(The following article by Bill Toland was posted on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website on December 4.)
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Like their larger cousins, short-line railroad companies face mounting terrorism-related safety costs, but unlike the Norfolk Southerns of the world, many of these small companies lack the capital required to thoroughly overhaul their security systems.
So some Pennsylvania short-line rail networks — generally, those that manage less than 500 miles of track — are trying to overcome financial shortfalls legislatively, throwing their weight behind a couple of items that are slowly chugging their way through the General Assembly.
One is House Bill 173, which would authorize funding to expand the emergency system used to monitor railroad crossings. The other is Senate Bill 581, which toughens trespassing penalties for people on railroad property — even those who are crossing the tracks just to get to their favorite fishing spot.
“If somebody is going to sabotage a railroad car, or attempt to cause a hazardous materials spill, the first thing they have to do is trespass a railroad’s right of way,” said Greg Wicklem, vice president of the lobbying group that represents the Keystone State Railroad Association.
“But right now, it’s very difficult to prosecute railroad trespassing,” he said. Local law enforcement officials often don’t bother citing trespassers unless they’ve committed an act of vandalism, he said.
Wicklem and 10 others spoke yesterday at a House hearing on the state’s emergency preparedness plans. Much of yesterday’s meeting focused on Pennsylvania’s vast web of rail lines, tunnels and bridges.
Short-line companies are small individually, but collectively make up the bulk of Pennsylvania’s rail network — more than half of the state’s 5,000 miles of track are managed by short-line or regional firms.
There are close to 50 short-line companies operating in Pennsylvania, and more than 500 such companies in the nation. Several — like Pittsburgh, Allegheny & McKees Rocks Railroad or Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad Inc. — are located in Western Pennsylvania and have common problems.
Guarding thousands of miles of tracks against trespassers — be they hunters, kids riding all-terrain vehicles or would-be terrorists — is a daunting task, especially for smaller firms.
Kiski Junction Railroad Co. in Schenley has two full-time employees and manages just five miles of track. Mary Bowyer, the brakeman there, said people riding ATVs along the rail path are the most common trespassers.
The only way to do so would be install a remote-controlled gate at the main entry point to the rail path. But at $7,000, that sort of expenditure isn’t an option.
Neither is installing security cameras to catch trespassers in the act. “It would be cost-prohibitive for one thing. And the other thing is, we’d have no one to monitor it,” Bowyer said.
Often, short-line firms must cooperate with larger companies on security measures. If, for example, a carload of hazardous materials, like chlorine or radioactive machine parts, must be held overnight, short-line companies usually don’t own a storage bay in which to secure dangerous shipments.
So they must rely on Norfolk Southern Co., CSX and others to help them, said Steve Sullivan, executive director of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association.
On other security matters — like installing closed-circuit camera systems to monitor sensitive choke points like bridges and rail yards — short-line companies must fend for themselves, Sullivan said. And that usually means seeking funding from government sources.
“Where the [largest companies] can throw money at certain things, we have to rely on ingenuity,” Sullivan said.
In the months to come, short-line companies hope to pool together and secure federal funding that will allow the individual firms to communicate with one another via hand-held, wireless BlackBerry organizers.