We need freight and passenger traffic to have access to fluid mainlines, as otherwise the lack of intermodal freight conversion off the highways will incur greater financial and economic costs for the nation. I still see improvements to existing mainlines as the most realistic as long as performance metrics are included with public dollars.
So instead of the parallel construction test mentioned, simply require by legislation that any of the Rail Traffic Control runs needed for passenger rail negotiations first start with the infrastructure needed to produce a fluid railroad for the existing freight traffic then calculate the value to add in passenger trains.
I produced a comment to the STB on this issue in the Gulf Coast case with illustrative parametric delay curves, showing that essentially the CSX line was in what is known by engineers as an unstable flow condition in the base case model. So if the performance metric is 900 minutes of delay per 10,000 train-miles for passenger, then the stable flow baseline MLOS metric for freight would be around 6000 minutes of delay per 10,000 train-miles for freight. In the case of the CSX line the model baseline was at around 8000 minutes.
After setting a logical model baseline for mainlines in legislation simply provide for Tax Credits per Intermodal or Passenger Train-mile actually operated equal to the Interstate Highway Cost-to-Fee Incremental Gap.
Thanks Jim, Once we accept the fact that our rail network is balkanized and much of it has been neglected to a dangerous degree we can have an informed discussion about the future. When I was with Grand Trunk CN in the 1970's passenger trains were still operating on the main lines. Commuter trains were operating between Pontiac and Detroit. The plant was maintained for 100 miles per hour. Freight traffic was not impeded by having centralized train control and well maintained track. We are suffering from investors that think rail is a place where you can make 20 percent per year. Not if you are doing your maintenance. 103 year old bridges and tunnels! The EU suffers from some of the same problems. But they have a master plan and are actively investing in a 21st Century rail network. The United States is not. Time for radical change. Our rail network is of vital strategic importance. If the private sector can no longer meet their obligations to the nation then perhaps nationalization must be considered.
I said 40 years ago that the correct question was "How much for the tracks?"
Here's some examples of that working:
- Michigan buying the Michigan Line
- one of the transit agencies in Washington State buying the Point Defiance Bypass
- Massachusetts / MBTA buying most of the track in the entire state; large recent purchases from CSX, older gigantic purchases from Boston & Maine, and more.
- New York buying the entire Long Island Rail Road
- New York buying or leasing what is now the Metro North network from Conrail
- New York leasing the line from NY to Albany from CSX
- Amtrak buying the "Post Road Branch" from Albany east
- North Carolina recovering state control of the North Carolina Railroad from its old lease
- New Jersey buying masses of track from multiple railroads
- Amtrak buying the NEC from the wreck of Penn Central
- LA Metrolink and the San Diego transit agencies buying routes from various railroads
- Chicago Metra buying tracks from a long list of freight railroads
- various transit agencies buying tracks for their local commuter or mass transit routes (more examples than I can list)
...in addition to the two you mentioned in Virginia and Utah.
EVERY ONE of these has worked out well. The state should buy the tracks. If the freight railroad really doesn't want to sell all the tracks, check how wide the right of way is, and if it's a four-track ROW, buy half of it. This is an *extremely reliable* approach.
Agree completely. Obviously that will vary depending on where the land would be acquired. But $83K an acre works out to a very fair price as an average across most of the places where the land would have to be acquired.
This is a great piece; I agree wholeheartedly with the way you propose the question be phrased! A caution regarding the Virginia example you cite is that despite the state "ownership" I understand that CSX will not permit the passenger tracks to be electrified (even vetoing provision of bases for possible future catenary poles on the new Long Bridge being built by VDOT!). I've heard that they've also not been cooperative with NY State efforts to build passenger tracks parallel to the old New York Central mainline across upstate New York.
Indeed, that's the deal they negotiated. But when I say it should be a model, that doesn't mean rigidly in all respects. I'd be looking for that deal to supply the principle, and then include language that says once we (the public) own that railroad, we can do what we want with it so long as it doesn't pose a safety or operational encumbrance.
CSX has historically been unreasonably and irrationally uncooperative.
Massachusetts proved that if you get US Senators to threaten them, they will start being more reasonable. CSX started out by making totally unreasonable demands for selling most of its Massachusetts tracks; after the MA Senators started discussing passing a special federal law to deal with CSX's obstructionism, CSX suddenly came to the table and negotiated a fair deal to sell all those tracks.
The reason CSX can be uncooperative with the project to convert the old third and fourth tracks on the NYC mainline to passenger service is simple: the NY Senators haven't threatened CSX over this issue. The MA Senators showed what was needed. That's the politics of it, for anyone who wants to deal with it.
