(The following story by Chip Jones appeared on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website on December 27.)
RICHMOND, Va. — The nation’s freight railroads used to treat passenger rail service like Cinderella – a household drudge who was tolerated but never encouraged.
There were some valid reasons for the industry’s aversion to pulling passenger cars. Anything involving passengers got in the way of pulling freight. Making matters worse, passenger rail travel took a nose dive in the 1950s as Americans chose to drive on spanking new interstate highways or ride airplanes in “The Friendly Skies of United.”
“What the railroads wanted to do was run freight trains and get out of the passenger business because the passenger trains were bleeding them dry,” said Bill Schafer, director of public affairs for Norfolk Southern Corp.
Passenger trains provided a public service, “but you didn’t have the public entities paying for it,” he said. “It was being paid by the freight shippers.”
Amtrak created in 1971
By 1971, the railroads persuaded Congress to create a federally backed rail system called Amtrak. Unfortunately, rail experts say, Amtrak has never had the funds to properly maintain its track in the Northeast. It also has had to depend on uneven track conditions in other parts of the country, where it runs on freight railroads.
And so began a seemingly endless transportation tug-of-war, one that creates confusion and delays from Richmond to Washington and beyond. On that historic 100-mile stretch of track, a freight railroad, CSX Corp., owns the property and works to move its goods to its own customers on time.
If Amtrak’s trains have to wait – well, so be it.
But could there be a way out of this losing cycle that pits freight rail vs. passenger trains?
Whitt Clement thinks so, and so does his boss, Gov. Mark R. Warner.
“If we had public dollars, we could not only help the railroads improve their reliability and capacity for freight, but also create new opportunities for passenger rail,” said Clement, Warner’s secretary of transportation.
Evident in proposal
This pro-rail stance was evident in Warner’s recent transportation proposal, which included $23 million in the next state budget for public-private partnerships with the railroads.
If approved by the 2005 General Assembly, it would mark the first dedicated revenue stream that would guarantee an annual state appropriation for rail improvements.
Early returns on the measure sounded favorable, though no one was willing to predict instant passage since the money would have to come from the state’s general fund.
“I’m going to support what he’s put forward,” said state Sen. John C. Watkins, R-Powhatan, a member of the Senate Transportation Committee. “I think the idea of rail crosses party lines,” he said of the proposal by Democrat Warner. “I’m going to fight for it.”
CSX’s Acca Yard in Richmond has drawn Clement’s attention as one place in need of immediate improvement.The yard has become a roadblock to moving Amtrak trains in a timely fashion through Richmond. It also is a major headache for CSX in moving freight to customers along its north-south mainline.
It’s only a start, but the $23 million funding proposal has generated interest from Richmond to Bristol, where state Sen. William C. Wampler Jr., R-Bristol, is pushing for cross-state passenger service.
Until now, Wampler said, “The state has not been much of a contributor to improving the infrastructure of rail,” said Wampler.
With massive congestion on Interstate 81, he said, “There’s a lot of discussion about I-81 and how rail can be part” of solving the problem. One idea with support from government and business groups in western Virginia is the creation of the TransDominion Express, or TDX. The passenger rail line would serve Bristol, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Richmond and Washington.
Another proposal involves working with Norfolk Southern to build more train tracks parallel to I-81.
Whatever happens, Wampler said, “I think there’s a great appetite within the public to ensure we have adequate investment for both rail and roads.”
. . .
French Moore Jr., a retired dentist from Abingdon who is chairman of the TDX commission, recalled a Norfolk Southern official who said, “We’re not here to pull rail cars with windows in them.”
That is, the freight railroad isn’t in business to pull passenger cars.
But Norfolk Southern began to change its tune several years ago after it acquired part of Conrail in 1999 and began operating in the Northeast United States.
Suddenly, it had to coexist with commuter railroads from Pennsylvania to New York.
“When we acquired Conrail, that kind of opened our eyes to what’s being done in other parts of the world,” said Schafer of Norfolk Southern. “Whether we liked it or not, we’d be operating a lot of freight trains on tracks owned by public entities.”
Norfolk Southern had to figure out how to operate with commuter rails in some of the busiest parts in the country, including Philadelphia and New York.
“Norfolk Southern has an enormous amount of business on lines that Amtrak owns and controls,” Schafer said.
Chairman and chief executive David R. Goode “exhorted everyone to look for new sources of income,” said Schafer.
