(The Press-Enterprise posted the following article by Phil Pitchford on its website on January 7.)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — One of the Inland area’s worst traffic jams isn’t on a freeway.
Each day, more than 100 trains, some more than a mile long, make their way through Colton Crossing, an intersection of railroad tracks and switching equipment that is the railroad equivalent of a four-way stop.
Trains loaded with televisions, toaster ovens and tennis shoes bound for Chicago, Houston and New Orleans compete for access with trains hauling chemicals, lumber and other products destined for use around Southern California. They roll along on two of the nation’s busiest rail lines, which intersect at Colton Crossing at a 90-degree angle. Some trains inevitably have to wait, sometimes for hours.
The congested crossing means that trains transporting goods imported from Asia through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach sometimes travel only about 65 miles before they come to a screeching halt — with more than 2,000 miles to go.
Unclogging that mess would smooth interstate commerce, improve air quality in the surrounding neighborhoods, help Metrolink trains to run on time more often and reduce traffic delays caused by trains stalled at street crossings, officials said.
“It is a major rail bottleneck in Southern California,” said Eric Haley, executive director of the Riverside County Transportation Commission. “And it has national impacts.”
It also could get much worse. Imports through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports are expected to nearly triple between 2004 and 2020, meaning Colton Crossing could become the rail equivalent of Highway 91 during the morning commute.
Inland transportation leaders want to spend $150 million to revamp the interchange by raising the east-west Union Pacific Railroad tracks above the north-south BNSF Railway Co. tracks between Rancho and Mount Vernon avenues.
“It would effectively remove half of the competing rail traffic there,” said Cheryl Donahue, a spokeswoman for San Bernardino Associated Governments, or SANBAG, a regional planning group. “It’s kind of a cumulative effect. If you have one stopped, the others are facing delays as well.”
Track Separation
The section of track immediately south of the crossing, between Riverside and San Bernardino, is the most congested in Southern California, said Stephanie Wiggins, regional programs director for the Riverside County commission. Each day, dozens of BNSF and Union Pacific freight trains share the tracks with eight Metrolink trains and a couple of Amtrak trains, she said.
Metrolink’s agreement with the freight operators calls for commuter trains to receive priority when two trains need to use the same track at the same time. But freight dispatchers sometimes fail to give Metrolink first priority for using the track, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said. That can leave more than 300 weary commuters steaming within their train car, waiting for a chance to get home.
Separating the tracks at Colton Crossing would eliminate that problem, Tyrrell said, and improve safety overall.
Construction on the grade separation, however, is years away. The first step comes in April, when SANBAG expects to award a $2.2 million contract for environmental and other studies that would help quantify what exactly should be built and what effect the new arrangement would have on the environment.
Local transportation advocates say problems at Colton Crossing are indicative of a larger problem of goods-movement congestion in the Inland area. They hope Prop. 1B, the $19.9 billion transportation bond state voters approved in November, could be a source for at least some of the $150 million.
“The last straw is almost on the camel’s back,” said Bob Wolf, founding president of the Inland Empire Transportation Coalition, a business group that lobbies for transportation funding. “I’m not sure how much longer we could handle this, even if we wanted to.”
That chokepoint has existed since the 1880s, when it was built by one of the rail lines that eventually became part of BNSF, which now shares the crossing with its competitor, Union Pacific. Business is booming for both railroads, however, and delays at the crossing could get much worse.
“You are talking about a major stop-and-go process there,” said Lupe Valdez, a spokeswoman for Union Pacific. “It can be a major thing if we are trying to get a freight out of town, away from Colton.”
‘It’s Really Loud’
Trains caught in the congestion have to begin stopping long before reaching the intersection, and they need several minutes to power up and get going again. Delays at the intersection vary from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how many freight and commuter trains are trying to use the tracks that day.
As with most traffic jams, nearby residents suffer. Instead of shutting down trains while waiting for a chance to pass through the intersection, many conductors leave the trains idling, which sends diesel fumes and noise into nearby neighborhoods.
“When they power up to get going, the whole house rattles,” said one resident, Ken Balmer.
As he spoke, a Union Pacific train blasted its whistle before beginning the final leg of its trip west into Los Angeles. The train had been waiting just east of the crossing for nearly two hours.
“Even when you’re in the house, it’s really loud,” said another resident, Anthony Martinez. “Everything shakes like an earthquake, and you can smell the oil and the brakes.”
Cutting Emissions
Locomotives around Southern California are responsible for about 33 tons per day of smog- and particulate-forming nitrogen oxides, roughly the equivalent to the emissions from about 1.4 million vehicles, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The agency adopted rules in February to reduce emissions from unnecessary locomotive idling, but has been unable to enforce them because of a lawsuit from BNSF, Union Pacific and the Association of American Railroads.
The rules would require railroads to shut down most locomotives that have been idling for 30 minutes. The railroads contend the rules are pre-empted by federal laws and would unduly interfere with interstate commerce. The case is expected to go to a mediator later this month, according to AQMD.