By the time we finish calculating what the freight RRs owe the public for the '71 bailout, there will not need to be much needed in the way of confiscation. How much is the public owed for preventing the RRs bankruptcy or inevitable nationalisation? The latter likelier back then had our demand for rail transit not been exceeded by our automobile addiction, socially engineered for class and race bias by dark forces such as Robert Moses and the car makers. Sharing what should have always been ours(the public's), given that we paid for it, is not cheaper than nationalisation and ensuing rational enviro and economic impact-determined prioritisation of freight vs passengers on publicly owned rail. Alas, Jim's radical thinking may be the most politically feasible in a cognitively divided country.
Yes!!! Build our own has been my belief since the formation of Amtrak. I truly hope your line of thinking takes precedence over others-building our own will be incredible positive results for passenger rail in the US!!!
I may have a narrow focus for my region, but I think the most effective path forward is to start with incremental upgrades. Small targeted improvements allow us to demonstrate early progress, build trust, and show tangible benefits without requiring massive upfront commitments. Some funding entities will shy away from the big proposals. Each step creates momentum and helps validate the next phase. By nibbling at these smaller pieces first, we can reduce resistance, secure support earlier, and ultimately make it easier to pursue larger upgrades down the railroad. That’s why I believe a phased in incremental approach gives us passengers/taxpayers the best chance for success.
I’m a senior who enjoys crunching numbers. I was sitting on a sideline waiting for the freight train to pass and hit my timer on my phone. My conclusion was, it would have taken the Zephyr five minutes to pass them rather than freight taking 30 minutes to pass us. But we had fun sitting there observing, that’s what we do passing time. Enjoy the travels and scenery.
We're working around the clock to get steady funding streams and mutual cooperation for a fluid railroad on improved existing lines. I suspect that's still the more feasible option over purchasing ROW that in many cases doesn't exist or would be extremely disruptive to existing uses, not to mention the direct costs. Many of us would prefer a deep dive into an open access system enacted by Congress to permit all qualified traffic on shared lines, separated where necessary. This would be similar to European models - separating service from infrastructure - with the RR keeping the infrastructure and managing traffic. Thomas White has this work underway and we're excited to bring it to the rail advocacy community when the messaging is perfected and the timing is optimal. In any case, operation of the RR for effective passenger and freight movement requires a return to the operational expertise it once had. Thank you for the conversation - we look forward to more.
We need freight and passenger traffic to have access to fluid mainlines, as otherwise the lack of intermodal freight conversion off the highways will incur greater financial and economic costs for the nation. I still see improvements to existing mainlines as the most realistic as long as performance metrics are included with public dollars.
So instead of the parallel construction test mentioned, simply require by legislation that any of the Rail Traffic Control runs needed for passenger rail negotiations first start with the infrastructure needed to produce a fluid railroad for the existing freight traffic then calculate the value to add in passenger trains.
I produced a comment to the STB on this issue in the Gulf Coast case with illustrative parametric delay curves, showing that essentially the CSX line was in what is known by engineers as an unstable flow condition in the base case model. So if the performance metric is 900 minutes of delay per 10,000 train-miles for passenger, then the stable flow baseline MLOS metric for freight would be around 6000 minutes of delay per 10,000 train-miles for freight. In the case of the CSX line the model baseline was at around 8000 minutes.
After setting a logical model baseline for mainlines in legislation simply provide for Tax Credits per Intermodal or Passenger Train-mile actually operated equal to the Interstate Highway Cost-to-Fee Incremental Gap.
Thanks Jim, Once we accept the fact that our rail network is balkanized and much of it has been neglected to a dangerous degree we can have an informed discussion about the future. When I was with Grand Trunk CN in the 1970's passenger trains were still operating on the main lines. Commuter trains were operating between Pontiac and Detroit. The plant was maintained for 100 miles per hour. Freight traffic was not impeded by having centralized train control and well maintained track. We are suffering from investors that think rail is a place where you can make 20 percent per year. Not if you are doing your maintenance. 103 year old bridges and tunnels! The EU suffers from some of the same problems. But they have a master plan and are actively investing in a 21st Century rail network. The United States is not. Time for radical change. Our rail network is of vital strategic importance. If the private sector can no longer meet their obligations to the nation then perhaps nationalization must be considered.
I said 40 years ago that the correct question was "How much for the tracks?"
Here's some examples of that working:
- Michigan buying the Michigan Line
- one of the transit agencies in Washington State buying the Point Defiance Bypass
- Massachusetts / MBTA buying most of the track in the entire state; large recent purchases from CSX, older gigantic purchases from Boston & Maine, and more.
