UP is seeking Surface Transportation Board approval for a 288-mile trackage rights deal over NS between the Kansas City, Mo., area and Springfield, Ill. UP’s regulatory filing, dated April 8, was posted to the STB website on Wednesday.
The agreement would begin May 29 and remain in effect for at least two years before expiring in 15 years, according to UP’s regulatory filing.
“These trackage rights will provide UP with an alternate route between Kansas City and Springfield, Illinois, providing for increased efficiency in operations,” UP said in its filing.
The former Wabash route will create a shortcut for UP between Kansas City and Chicago via Springfield.
The impetus for the trackage rights deal was UP’s desire to reach its Global IV intermodal terminal in Joliet, Ill., using its former Alton route without having to go via St. Louis, according to a person familiar with the matter.
It was not clear whether UP plans to divert two pairs of high-priority intermodal trains that currently run between Kansas City and Joliet, Ill., on BNSF Railway trackage rights. A UP spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The public version of the filing did not provide traffic volume expectations or what types of traffic might be excluded. The deal has been in the works for a while: The railroads signed a memorandum of understanding in February 2017 and then signed the trackage-rights agreement on April 30, 2018, according to the filing.
UP will be able to route trains between Control Point Diamond at Birmingham, Mo., on NS’s Kansas City District and Control Point Iles at Springfield, Ill., on the NS Springfield District. UP trains also could enter and exit the trackage-rights route at Control Point CA Junction in Camden, Mo.
UP trains will change crews in or near Mark Twain’s boyhood hometown of Hannibal, Mo., where the former Wabash line curves through tunnel and emerges to cross the BNSF Railway Hannibal Subdivision diamond before spanning the Mississippi River.
@John Rice, thanks for info on the CSX policy on containers for Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. It sheds further light on the rationale behind BNSF working out a haulage agreement with CSX to North Baltimore.
There are now stack trains going through Springfield on the UP. As far as the “Chicago mess” the intermodal facility is in Joliet, south of the big city. Springfield is still trying to get funding to eliminate the 3rd Street Amtrak-UP line through the heart of the city, and move the trains to Norfolk Southern’s 10th Street corridor. It seems years away!
The new routing seems to defeat the objective of by-passing the Chicago mess. Aren’t there any lines still intact going east from Springfield? Reading comments below of CSX embargo of St. Louis and east ROW calls into question the limits of management prerogatives to destroy capacity. I believe it is long past time to grant either the FRA or the STB authority to acquire embargoed/abandoned ROW at net scrap prices rather than have them destroyed. The cost of putting Humpty Dumpty together again is too often cost prohibitive and time improbable. We’ve seen far too many cases of myopic folly in the C suite and of course in regulatory agencies over the past 50 years, particularly in the eastern third of the country. Chasing Q2 at the expense of yr 5 is a policy of gradual implosion and while its acolytes may hold sway in one company, the ripple effects damage the
entire industry. Moreover an avoidably crippled surface transit system is a drag on the entire nation’s economy.
Perhaps the ocean shippers will manage a volt-face. First Maersk and now CGM (French) 4th largest maritime shipper has acquired overland logistics capacity in Europe. They will come calling–ready or not.
NS still goes east from Springfield to Decatur. From there, the NS lines go to Chicago (via trackage rights) and through Fort Wayne (connecting with the ex-N&W lines to Cleveland and Cincinnati) to Detroit.
@Herb Wildman; Since CSX is no longer taking containers via St Louis, only through Chicago or Memphis, it makes sense for TRRA to complete the needed repairs on a over 100 year old bridge now as opposed to later.
UP routing to Chicago via Springfield over NS makes sense.
But this puts CSX 2 east/west routes in central and southern Illinois is a lesser role for awhile.
I am guessing that once TRRA finishes replacing the 100+ year old bridge approach on the Missouri side, CSX will re-evaluate their container gateways and make a decision if it can be used as a Chicago bypass to Rotterdam.
CSX long term is giving priority to the Vandalia line (Pennsy/NYC) to Avon Yard in Indy from St Louis instead of the Illinois Sub (B&O) from St Louis to Queensgate Yard in Cincy. At the moment, everyone who follows midwest railroading expects CSX to sever and abandon the line between Seymour and Mitchell Indiana, and Flora IL to Salem IL relegating them to branch status.
Seymour to Mitchell is not very direct on distance and has 2 tunnels to boot.
Flora to Salem has no online customers and if there are no more through freights from Queensgate and St Louis, then it become excess trackage.
CSX will not take any containers bound for Indiana, Ohio or Michigan per the new policy, They will have to dray out of Chicago using truck.
The problem with your STB response, is that CSX does not want them sold or retained. They want them to GO AWAY period. The mentality is that “if we can’t make it work, then we won’t let anyone else either”.
The proof is when they made the big “lines are for sale” announcement, people came back and said CSX wanted way too much money for them. If we can’t make a lot of dough from the sale, then we won’t let anyone else make ANY money off them at all.
Springfield has always been a neat place for train watching. It will be something to watch stack trains of the first transcontinental railroad roll past the State Capital building and the former GM&O passenger depot. Abraham Lincoln would be proud.
@John Rice
Makes sense. Thanks for putting it in detail.
Does the UP/BNSF connection at Edelstein still get used regularly? I know it wouldn’t help for traffic involving Global Four…just curious.
Avoiding the St Louis terminal has been long overdue for UP. This is great news! Don I don’t know why UP didn’t just join in the Meridian Speedway when BNSF vacated to its own route via Memphis striking a trackage rights deal with NS via Meridian-Atlanta would be golden..
