(The following story by Michael G Mooney appeared on the Modesto Bee website on Sunday August 26, 2007)
MODESTO, CA. – Make no mistake, when it comes to moving goods in and around the San Joaquin Valley, the big rig is still king of the road.
But the day of the dominating tractor-trailer — efficiently hauling everything from automobile parts to almonds — could be waning.
Why?
Experts say there are three primary reasons:
• Growing congestion on valley highways.
• Rising fuel costs.
• Seriously polluted air.
Those factors have some believing the time is right for a return to short-haul rail — freight trains of usually 50 cars or fewer to move goods short distances.
That’s the same rail-based, freight-hauling system displaced decades ago by the cheaper and more efficient shipping-by-truck system still used throughout the valley today.
So, what goes around comes around?
Not exactly.
Even the most ardent short-haul rail advocates don’t envision a freight-hauling future without big rigs.
The idea is to trim costs, enhance efficiencies and cut traffic and air pollution by dramatically reducing heavy-duty truck trips between the valley and the Port of Oakland.
But development of an “inland port” at Crows Landing is just one piece of a larger and more complicated puzzle — the aging and overburdened Northern California railroad network.
D.J. Smith of California Strategies, and coordinator of the Crows Landing project for PCCP West Park LLC, said railroading in Northern California is much the same today as it was a hundred years ago.
As a result, Smith said, there’s a lot to be done to improve other aspects of Northern California’s rail network for an inland port at Crows Landing or anywhere else in the valley to succeed.
“No one project solves all the problems,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of work we need to do to become competitive. Southern California is about 25 years ahead of us.”
Officials at the Port of Oakland, a key player in the Crows Landing project, are pushing improvements for their long-haul Class I rail partners, the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads.
The Class I trains operated by UP and BNSF move up and down the valley. At up to a mile long, those trains are much longer than short-haulers, and they don’t make frequent stops.
“As exporters, we’re always looking for more efficient and better ways of doing things,” said Brian McGuire, a Fresno-based representative of the Western Cotton Shippers Association. “People see freight trains moving through the valley, but the containers aren’t loaded here. We’re paying (truckers) to drive our product to the Port of Oakland.”
While port officials support short-haul rail in concept, they aren’t ready to commit money to Crows Landing or any other potential inland port.
“If improvements to the overall rail system are not made,” said Omar Benjamin, Port of Oakland executive director, “then local initiatives such as short-haul rail become infeasible due to congestion on the state’s rail system as a whole.
“The port’s highest priority must be focused on expanding and improving the main rail line service to the port’s facilities.”
Donner Summit work
At the top of Oakland’s priority list is a series of road and overpass improvements to alleviate traffic moving in and out of the port.
Port officials also want the train tunnels over Donner Summit in the Sierra enlarged. That would enable UP trains to double-stack cargo containers bound for Midwest and East Coast markets.
Today, UP trains with double-stacked containers, a shipping standard, must travel on a route that takes a day longer than the route over Donner Summit.
West Park, led by developer Gerry Kamilos, is keenly aware of the port’s position and has been lobbying hard to win a commitment to Crows Landing.
“That’s why our group is working with both Central Valley and Bay Area interests,” Kamilos said, “to solve these problems. Collectively, this will evolve into a Northern California (rail improvement) solution.”
Those interests include the Port of Oakland, San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Joaquin Council of Governments, Stanislaus Council of Governments and Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
West Park and Kamilos also are talking to economic development agencies, including those representing the Bay Area, and San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.
Talks also are ongoing between the Kamilos group and Altamont Commuter Express, known as ACE, as well as the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads.
A key part of the Kamilos plan would secure the UP’s Altamont Pass track for his short-haul rail client and the ACE commuter trains. UP’s long-haul would enter and exit Oakland via Martinez.
At this point, said Libby Schaaf, the port’s director of public affairs, Oakland wants to study the feasibility of short-haul rail but not only at Crows Landing.
The study, Schaaf said, also would examine the viability of establishing inland ports at Stockton, Fresno, Sacramento and Shafter, in Kern County. Firebaugh and Mendota in Fresno County also have been mentioned as possible sites.
West Park, meanwhile, continues to work on developing a joint application to the California Transportation Commission by early 2008. Smith said it would seek nearly $1 billion of the $3 billion worth of transportation improvement bond measure money that California voters approved last year.
“This is probably the most complicated thing I’ve ever attempted to coordinate in my career,” Smith said. “We’ve got a pretty broad battlefield here. We’re trying to change the whole logistical (shipping) system in Northern California.”
While short-haul rail service has piqued interest throughout the valley, Smith said it will be expensive. He estimates it could take as long as 14 years and nearly $200 million to fully develop Crows Landing.
“Trucks are still a cheaper alternative than short-haul rail,” said Andrew Chesley, executive director of the San Joaquin Council of Governments. “But the gap is closing between them. When we look to the future, short-haul rail has a role to play.”
That’s because the region’s highways are expected to become further choked with traffic, slowing trucks into the port even more.
For example, Hughson Nut Co., a Stanislaus County-based almond processor and exporter, today pays a trucking company about $400 per container for the drive into and out of the port.
West Park’s Smith said that shipping a container by short-haul rail would cost about the same but would enable exporters to move more containers more efficiently, possibly saving the company money in the long run.
But why Crows Landing?
Smith said the site’s location near freeways and rail lines as well as its proximity to Oakland make it ideal.
Kamilos envisions the former Crows Landing Naval Air Station as not only a rail hub, but a 4,800-acre “magnet” for manufacturing and other businesses.
Some West Side residents and political leaders have criticized the plan. They fear it will disrupt the area’s agricultural character and bring noise and traffic from the trains moving through Patterson and other towns.
Kamilos has tried to reassure residents that his project would improve the quality of life by bringing in new and higher-paying jobs, among other things.
Smith said short-haul trains will be no more than 50 cars, causing at most a two-minute delay at crossings.
Eventually, Smith and Kamilos said, the Crows Landing’s line would become the primary carrier of agricultural products into the Port of Oakland.
Even without having seen a detailed presentation, officials at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District are embracing the concept.
“We know 80 percent of the valley’s pollution is attributable to mobile sources; cars, buses, trucks and trains,” said Seyed Sadredin, air district executive director. “Of that 80 percent, 50 percent comes from heavy-duty trucks.”
Sadredin continued: “A project like this could go a long way to helping solve the valley’s air pollution problems.”
Smith said preliminary research by West Park shows it would take about 526 truck trips to carry as many containers to and from the port as a single train based at Crows Landing.
That’s based on a complicated formula that takes into account the difficulty truckers face trying to secure empty containers, which ocean shipping lines and railroads largely control.
One short-haul train, according to West Park, can carry as many as 115 containers each way. By comparison, trucks carry a single container into and out of the port in a day.
More than one inland port?
While Sadredin conceded there’s “no silver bullet” to solve the valley’s air pollution, “if we had only one bullet it would be (aimed at) getting rid of the trucks.”
Sadredin said the valley likely will need to develop more than one inland port. He also suggested opening a sea lane to ship goods between Northern and Southern California via the Pacific Ocean rather than by truck through the valley.
Shirley Batchman of California Citrus Mutual, an Exeter-based trade association, also believes the time has come for an inland port.
“The devil is always in the details, no doubt,” said Batchman, the mutual’s director of industry relations. “I see nothing but positives in this. Reducing drive times, easing (traffic) congestion; conceptually it has a lot of merit.”