Of Mice and Men.

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

As an example of a good idea gone Horribly Wrong…

New trees must go: railroad officials say
BY TOM JOHNSTON
STAFF WRITER

Although completed more than a year ago, the major reconstruction of Route 14 in Barrington, is like a lingering headache to village officials.

They are done fuming about the roadway closures and traffic jams that clogged the town most of 2002, but they’re now scratching their heads about another Route 14-related snafu.

Barrington Public Works Director John Heinz told the Village Board recently the Union Pacific Railroad wants the Illinois Department of Transportation to uproot or relocate some 300 baby trees. The agency just planted them along the railroad side of Route 14 as part of the village’s beautification of the newly constructed corridor.

Plantings in the median across from the Makray Memorial Golf Club and along the golf course’s roadfront will be spared, but the trees across the highway between the curb and railroad are problematic because they are in the railroad company’s right-of-way.

With “the liabilities involved, the lack of approval … I don’t think we have a leg to stand on,” Heinz said.

Several factors are involved with the railroad’s distress.

Heinz said primarily Union Pacific never gave IDOT approval for planting the trees in the right-of-way, which was a condition of the village’s beautification lease with Union Pacific.

“We had the assumption they got clearance,” Heinz said of IDOT. “Apparently, they did not.”

Another part of the problem is IDOT condemned some of the Union Pacific’s land to accommodate the Route 14 reconstruction. In return, the railroad reserved rights to put in fiber-optic utilities underground where the trees now stand.

Union Pacific is also concerned, Heinz said, that more mature trees would pose some safety hazards, including sight impairment and leaves falling on the tracks, making

2

Jeez, you’ve gotta at least see who’s land you are on before you start planting trees.

What happened to the city planners getting the big bucks to get these things figured out?

Oh well.

3

I’m mildly amazed that the town fathers even negotiated to get a contract for “beautification purposes”…They usually just blunder-on with the project and can’t see why the railroad would be upset…

Also, for all the ragging & flaming of UP about its management on these forums, they look pretty darn with-it here, in this case. Can’t say the same for the town officials.

Just another day here in the real world…
[banghead][banghead][banghead]

4

Hey MC–not to revisit an old shouting match, but doesn’t that remind you a lot of the rails with trails crowd? Esp. the planners and “transportation - read highway - experts”?

Wonder what would happen (other than increasing legal sector unemployment) if these entities actually sat down and tried to develop bonafide working relationships on areas of common interest???

5

Geeeze, Something about you can’t see the tree for the forest?

6

Thats easy, they would end up forming a sub committie staffed by junior aids, who would decide the best place to plant the trees would be in the center of the tracks…
Ed

7

I read an article in the Chicago Tribune this morning that spoke about the parents of a child killed while crossing the UP/Metro North line tracks on the North Shore route on his bike. The parents are lobbying for a pedestrian crossing gate and even said they would pay for it. The day before this kid was killed Metra had a person in his school speaking about crossing safety. Not to dishonor this childs memory, mind you, but clearly you can’t prevent such accidents if the people involved don’t use common sense and stay away from the tracks when the auto crossing gates are down!!! How does this relate to the thread we are involved in here, well if I was a UP official and my company was constantly being decried for not being safety concerned enough, I would not want Barrington to plant the trees either so as not to EVER be blamed for something the trees may have caused (i.e. poor visibility down the tracks when foliage is present or slick tracks in the fall causing a train to not be able to slow fast enough causing an accident, etc.). You just can’t win in this world if people don’t use common sense!!!

8

Gee Ed, I’ve worked on several properties like that. Do they teach them that in planning school.

In the same vein, worked on the Sunset Station project (SAS) back during the AlamoDome days. The planners and Alamodome engineers (THIS IS TRUE!!!) had told the city fathers that the railroad issues were easily solved–they’d just jog the SP transcontinental main over a block to get it around the parking lot.

Got ahold of today’s Austin paper, where the front page illustration shows a genius planner’s idea of a conventional commuter rail operation across downtown (never mind the grade crossings every block!) on 4th St, JOGGING OVER ONE BLOCK ON SAN ANTONIO to 3rd, and then to the old power plant to the east of the Colorado Bridge. Wouldn’t ya love to see the cars they intend to run on that???

These are the same brilliant minds that think M-K-T means “MoKan”[banghead][banghead][banghead][banghead]

9

One thing I’ve learned in my railroad career is that city governments will try and screw the railroads as much as they can. Even though the city was built around the railroad, it is the railroads fault for blocking traffic while going through town. We’ve had police officers tell us that they cannot do anything about tresspassers unless they are standing within sight of a no trespassing sign. So we put up about two dozen new trespassing signs along the worst part of the railroad, only to have the police tell us that they have to be cought in the act to get a ticket

10

The only thing that is dumber than Rail Company managments is…

ta da…Small Town Governments…

Who cares about railroad property lines…certanily not local govenments, at least not when it comes to matters other than collecting their share of taxes.

11

Why restrict it to small town governments? The ones I’m talking about are large cities and the BIG, “renowned” consulting houses (read: lots of guys just out of school who think they know everything). There’s plenty of stupidity to go around.

12

Stupidity…
Boy do I have a story.

Back in 1987…1990 the City of Superior Wi. tried to enact a tonage tax on the iron ore that gets loaded onto ships here.
I was a rate of 5 cents per ton of unloaded ore.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court shot the propasal down.

The railroads in town are good neighbors…probably too good…so the City Fathers tried to pick their pockets.

If it wasn`t for the Great Northern, Superior would just be a town with a sandy beach.

Still today if you talk to City workers that were around during that time, they talk about how Superior was “Screwed”.

Knock Knock?? is anyone in there???

Kurt

13

Well thanks to the overload of lawyers in the past few decades our society as a whole has relieved itself of personal responsibility. It is always someone else’s fault for something you did. A drunk walked onto the tracks and wouldn’t move even though the engineer blew the horn, applied the brakes, and tried everything in his power not to hit the fool, yet the railroad will get blamed??? Lawyers will argue…“Why didn’t the RR build a fence? Why couldn’t the train stop in time?” Just typical Bull, that makes you sick to your stomach and want to crawl into a corner and sit in the fetal position repeating to yourself “This is not happening, this is not happening…” [soapbox]

14

So True…So True…

I am 59 years old and sometimes I am glad that I won`t be around to see the meltdown.

Kurt