Obama Plan for High-Speed Rail Raises Concerns at Freight Firms

This story appears in the Feb. 8 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Obama administration’s $8.5 billion plan to advance U.S. high-speed rail programs is being questioned by trucking interests and the freight railroads whose tracks would host most of the new services, officials in both industries said.

A total of $4.9 billion will be used in 29 states for passenger service over 3,067 miles of track owned by freight railroads, according to Federal Railroad Administration data. Less than 250 miles of new track will be built in those states.

Vice President Joseph Biden, a regular Amtrak rider when he was a senator from Delaware, unveiled the program on Jan. 28 in Tampa, Fla.

“This is an absolute game-changer for American transportation,” Biden said, touting competitive travel times, reduced congestion on highways, lower emissions and job creation that would result from the investments.

“The critical thing from our aspect of the problem is that we do not want to trade capacity for high-speed rail from our freight services,” said John Gray, senior vice president for the Association of American Railroads, citing operational conflicts, maintenance costs, safety and liability issues.

Operational conflicts include managing a network where passenger and freight trains run at different speeds, requiring a greater separation in terms of time and distance to operate safely, Gray said.

Passenger trains require more track maintenance because of their faster speeds, he explained, and the added time for track maintenance cuts into freight capacity.

Potential liability rises because adding passenger trains puts more people on rail property, raising accident risk, he added.

Darrin Roth, highway operations director for American Trucking Associations, said ATA would be concerned if Highway Trust Fund money was used for high-speed rail. That isn’t the case for the new grants that are coming from economic stimulus funds.

“There is an assumption that these investments will alleviate congestion. There is no evidence that passenger rail alleviates congestion even on the most dense corridors,” Roth said.

UPS Inc. spends about $1 billion annually to move packages by rail and “is always concerned about the possibility of increased congestion when passenger and freight trains share the same tracks,” spokesman Norman Black said.

“While it is likely that at some point increased passenger rail activity could negatively affect the fluidity of the freight rail network, we think it is premature to suggest these particular projects are going to pose problems for UPS’ operation,” he said.

Dave Howland, vice president of rail for Schneider National Inc., said he foresees a “mixed impact” from high-speed rail advances.

“The new high speed trains will have an impact on service windows on those corridors where they will run on the same tracks as intermodal trains,” he said.

“The additional capital investment into the track structure and grade crossing separations will actually allow the intermodal trains to speed up their operations,” he added, which would be a net positive for rail and truck operations.

Florida and California are receiving the remaining $3.6 billion to build service speeds of 168 miles an hour or more. By comparison, Amtrak says its trains now run at a 125 mph top speed in the Northeast.

Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, favored a dedicated right of way for high-speed trains to avoid freight conflicts.

“As oil prices increase, more freight will shift from truck to rail,” Kunz said. “We don’t want to advance and get a great passenger system at the expense of the freight rail.”

Gray noted that separate rights of way can be a complicated issue, citing a 2007 Colorado collision between a light rail train and a derailed coal train on a separate but adjacent track.

Other than a planned new service between Cleveland and Cincinnati, Amtrak trains operate over freight railroad lines everywhere that the new funding will be spent.

The largest project outside Florida and California is $1.1 billion to speed Chicago-St. Louis trains to 110 miles an hour by enhancing technology and upgrading track structure.

Signaling and track improvements also will reduce bottlenecks, such as one near Chicago and another between Richmond, Va., and Washington where 11 miles of new track will be added, based on FRA data.

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who favors private sector participation in high-speed rail projects, said “the United States has lagged behind many other developed countries in passenger rail transportation.”

“The administration has set back our first significant effort to develop high-speed rail by selecting mostly Amtrak projects and low-speed initiatives,” said Mica, whose district includes suburbs of Orlando.