.
Yet the 277-page “opening evidence” document by the two carriers [see “CSX, NS, say Gulf Coast passenger service would ‘devastate’ freight operations,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 4, 2021] repeats challengeable assertions that had been the basis of previous CSX-commissioned studies. The claims are coupled with enough specious logic or mis-represented current operating realities to severely compromise the HNTB Corp. and R.L. Banks and Associates Rail Traffic Controller modeling report. It proposes 14 projects that include 23 miles of sidings and second main track.
Relying on that report, CSX and NS commissioned a companion cost study by V3 Companies, Inc., that pegs the cost of improvements needed before any passenger trains may operate at between $405.6 million and $440.9 million.
Statutes place the burden on CSX and Norfolk Southern to prove the proposed passenger trains would “impair unreasonably existing freight transportation.”
Three questionable assumptions drive the modeling conclusions:
On-demand bridge lifts: The filing contends that “federal regulation” requires movable bridges to be opened whenever a boat shows up “at unpredictable times and for extended periods and for multiple times per day.”
This assertion was the cornerstone of a CSX-sponsored consultant’s report four years ago calling for double-track approaches on both sides of many movable bridges, part of improvements totaling $2.2 billion between New Orleans and Jacksonville, Fla. But scheduling bridge lifts are common where passenger trains operate, as U. S. Coast Guard and FRA officials reminded CSX after that study was issued. Nevertheless, the new document describes at great length how lifts were randomized in RTC modeling based on previous opening times, lift delays, and operator logs.
Additionally, 13 drawbridges are included on what the railroads say is the “simulated network” impacted on both sides of the proposed service, but six of these bridges are more than two miles away from where any of the proposed passenger trains will operate. The nearest and busiest bridge is at Three Mile Creek on the north side of CSX’s Sibert Yard in Mobile. The filing indicates the Coast Guard started a pilot program of scheduled bridge openings there on June 1, 2021, but contends, “the bridge could revert to historical operations at any time and accordingly was not included in the model.”
Coordinated closings of the six single-track bridges east of New Orleans during the 8 hours each day including passenger-train movements would need to be worked out with all involved parties, but a model that ignores the possibility is a significant omission.
Mobile station interference: Numerous references in the NS-CSX filing, and a Nov. 3 STB filing by the Alabama State Port Authority and Terminal Railway Alabama State Docks, refer to interference passenger trains will cause to their respective operations if Amtrak is allowed to serve downtown Mobile.
Until a layover track is built at the site of the former station, where two main tracks currently exist, the four daily arriving and departing trains involved would have to make positioning moves from another location. These could impact freight movements for about an hour in each instance, depending on where the trains are kept.
A track once used for that purpose was removed in 2019 at Choctaw Yard, about 1 mile west of the existing downtown platform, but Amtrak contends that the freight railroad won’t allow it onto that property to survey the location. CSX doubled down on its refusal in a highly redacted filing [see “CSX offers scorching response …,” News Wire, Nov. 12]. Yet the initial document sent to the STB makes the assumption trains will at least initially lay over there. News Wire asked CSX about its refusal to allow Amtrak access even while asserting trains would pause at Choctaw, but the railroad declined to provide clarification.
Both filings portray the downtown location as the center of near-constant freight activity. CSX and Terminal Railway moves do tie up one or both main line tracks east of Mobile’s convention center because that is where their yards, and those of other lines, are located. But multi-day reconnaissance of the station area by Trains News Wire and other observers during hours when the passenger trains would operate revealed only one switching move or coal train from each railroad occupying tracks west of the convention center. If a station pocket track is built and the passenger train is serviced there, interference time would be no more than 15 minutes.
Passenger-train operating assumptions in modeling: Adding to what NS and CSX portray as uncontrollable route factors is their decision to operate trains close to 2 miles long that do not fit in yard tracks at Mobile or New Orleans, or on the majority of existing passing tracks along the way. By 2039, the report says, “train length is likely to grow.”
With all this uncertainty, the document says passenger trains were RTC modeled for 95% on-time arrivals in order to achieve the FRA’s prescribed “Customer on-time performance” metric of 80%. That figure is based on the percentage of passengers reaching their destination within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival.
Honoring Amtrak’s statutory right of preference, the model assumes the long freight trains will always take the siding. This provides the justification for lengthening or building new 10 passing tracks — most at least 12,000 feet in length — and establishing crossovers at more than a dozen locations.The filing doesn’t make clear how many through freight trains operate today between Gentilly Yard east of New Orleans and Mobile. Trains News Wire asked CSX for the average number and normal transit time, since this influences possible adjustments, but the railroad declined to provide an answer.
The company also didn’t say how many highway grade crossing blockages per week currently occur east of Gentilly at Michoud Boulevard. The report says the passenger trains will cause an increase of 257% over current blockage time, whatever that is.
How soon could service begin?
The immediate issue before the STB, if service is to begin in early 2022 as Amtrak has requested, is whether not providing any capacity improvements would significantly disrupt freight service.
Between the lines, the filing argues that CSX and NS are under no obligation to alter the way trains are now operated. This basic underpinning of the modeling simulation postulates that even longer trains are inevitable by 2039, without suggesting train-length or dispatching adjustments that might allow freight and passenger trains to coexist on a mostly single-track railroad. Thus, the STB could decide that the railroads are obligated to make changes that would accommodate the Amtrak round trips on the existing infrastructure.
