TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas officials are working furiously to meet the needs of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. as it determines whether to consolidate locomotive shops in Topeka or Burlington, Iowa, the Capital-Journal reported.
Late Friday, Doug Kinsinger, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce, was on the telephone with Craig Hill, BNSF vice president, who is working to complete a study on shop consolidation by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, while Iowa officials believe they have the advantage of a federal bridge project near the Burlington shops, Kansas officials say the $30 million bridge faces challenges by the Kansas congressional delegation.
Beginning Jan. 1, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., will serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee that has yet to decide whether to approve the repair project for a BNSF bridge over the Mississippi River near Burlington.
Currently, the bridge is a swing-span bridge that allows one barge to pass by. The bridge would be converted to a lift span, which would double the width of the navigational channel.
“That will have to go through the fiscal year 2003 appropriations bill and that hasn’t passed yet,” said Erik Hotmire, spokesman for Brownback. “Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt is on the House Appropriations Committee. This bridge project isn’t a done deal.”
Steve Forsberg, spokesman for BNSF, said he couldn’t say whether the bridge project would influence BNSF’s decision on where to consolidate the shops.
“It would be nice to have a new bridge, but the primary beneficiary is barge traffic,” Forsberg said, adding that planning on the bridge project began before the shop consolidation study was initiated.
Momentum has been building for the past two months as BNSF nears its goal of completing the study by Dec. 31. An internal review of the study will take place in January, and then it will be shared with Topeka and Burlington officials.
Neither city wants to release its incentive packages, but it is obvious that both Topeka and Burlington are trying to influence BNSF to choose one over the other.
“This is very important to the economies of both communities,” Kinsinger said. “It would be best if we weren’t pitted against each other. But it affects our citizens’ lives and futures.”
Burlington Mayor Tim Scott said: “Both are concerned about their employees and their families losing jobs. A loss of population would hurt either community. Right now, it boils down to people. Families may have to pull up roots.”
Scott said Burlington is using a combination of incentives, including local, state and federal, to influence BNSF. He declined to be more specific.
Kinsinger also wouldn’t offer specifics on Topeka’s incentive package.
“We’ll be pulling from every resource we can, from every direction we can,” he said. “It will really be a team effort from our local government, state government, federal delegation and the private sector.”
Burlington officials have said their shops’ location is in their favor because it lies next to the BNSF main line, while Topeka’s is about an hour off the main line that runs through Kansas City and Emporia.
Forsberg said about 36 trains pass by Burlington, but Topeka is close to “our busiest mainline from Chicago, Kansas City, Emporia to Los Angeles. About 50 to 70 trains a day travel on that. It’s the premier rail route between Chicago and L.A.”
Kinsinger said one Topeka advantage is BNSF has 140 acres in Topeka compared with 10 to 15 acres in Burlington.
“We think it would be hard for them to fit it all on Burlington’s real estate,” he said.
Kinsinger said Topeka is in a better, central location with its close proximity to BNSF’s extensive operations in the Kansas City area and Johnson County Community College, where BNSF has a training program.
Differences, similarities
The two communities have deep histories with the railroad industry. Burlington, along the Mississippi River in southeast Iowa, was a longtime hub of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., which was founded in 1849 and was the largest and oldest railroad to make up the consolidated Burlington Northern Railroad.
Topeka was the original home for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which was created in 1863 by Topeka founder Cyrus K. Holliday.
The two cities were linked by the 1995 merger of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe railroads.
Both communities have locomotive maintenance shops operating at 55 percent capacity, another reason to consolidate. The Burlington shops employ 380 people. The Topeka shops employ 330.
“It’s a part of practically every family in this city, and we cannot afford to lose it,” said Sen. Dave Jackson, R-Topeka, who said his father worked at the shops before joining the military during World War II.
Scott, the Burlington mayor, said his grandfather, Gerald Schroeder, worked for the Santa Fe Railway in Chicago and later in Fort Madison, Iowa, where he did bridge work before he died in 1957.
Scott said the loss of 380 BNSF employees would be an additional blow to Burlington, which already lost jobs in its manufacturing sector.
Manufacturing makes up more than a third of the jobs in Burlington.
Last year, Excite Battery closed a plant in Burlington, eliminating 220 jobs.
Unemployment in Des Moines County, where Burlington is located, is 6.8 percent, the highest in the state of Iowa, Scott said.
“Right now because of the downturn in the economy, it’s the manufacturing sector that gets hit first and hardest,” Scott said.
BNSF is one of the highest-paying manufacturers in Burlington.
“They’ve been a stable employer over the years with not a lot of layoffs,” Scott said.
Burlington, an old river city, grew to a population of 45,000 during the World Wars, partly because there was an ammunition plant nearby that employed more than 10,000 people. That plant, the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, now employs around 1,000. Burlington has about 28,000 population, but Des Moines County has 42,000.
Topeka has had its share of population losses over the years, too. In the 1970s, Topeka lost about 10,000 residents when the Air Force closed its base at Forbes Field, eliminating 4,125 military jobs and several other supporting business and ancillary jobs. Shawnee County’s population is around 170,000.
“We’re four times as large,” Kinsinger said.