Yeah all of this talk about PSR in the past few years, yet the industry and maps are filled with these odd routings and underutilized rails. The classic modus operandi, send it to Chicago they will sort it out!
Penelope, you must remember that the NC&StL was a vassal of the L&N. As you noted in 1905 the TC was leased by the Southern (Harriman to Nashville) and the Illinois Central (Nashville to Hopkinsville). Neither road could make a go of it and both terminated their lease in 1908. It’s just my guess that the Southern didn’t want to short-haul itself by turning Memphis traffic over to the NC&StL nor St Louis traffic to the L&N or IC in Nashville when it had its own lines to both cities,
FYI, the NC line from Paducah, KY, south to Lexington, TN, and west to Memphis (the Paducah and Memphis Railroad) was owned by the L&N and leased by the NC.
The reason for this pretty obvious.
TRRA is about to shut down the MacArthur Bridge approach on the Missouri side because the Broadway Street bridge has reached the end of its design life and cannot support the weights of UP trains going east.
It will be reconstructed. They are tearing out the former US 66 at the same time. The upper deck that supported US-66 over the railroad in 1917 has been removed over the last 5 years.
CSX is no longer going to take container traffic through StL under their new PSR plan. Only through Chicago & Memphis.
UP used to take container overflow on the CSX Illinois Sub to Salem and switch it north on the former C&EI via St Elmo. . But CSX has cut the rails on the Illinois Sub at O’Fallon and turned the crossing signals. (And it appears they are not going to sell it as they originally threatened)
This leaves only Clinton, Iowa or Illmo, Missouri to get across. The former CNW at Clinton is already busy with coal drags and containers. UP can;t use the former CNW “south line” via Nelson, because it can’t reach Joliet.
Traffic at Illmo can go either the CE&I way to reach Chicago, but they can’t get to Global IV at Joliet that way. They would have to come up the river line through East St Louis to get on the former Alton. Not very efficient, especially when Illmo Bridge gets backed up in the fall.
That leaves BNSF at Burlington (which they have rights on) or NS at Hannibal.
In this case NS made the most sense as they can bypass St Louis, reach the former Alton and get to Joliet via Springfield Illinois.
CSX Vandalia Line is going to get very quiet between East St Louis and Smithboro.
No more eastbound containers going up to Avon anymore, just BNSF coal drags switching over at Smithboro between Greenville and Vandalia and merchandise/farm products going east.
I agree with Daniel. An advantage NS has had for a long time that has been unexploited. I guess neither BNSF nor UP wanted to “short haul” themselves to KC instead of Chicago and it took a trackage rights deal to make “common sense” happen.
Here’s another one… Chemical traffic between Texas and NJ almost all goes the long way around – interchanging with CSX in Illinois. The shorter, faster route would be via NS over New Orleans. Shorthauling issue, again. How about a trackage rights deal with UP to Birmingham?
Been waiting to see this one for a decade or more.
I have railfanned Hannibal Mo. many times. The tunnel is a great photo spot.
Another use of these rights will be when the Missouri River floods and closes the former Mop across Missouri. The NS route is outside the flood plain.
Paul and Penelope – Interesting posts re: Nashville. Whatever de-emphasizes CSX in favor of real railroads gets my vote.
Regarding Nashville, why then could not BNSF negotiate a trackage rights agreement from Memphis to Nashville? They have a haulage agreement with CSX from Birmingham to Atlanta, as well as with NS from Memphis to Atlanta, and the haulage agreement with CSX to North Baltimore.
Or does BNSF have its own “pincers” around Nashville already with its agreements to North Baltimore and Atlanta?
Expanding on Penelope’s observation. Grounding auto parts containers from Mexico or Asia in Nashville make a not terrible mostly “additive” dray to many auto plants in the region, including Louisville and Chattanooga.
@Don yes this is a good solution to the short haul issues absent end to end merger. Same for your chemical traffic point. But why wouldn’t CSX provide the same from N.O. to say Waycross to preserve the traffic they’d otherwise lose over Salem, IL with your NS example?
@Braden at least until the PSR revamp of UP intermodal train planning there was a LA-Atlanta (I think Austell) IM train over the Meridian Speedway interchanged to NS at Shreveport.
@Walter zero impact StL to Springfield. The impact Springfield-Global 4 depends on how many of the current trains currently using much busier BNSF will be diverted to this new trackage rights route. That said I think IM trains (depending on their length and the siding lengths of the revamped ex-Alton) tend to play better with passenger trains because no intermediate work, no freight car mix based speed restrictions, HOPEFULLY better schedule keeping than carload or bulk freights, and fewer incidents like broken knuckles en route.
@Penelope I like this idea, akin to BNSF rights to operate intermodal trains into North Baltimore over CSX. The difference/difficulty would be combining or splitting West Coast and Texas/Mexico IM blocks to/from Nashville at Memphis/Marion, or North Little Rock northbound or Pine Bluff southbound.
Union Pacific could consider trackage rights to Nashville over CSX from Memphis. Nashville is the largest city served by only one Class I railway – CSX.
Of course, CSX must consent to such a proposal. Predecessors L&N and NC&STL alienated Tennessee Central a century ago by not sharing tracks in Downtown Nashville for fear Southern Railway would gain access to Nashville through acquisition of Tennessee Central.
L&N and NC&STL never thought of the added revenue Southern would have brung to their freight operations.
What effect will this added traffic between Springfield and Chicago have on the Amtrak St. Louis trains? Will UP insist on more capacity improvements to run Amtrak trains because of the added freight traffic?