(The following story by Erin Golden appeared on The Bulletin website on December 4.)
BEND, Ore. — Increased traffic on Central Oregon’s roads and railways is forcing local transportation experts to rethink the role of railroads and consider moving existing tracks outside of cities.
In the last few months, members of the Central Oregon Area Commission on Transportation, a group of representatives from local and state agencies, have visited city and county officials around the region to share their concerns.
At issue are the dozens of potentially dangerous — and increasingly congested — rail-roadway crossings along the 120 miles of railroad tracks that run through Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties.
To fix the problems, officials are considering rerouting the lines through rural areas or building overpass systems over major intersections. Any solution, however, promises to be a long-term, expensive undertaking, and officials are just beginning to sort through all the options.
Along with concerns about safety and logistics, officials are also addressing the growing trend of major rail lines to skip local stops to save money on long hauls, which they said could create problems for several local industries.
“When we think of all the (train-road) crossings in Bend and Redmond and what it takes to fix those, it’s just extremely expensive and we’re pretty much on our own to deal with it,” said Oregon Department of Transportation Area Manager Gary Farnsworth.
“So what we’ve tried to do is see how we can we band together and prioritize and create some leverage with the railroads to make some changes. If we do it as a group, we’ll be more successful.”
Heavier traffic
On the whole, train traffic is up across the Northwest as rail companies pack more cargo on fewer trains and tracks. An average of 12 trains a day pass through Deschutes and Jefferson counties on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, a number the Oregon Department of Transportation expects to increase by 8 percent each year. The local portion of the line passes through 45 public road crossings, and nearly half of them are at heavily trafficked intersections in Bend, Redmond and other local cities.
The crossings are a major safety issue. In the past 10 years, there have been at least 13 local train-vehicle crashes, resulting in nine injuries and four deaths, according to Theresa Heyn, an ODOT crash analyst. And with more and more cars, trucks and trains passing through Central Oregon, congestion has also become a headache for emergency access, Farnsworth said.
“At the at-grade crossings, where the road goes over tracks, we’re trying to address that issue both from a safety and traffic perspective,” he said. “Reed Market Road in Bend is a great example of the problem where the train will sit on the tracks for switching, which is a huge problem from a congestion standpoint and from an emergency services standpoint.”
Without significant improvements, the problems will only increase, Farnsworth said.
“(Train-vehicle) accidents are relatively rare, but usually catastrophic when they happen,” he said.
“It’s pretty straightforward to talk about the potential for those accidents going up with more traffic and more rail cars potentially coming through for the long hauls.”
A business hub
In Crook County, officials are dealing with similar problems on the area’s second rail line, the
19-mile City of Prineville Railway, which runs through 22 public crossings.
The bigger issue in Prineville, however, is the dwindling interest in local rail services from major rail lines.
“The large railroads, because they’ve been so successful, have basically changed their business plans to concentrate on larger customers and long distances,” said Dan Lovelady, the general manager of the City of Prineville Railway.
“They’re overlooking the small, rural shipper — they no longer want to stop and serve small shippers that don’t have large volumes of cars, so we’re having to tell potential industries ‘don’t count on rail service here.’”
The preference for passing through on long-haul routes is starting to hit businesses in other cities as well. Bud Prince, Redmond’s economic development manager, said industries might struggle without access to regular rail transport. He estimated that a half-dozen Redmond businesses are regular users of the railways.
“I know of someone locally that was interested in starting a business and getting freight service, and when they called Burlington Northern Santa Fe they were told that (the railroad) was not interested in adding more local freight service because it’s not to their advantage,” Prince said.
“It’s a business decision, nothing personal — it’s just that they can do better by taking a 100-car train to Portland and not stopping in between.”
A hub in Prineville?
Lovelady said an expanded rail hub in Prineville — where local businesses could bring freight to rail cars for transfer — could be the solution to the dropping interest in local rail business.
“(A new hub) would be excellent for us, because that’s our business — providing local rail service and individual customer service where we are interested in a small customer, and don’t care if they only ship one carload a year,” he said.
“It would be important not only for Prineville, but for all of Central Oregon to have the ability to connect to a national rail network and compete regionally, nationally and globally by having rail service they’re getting shut out of now.”
A solution to any of the problems, however, will take a great deal of time and money from cities, counties, businesses and a variety of organizations, Farns-worth said.
The planning group is working to complete an initial study of the issues by early next year, but he said fixing the system will likely take years.
“We’re trying to create an understanding that this is something worth getting our arms around,” Farnsworth said. “We’ll look back and say, ‘Yeah we’re glad we’ve got the strategies lined up,’ because there are a lot of places around the country in the same situation that wish they would have done something proactive much sooner.”