The railroad – so used to serving old industries like power plants and car makers – has had to think way outside the boxcar. Indeed, it’s now considering the unthinkable – a return to operat ing some trains between cities.
“We’re edging closer to that,” Schafer said.
Goode expressed this change of heart in a speech in October to the Railway Age Conference. “It has been said that politics makes for strange bedfellows,” he said. “Uncommon people work together for common causes. In the process, adversaries become allies.”
Because of highway congestion, some trucking companies are looking for ways to ship some of their trailers on the rails.
“Just as unexpected, some might say, is the freight rail indus- try’s attitude shift on passenger rail,” Goode said. “It is real, however. It makes business sense, and it can work mutually for freight and passenger rail under the right circumstances.”
The thawing of relations between the two sides of the railroad industry has only just begun, Goode noted.
“It began with a recognition that freight and passenger rails have lived in different worlds for the past three decades,” he said.
Norfolk Southern has taken the first step, he said, of “stop saying no” to new approaches to moving goods and people. “Instead we started saying yes – with conditions.”
He set four principles for such partnerships: No reductions in freight capacity; fair value for use of the railroad’s assets; full liability protection; and no subsidy of passenger operations.
Goode mentioned several Virginia initiatives, including the TDX and the expansion of the Virginia Railway Express in Northern Virginia.
Those projects appear to be prime candidates for funding from Warner’s proposed $23 million rail fund.
“I would expect the TDX would get at least a portion of that,” said Barbara Hartley, vice president of business advocacy for the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce.
A consultant is tallying the cost of upgrading Norfolk Southern’s track to launch a pilot project for passenger rail service from Bristol to Richmond.
Once a cost and plan have been developed, the Norfolk Southern upgrades are expected to take up to two years to finish.
The TDX wants to buy five used passenger cars from the Virginia Railway Express. Then it must get them ready for passenger service.
“We’re not sure yet who we’ll get to do that,” Moore said. “There’s not many companies that refurbish passenger cars.”
. . .
In Northern Virginia, the VRE has its own growth plan to start new service for thousands of commuters who are tired of getting stuck in car traffic. The region’s household population is expected to grow by 36 percent – or 400,000 – by 2025, with employment rate growing at an even faster 41 percent clip.
With parking lots full and many trains bulging at the seams, a recent VRE study cites keen local interest in extending rail service beyond its core area that stretches from Fredericksburg in the south and Manassas to the west.
The most likely extension appears to be west of Manassas around Gainesville and Haymarket, according to the VRE’s chief executive, Dale Zehner.
Any growth, though, counts on cooperation with Norfolk Southern, which owns track in that corridor.
“I think they’re looking at commuter rail differently now,” Zehner said. “It’s potentially a business for them, not just in Northern Virginia, but in other parts of the country. I think they’re looking at it very seriously.”
But Zehner cautioned that freight and passenger rail movements can be as hard to set as a Swiss watch.
“People look at the railroad and say they haven’t seen a train for the last hour,” he said. “Why don’t we just run a commuter [train]? It’s not that simple.”
The freight railroads’ “look at railroads in a very sophisticated way with models,” Zehner explained. “To add service you have to look at the whole network. Can I put the train on without disturbing anything?”
Acca Yard in Richmond “is a perfect example,” Zehner said. “You can’t just keep shoving more trains in there. You start backing up.”
Another promising development has been a thaw in the often frosty relations between the state and CSX.
The backups at Acca Yard were among the topics discussed in November during a private meeting between Warner and the chairman and chief executive of CSX, Michael Ward.
The meeting was “very positive,” according to one state official, and resulted in an agreement by both sides to continue a dialogue to avoid past operating meltdowns and miscues.
CSX was hit hard by Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and other storms this year. But it expects to see significant growth through 2005 and needs to keep working with Virginia, said Karen J. Rae, director of the state’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation.
This fall’s meeting with Ward “shows a high level of commitment both at the governor’s office and at CSX in turning around the last four years,” Rae said.
That’s quite a turnaround from late September when she said she was “disappointed and frustrated” with Florida-based CSX for dragging its feet on a $65.7 million state-funded track upgrade between Richmond and Washington.
Rae’s staff is conducting a study of what needs to happen to improve service in Acca Yard.
Those problems have been cited as one of the obstacles to running more trains to underserved Main Street Station in downtown Richmond.
Acca Yard “is not just a Richmond issue” for CSX, Rae said. “It’s a whole East Coast issue.”