(The following editorial appeared on The Capital-Journal website on May 12.)
TOPEKA, Kan. — The sight of a Union Pacific Railroad “tie gang” crew working between Topeka and Kansas City, Mo., is an encouraging one, on more than one front.
Among the crew’s duties is improving more than 100 railroad crossings along that stretch of track. That alone is welcome news to any motorist who has shaken, rattled and rolled over the waves of a worn crossing or had to slow to a crawl to minimize the discomfort to joints human and mechanical.
That the crossings on the railroad’s to-do list will be closed for a day or so while the repairs are made seems a reasonable trade-off for a smoother ride.
But making things easier on motorists isn’t the sole, or even the primary, reason the Union Pacific is spending almost $8million on the track. The crossings will be repaired as the crew works its way west replacing ties and improving the roadbed to ensure the line can safely and efficiently carry the huge amount of freight that travels it daily.
The money being spent in this part of the state is a fraction of the $3.1billion the railroad will spend this year on projects designed to enhance safety, improve service, increase productivity and add capacity.
The day after this newspaper published a story about the Union Pacific’s capital projects, the price of oil jumped to near $123 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange before settling at $121.84 for the day. On Friday, the price topped $126 a barrel. The experts who watch the markets differ on what will happen with oil prices in the near term, but the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration is forecasting oil prices will average $110 a barrel this year.
It’s obvious the railroad, given the current volatile nature of oil and fuel prices, is putting itself in position to handle all the freight traffic that it can lure its way. It’s a good decision by the railroad’s corporate officers, and one that stands to benefit consumers, too.
There was a time when railroads and the over-the-road trucking industry battled for supremacy in freight hauling and, at times, the truckers appeared to have the railroads on the ropes. But the price of diesel fuel now has some long-haul trucking companies struggling as they pass along their rising costs.
Railroads face those same rising fuel prices and also pass them along to their customers, but they have a big advantage in their ability to move large tonnages of freight long distances at a lower cost per mile per ton.
Because the cost of shipping everything from raw materials to finished products ultimately lands on the consumer, we welcome anything that helps limit the freight bill.