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barely surviving 105-year old tunnels cur- rently in place. The feds and Amtrak will foot half the bill.
The other half will come from New York and New Jersey. While everyone with his senses about him can see the crying need for this project, the fact is it would be surprising to see all that money green-lighted without a battle royal every painful inch of the way. There have been accidents and slowdowns because of the condition of those ancient fa- cilities. The high potential for accelerated rot- ting of the old tunnels’ infrastructure because of the 2012 Superstorm Sandy has prompt- ed Amtrak Chairman Tony Coscia to warn, “There is no comfort zone to say we don’t need to be worried.” And there’s more: Besides tunneling straightaway from New Jersey to Manhat- tan, planners of the undertaking want to add the “Secaucus Loop.” That part of the project would allow trains of New Jersey Transit to operate directly from Rockland and Orange Counties into New York City, thus bypassing a change of trains in Secaucus or Hoboken. Although those are worthy parts of the proj- ect, best guess here is if anyone is looking for pieces to pacify the budget cutters, the Loop may be something “nice to have, but. . .” New York and New Jersey may seek fed-
eral loans to help with their parts of the bill, which, of course, they would repay. Where’s the money? In addition to the Gateway Hudson River project, many more rail infrastructure projects call for more ef- forts at repair on a huge scale. Long delays only raise costs and risk lives. Amtrak Presi- dent Joe Boardman, in referring to Gateway in particular and infrastructure needs in gen- eral, told a luncheon meeting at the National Press Club, “We don’t need to find a solution — we need to fund one.” National problems: The Amtrak boss was
joined by members of a blue ribbon panel on the national infrastructure issue. The group noted that infrastructure problems are most acute in New York and Chicago. Chicago is the nation’s largest rail hub,
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with every major railroad operating on area trackage. Members of the panel put a price tag on the Windy City’s congestion problem; that economic vulnerability adds up to $799 billion a year, impacting six key industries.
About Keystone — No Worry (For Now) The seemingly interminable decision-mak-
ing process on whether to build the Keystone Pipeline from Canada to Texas was extended for so many years that railroaders and other involved industries, as well as governments (notably Canada), have since informally giv- en up on the project and moved on to fallback solutions. The big oil companies chose not to wait (for what turned out to be seven years) for Mr. Obama to make his move on the issue. He formally rejected Keystone in early No- vember 2015. By then, the oil firms had gone ahead on their deals with the railroads. The trains are well-positioned to move tens
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of thousands of barrels oil a day from Cana- da, which had plans for shipment to the West Coast and then to China. To be sure, as Mc- Kinsey and Co. energy expert Tim Fitzgibbon tells the Wall Street Journal, “No oil producer or refiner will think it’s advantageous that Keystone’s permit has been pulled, but it’s not the only option” for moving Canadian crude.
Near term, he is surely right. Railroads
these days are carrying close to one million barrels of oil a day by rail.
It’s Ba-ack: Merger Mania —Again It happened last year, then faded away.
The rumor mill had it that Canadian Pacific was preparing to “reach out” across the bor- der to CSX, which pushed back and said, in effect, “No deal.” Now just as we are writing this column, Canadian Pacific has announced that it is proposing a merger with U.S. rival Norfolk Southern. CP’s persistent push has result- ed in a letter proposing “a takeover” offer to NS. Norfolk Southern acknowledged it had received the “unsolicited, low premium, and highly conditional indication of interest,” and says it will “evaluate it.” A source sharing info with the New York Times says CP had al- ready been holding “preliminary discussions” with Norfolk Southern. Regulators are more leery of new mergers,
just because they have piled up so high in recent years. Hard to believe that since the 1980 rail reform Staggers Act — whose result was to deregulate (partially) the industry — the number of Class I carriers in the U.S. had fallen from 56 in 1975 to seven in 2005. A CP/NS new merger, if it does materialize,
would take in a huge amount of territory — not as large as would have been the case if CSX had been part of the equation instead of NS, but large nonetheless. NS alone has over 22,000 miles of track. NS is based in the east. Add CP with 15,000 miles in the west, and the combination would stretch (Atlantic to Pacif- ic) all through the North American continent. One of the arguments CP is using is that a
deal with NS “would create a transcontinen- tal railroad with scale and reach to deliver improved levels of service to customers and communities while enhancing competition and creating significant shareholder value.”
High Speed Rail The Chinese have continued their involve-
ment with the years-long soap opera focused on when or if we will ever have a credible passenger train operation between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It is the most reliably logical unused HSR corridor (or even a conventional train corridor, for that matter) in America. For years, this column has been covering the proposals for passenger rail service between America’s second largest city and America’s adult Disneyland, and it seemed every time we turned around, one would-be project was canceled, to be replaced by another. So, in an attitude of “let me know when you’ve nailed a deal,” we abandoned the soap opera. Finally, we now have less talk and more
action. China Railway inked a deal with U.S. firm XpressWest, backed by casino de- veloper Marnell Companies. The agreement represents a definite advantage over Japan, which also wanted in on the deal. It is touted as the first Chinese-made bul-
let train project in the U.S., which will travel the distance at 150 m.p.h. in just one hour and 20 minutes. Compare that with four hours by automobile, and six to seven hours by Greyhound bus. Also note that a key vote in the California legislature for this idea was approved by 40 to one. Construction could start September 2016. Yes, I think these peo-
ple are serious.
WES VERNON IS A WASHINGTON WRITER and veteran broadcast journalist. You can reach him with questions or comments at
capitollines@railfan.com.
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