- New York buying the entire Long Island Rail Road
- New York buying or leasing what is now the Metro North network from Conrail
- New York leasing the line from NY to Albany from CSX
- Amtrak buying the "Post Road Branch" from Albany east
- North Carolina recovering state control of the North Carolina Railroad from its old lease
- New Jersey buying masses of track from multiple railroads
- Amtrak buying the NEC from the wreck of Penn Central
- LA Metrolink and the San Diego transit agencies buying routes from various railroads
- Chicago Metra buying tracks from a long list of freight railroads
- various transit agencies buying tracks for their local commuter or mass transit routes (more examples than I can list)
...in addition to the two you mentioned in Virginia and Utah.
EVERY ONE of these has worked out well. The state should buy the tracks. If the freight railroad really doesn't want to sell all the tracks, check how wide the right of way is, and if it's a four-track ROW, buy half of it. This is an *extremely reliable* approach.
I've wondered about this myself. I think the idea has merit although I would recommend market rates for the land to be acquired.
Agree completely. Obviously that will vary depending on where the land would be acquired. But $83K an acre works out to a very fair price as an average across most of the places where the land would have to be acquired.
This is a great piece; I agree wholeheartedly with the way you propose the question be phrased! A caution regarding the Virginia example you cite is that despite the state "ownership" I understand that CSX will not permit the passenger tracks to be electrified (even vetoing provision of bases for possible future catenary poles on the new Long Bridge being built by VDOT!). I've heard that they've also not been cooperative with NY State efforts to build passenger tracks parallel to the old New York Central mainline across upstate New York.
Indeed, that's the deal they negotiated. But when I say it should be a model, that doesn't mean rigidly in all respects. I'd be looking for that deal to supply the principle, and then include language that says once we (the public) own that railroad, we can do what we want with it so long as it doesn't pose a safety or operational encumbrance.
CSX has historically been unreasonably and irrationally uncooperative.
Massachusetts proved that if you get US Senators to threaten them, they will start being more reasonable. CSX started out by making totally unreasonable demands for selling most of its Massachusetts tracks; after the MA Senators started discussing passing a special federal law to deal with CSX's obstructionism, CSX suddenly came to the table and negotiated a fair deal to sell all those tracks.
The reason CSX can be uncooperative with the project to convert the old third and fourth tracks on the NYC mainline to passenger service is simple: the NY Senators haven't threatened CSX over this issue. The MA Senators showed what was needed. That's the politics of it, for anyone who wants to deal with it.
Freight can and does operate under cantenary all over the world. The response to CSX should be "who asked you".
Does CSX veto of catenary cover the S line?
By the time we finish calculating what the freight RRs owe the public for the '71 bailout, there will not need to be much needed in the way of confiscation. How much is the public owed for preventing the RRs bankruptcy or inevitable nationalisation? The latter likelier back then had our demand for rail transit not been exceeded by our automobile addiction, socially engineered for class and race bias by dark forces such as Robert Moses and the car makers. Sharing what should have always been ours(the public's), given that we paid for it, is not cheaper than nationalisation and ensuing rational enviro and economic impact-determined prioritisation of freight vs passengers on publicly owned rail. Alas, Jim's radical thinking may be the most politically feasible in a cognitively divided country.
Yes!!! Build our own has been my belief since the formation of Amtrak. I truly hope your line of thinking takes precedence over others-building our own will be incredible positive results for passenger rail in the US!!!
I may have a narrow focus for my region, but I think the most effective path forward is to start with incremental upgrades. Small targeted improvements allow us to demonstrate early progress, build trust, and show tangible benefits without requiring massive upfront commitments. Some funding entities will shy away from the big proposals. Each step creates momentum and helps validate the next phase. By nibbling at these smaller pieces first, we can reduce resistance, secure support earlier, and ultimately make it easier to pursue larger upgrades down the railroad. That’s why I believe a phased in incremental approach gives us passengers/taxpayers the best chance for success.
I’m a senior who enjoys crunching numbers. I was sitting on a sideline waiting for the freight train to pass and hit my timer on my phone. My conclusion was, it would have taken the Zephyr five minutes to pass them rather than freight taking 30 minutes to pass us. But we had fun sitting there observing, that’s what we do passing time. Enjoy the travels and scenery.
We're working around the clock to get steady funding streams and mutual cooperation for a fluid railroad on improved existing lines. I suspect that's still the more feasible option over purchasing ROW that in many cases doesn't exist or would be extremely disruptive to existing uses, not to mention the direct costs. Many of us would prefer a deep dive into an open access system enacted by Congress to permit all qualified traffic on shared lines, separated where necessary. This would be similar to European models - separating service from infrastructure - with the RR keeping the infrastructure and managing traffic. Thomas White has this work underway and we're excited to bring it to the rail advocacy community when the messaging is perfected and the timing is optimal. In any case, operation of the RR for effective passenger and freight movement requires a return to the operational expertise it once had. Thank you for the conversation - we look forward to more.