(The following story by Le Roy Standish appeared on The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel website on June 8, 2009.)
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Do those annoying traffic bottlenecks at railroad crossings seem to be fewer these days?
Sometimes perception is reality. Union Pacific officials say boxcars, locomotives and employees are being idled until this country’s economic engine chugs back to life.
“Times are tough with us and really the entire freight-rail industry because of the recession,” said Mark Davis, Union Pacific spokesman.
System-wide, Union Pacific said it has 1,900 locomotives and 66,000 freight cars in mothballs. In addition, the company has 5,200 employees who have been furloughed, Davis said.
The railroad depends on the production of goods. Without that production of everything slows.
“For the first quarter (of 2009) we were down 21 percent system-wide,” Davis said.
The amount of coal being carried on the rails is down 10 percent. Transporting of agriculture products is down 12 percent. Industrial products, such as lumber and cement, are down 27 percent, and automotive transport (new cars and parts) is down 48 percent.
The downturn has taken just one coal train, from 14 to 13, off the tracks going east through Grand Junction, Davis said. Traffic heading west remains unchanged with eight trains a day passing through Grand Junction, he said.
Davis said the railroad is combining trains these days to get the most use it can from those locomotives still operating.
For the last several years Union Pacific spent $1.8 billion annually on track maintenance across the system. This year its maintenance budget is $1.7 billion.
“So we continue to invest in the system,” Davis said.
He refrained from predicting when Union Pacific would again ride high on the rails, but did say it would come quickly once key industries rebound.
“Usually we are anywhere from six to eight weeks always behind the curve,” Davis said. “We are just waiting for the economy to come back.”