On the other hand, a 2017 study by the Gulf Coast Working Group, Amtrak, and the Federal Railroad Administration proposed $118 million of necessary capacity improvements. This figure was the basis for federal and state matching funds that have already been secured.
The carriers are essentially asking the public to pay for improvements to accommodate recently implemented Precision Scheduled Railroading freight operations shoehorned into a physical plant that has not seen significant investment in 50 years.
Amtrak and CSX took a collaborative approach when the Sunset Limited was extended east of New Orleans to Florida in 1993. At the time, the freight railroad benefitted from publicly funded improvements ranging from a signaled second main track next to New Orleans’ Gentilly Yard to approach signals for passing tracks in dark territory west of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle.
So it is disingenuous for that railroad now to accuse Amtrak of a “strategy to abandon cooperation” — exactly what CSX has consistently demonstrated when it declined to participate in the 2017 modeling discussions or share parameters with the Federal Railroad Administration as recently as this year. More transparency and flexibility are in order; the Surface Transportation Board will likely demand them. The board has scheduled a hearing on the case in February 2022.
For 25 years I lived a block south of the Harbin North switch shown in the lead photo. I always thought that siding was closer to 9000 feet. When I left in 2007 traffic count was about two dozen trains a day; I’m sure it’s less than that now. And yes, I remember seeing the eastbound Sunset Limited take the siding to wait for a passing freight. Of course, it was always about 6 hours late anyway.
Less than a dozen trains a day now including locals. The entire CSX argument is built on BS and lies.
“The carriers are essentially asking the public to pay for improvements to accommodate recently implemented Precision Scheduled Railroading freight operations shoehorned into a physical plant that has not seen significant investment in 50 years.”
* Facts*
Is this what any new or expanded service Amtrak proposes is going to be met with is this shakedown for cash to make up for the RR’s having cut their systems to the bone for the almighty operating ratio? Just to make the CEO look good & make the stock holders some quick cash? These people don’t care what happens to the RR in the long term any federal infrastructure money should not go toward making up for their bad/reckless casino business model. They know they should be adding capacity for their own growth but they don’t want to pay for it because it would bring down the whole house of cards they’ve created.
On the one hand, if NS and CSX are saying one more train in each direction is too much, then how can they grow their own business?
On the other hand, what is the good to society of adding another 145 miles to Amtrak’s network? How do the potential passengers get there now? What is the variable cost per passenger mile of a typical Amtrak LD train now? How does that compare to a bus or car? Could Amtrak just add bus service?
Should we reconsider Amtrak’s original deal and authority?
There should be incentives to private freight railways to host passenger train operators or even return to operating their own passenger trains by upgrading and maintaining their infrastructure including building tracks exclusive to passenger trains.
The Infrastructure legislation makes these incentives feasible. Airlines do not build their own airports and runways; bus and truck lines do not build their own highways.
Every man, woman and child benefits tremendously from what the trucking industry provides. Admittedly, trucking companies might justifiably deserve to pay more road taxes—I don’t know. However, any additional tax would be passed on to the customers, and ALL of us are their customers. Whatever the allocation is, the fact remains that we ALL pay and we ALL benefit. The same is probably somewhat less true for airlines—many don’t fly. But, very few ride Amtrak.
I would favor a more accurate accounting—if fair, raise the truckers’ fuel tax, but then lower whatever other tax currently covers that cost.
We like trains. Politicians just like to spend money to buy votes, and see rail spending as an attractive way to get “credit.” Good results rarely factor in.
Charles Landey says:
November 15, 2021 at 6:43 am
This is a dispute in which I have little sympathy for either side. Many rail observers posting on these pages have documented that the two freight carriers are making unreasonable demands.
On the other side of the dispute are the Gulf Coast passenger rail advocates. What really is accomplished by two train pairs from Mobile to New Orleans? Is it fair to say these advocates are asking for a toy train under the Christmas tree? This won’t get us any closer to a national passenger rail system.
Then there is me in the middle. I struggle to see a path forward for passenger rail in the growing southeastern states. As a frequent traveler to Nashville where I have have gotten to know the rail infrastructure, I’m tossing in the towel. Any proposal either for regional trains, or for Amtrak connecting to Chicago and Atlanta, will run into reality. Reality is such that (1) the track capacity doesn’t exist and (2) the passenger trains would run at a crawl on unfavorable schedules. See you at BNA Nashville International or ATL Atlanta Hartsfield
I don’t understand your trash talking, unproductive tone. You sound like a hired henchman. How is essential services consider a toy for Christmas. Trains are the most efficient form of transport and they will see the most amount of growth in the next 40 years because the freight companies have been actively trying to kill passenger rail for the last 40 years and we have not been able to develop them. If transportation is just a toy like you say than planes are the most expensive and highest polluting toy out there. Airways and roadways have not been neglected and that’s why they function so well. We can’t afford to have all our eggs in one basket anymore. We need all forms of transport and have to stop arguing about it. I travel along the Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle corridor and do you know how hard it is to plan around 3 trains a week. The gulf coast train and bringing back daily service to Phoenix, AZ would make train travel so much more viable for millions of Americans. Just think of all the time/energy/money that the railroad companies have spent over the last 40 years trying to kill passenger trains. What if that was spent maintaining and improving what they already had.
Well fly then, I’ll enjoy the trains!
Amazing that CSX and NS really think the STB is that stupid. The whole thing looks to be headed in Amtraks favor at this rate.