(The following editorial appeared on the Hartford Courant website on March 5.)
HARTFORD, Conn. — In 1974, a fire of suspicious origin put the railroad bridge at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., out of commission. No one bothered to fix it. Railroads were in decline in the 1970s, in the Northeast and across the country. Passengers were using cars, and freight was increasingly being shipped by truck.
The Poughkeepsie Bridge threatened to become a metaphor for most of the nation’s once-proud rail system, as highway travel increasingly dominated the nation’s transportation agenda. But as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, the railroads are making a comeback.
For the first time since the early 20th century, railroads are making large investments in their own infrastructure. Since 2000, the Journal reports, railroads have spent $10 billion to expand or straighten tracks, build freight yards, expand tunnels and buy locomotives, and they have another $12 billion in upgrades on the drawing board.
The industry is moving away from regional hauling of raw materials such as coal and timber to challenging long-haul trucking in the transport of finished goods from ports to major markets.
The trucking industry has struggled with rising fuel prices, driver shortages and highway congestion. The Journal reports that some long-haul truckers are using trains for parts of their trips because they are cheaper.
In its golden age of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the railroad coming to town was a cause for celebration. That’s happening again, the Journal reports, as railroads generate development in the corridors they are rebuilding.
Unfortunately for New England, this work doesn’t yet include us. It’s being carried out by major private railroads such as Burlington Northern, CSX, Norfolk Southern and the Union Pacific on networks stretching from New York to the South and West coasts. But perhaps transportation officials in our region will be spurred on by their example.
Using the rails for some long-haul freight transport makes good sense. Railroads say, and many environmentalists agree, that they can carry long-haul loads using vastly less fuel and causing less pollution than a fleet of trucks.
By the same token, putting more passengers on commuter and mid-distance trains would achieve the same goals. We will always need cars and trucks, to be sure, but a more balanced system would serve the country better in a time of uncertain oil supplies and concern about greenhouse-gas emissions.
The loss of the Poughkeepsie Bridge probably hurt heavy manufacturing and other industries in Connecticut that benefit from rail shipping. There are plans to turn the span into a pedestrian bridge. Before that happens, it would behoove us to know whether it would better serve the Northeast in its original capacity, as a railroad bridge.