(The Associated Press circulated the following by Paul Davenport on June 23.)
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Arizona regulators on Friday imposed a $56,000 fine against Union Pacific because the railroad started work on a major track expansion project without first getting state approval.
Union Pacific representatives acknowledged the Omaha, Neb.-based railroad didn’t have permission from the Arizona Corporation Commission to rebuild a crossing in Bowie in Cochise County.
The rebuilt crossing is one of dozens that Union Pacific plans across Southern Arizona as part of adding a second track on the “Sunset Route” main line between El Paso and Los Angeles.
Union Pacific is double-tracking the Sunset Route to add capacity, largely to handle freight traffic from increasing containers of Asian imports unloaded at Southern California ports.
During a two-hour hearing on the matter, railroad representatives apologized, blaming the company’s misstep on communication failures within the railroad and between the railroad and its contractor.
The representatives said Union Pacific was taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and commission members made it clear they won’t tolerate a repeat.
They caustically noted that the early start on the Bowie work occurred after commissioners had already put Union Pacific on notice that they planned to scrutinize the crossing projects carefully because of concerns that Arizona’s population growth may justify replacing some of the at-grade road crossings with more expensive underpasses or overpasses.
“It just boggles the mind that this happened and that you would allow this to happen,” Commissioner Kris Mayes told Union Pacific representatives. “It’s not exactly an auspicious beginning to the double-tracking project.”
Chris Peterson, a Union Pacific official, said the company’s managers were chagrinned to learn from the commission’s staff that work on the crossing had started without an application being made or granted.
“Obviously this was quite disconcerting if not embarrassing to find it out that way,” Peterson said. “It was not our intention to challenge the commission’s authority by constructing the crossing in Bowie. … We violated commission rules.”
The commission staff said it believed the unauthorized start of the work was a serious violation of the commission’s railroad safety rules but was inadvertent, an isolated instance and not likely to happen again. Also, Union Pacific apologized and accepted responsibility for the error, the staff said.
The $56,000 fine proposed by the railroad and recommended by the commission’s staff represented a $2,000 penalty for each of 28 days between when construction equipment was first positioned to do the work and when the company belatedly filed its application to do the work.
Under sometimes critical questioning from commissioners, Peterson said Union Pacific would step up its activities to explain the double-tracking project to affected communities and to keep its regulatory affairs up to date.
Petersen said that according to the company’s latest projections, the current daily average of 48 trains on the Sunset Route would increase, with double-tracking, to 84 by 2016.