Red-hot rails## APPETITE FOR IMPORTS, GRIDLOCK ON FREEWAYS MEAN MORE TRAINS, NOISE, DELAYS AT CROSSINGS##### By Patrick May###### Mercury News
The trains are haunting Fred Arm’s dreams. Night after night, the Richmond resident bolts upright in bed. Sitting in the silence, he wonders why he woke up. Then the horn blasts again. And he knows.
It's every day and every night,'' says Arm, who lives in a city sliced and diced daily by as many as 70 trains. They blow the horn when they back up, they blow it when they go forward. It never ends.‘’
It may sound like horns, but what the retired attorney is really hearing is an explosion. While many Americans may think railroads have been rusting away the past 30 years, the nation’s tracks are red-hot, especially in California and right here in San Jose.
Commuters are trading in clogged freeways for a fast train ride to work. And as products meant to feed the American consumer’s appetite keep pouring into California ports on ships from Asia, those goods are increasingly rolling across the country on a million steel wheels.
What is the famous line of the realtor, Location, Location, Location. Why do we continue to let dim-witted individuals say stupid things. If you don’t like trains don’t buy your house next to the railroad tracks.
Perhaps I should have omitted the two-paragraph lead-in to the main story. While the point that you make is valid, that isn’t what this article is about. For those willing to take the time to read the article, it is about the huge increase in rail traffic.
They made it sound like the RR infrastructure is fragile, but functioning. Is this true? Can they be headed for the equivalent of what the electricity and refining industries face now?
Is it my imagination or are UP and BNSF the only ones undergoing major expansion? I know this article is West Coast centered, but I never read much about CSX expanding (or NS for that matter).
“The lion’s share (of traffic) is handled by trucking”? Is this true? I thought for short haul, obviously, trucks would win hands down, but for anything over a couple of hundred miles, I thought rail was the wisest route.
This is the same tired argument, and in particular, out there on the left-coast, where there seems to be an overabundance of folks of this "ilk’, NIMBY’s, etc.
“Fred-Baby” Arm sums up his own situation in the last paragraph of the article,“…Arm sees himself as an innocent bystander in what he calls the global-vs.-local'' clash. We all benefit from this cargo,‘’ he says. ``But especially in California, we’re also paying a price for a global economy and this Wal-Mart way of life.”
Several years ago, it was the crowd who was escaping the trials of California urban life, by moving to the ‘pristine’ [hills?] mountains;, unfortunately, they chose homes built next to the wind farms that occupied the high ground already chosen for its power potential, and then proceeded to sue the utilities that provided the power they needed for their air conditioners, jacuzzi’s, swiming pools and other amenities…because the noise of the wind turbines blades upset them.
Here we are again, my suggestion to those people who are having a problem living with social progress, and its demands is to MOVE…[soapbox][banghead][censored][#oops]
Satch: FYI - NS is going bonkers in Central Illinois (Esp Decatur to St.L) and along the Meridian Speedway at the moment. CSX has been anything but idle, rebuilding behind Katrina set them both back a bunch. Most of the Class Ones are stretched to the limit doing capacity projects.
(The retired ambulance chaser getting his just deserts?)
If a person thinks they are waking up from the loud air horns they might actually have a bad mattress and bad pillow. Invest time and money in a new mattress and new pillows and anybody can sleep though the noise of a freight train.
Fellow board members, if you visit Southern California, there’s nice steakhouse named Cask’n’Cleaver in the former ATSF station in Orange. Plenty of trains, plenty of air horns, and plenty of good food, what a combination!
Short hop from Disneyland, too.
This isn’t an ad; I have no financial interest in the place.
I don’t think we’ll see an electricity type failure on the railroads. There have been some service “melt downs”, but they’ve been cleaned up. Reason is, that the railroads have pricing freedom that the utilities don’t have. They can use prices to ration their capacity - which is an important fuction of prices. Shippers squeal like stuck pigs, but the rail lines can only handle so much traffic and prices are the best way to ration that capacity.
Trucks do dominate in total tons moved. Most freight only moves a short distance. Rail terminal costs are much higher than truck terminal costs. Rail line haul costs are much lower than truck line haul costs. Rail movement needs miles to overcome its terminal disadvantage. Since most of the frieght doesn’t move enough miles, it goes by truck.
I spent my time in railroad marketing competing against trucks on relatively short hauls, 400 to 500 miles. I’m convinced the railroads can compete down in that range - but they’ve got no incentive to do so at this time. The UP is full up with long hauls. They could compete L.A.-Las Vegas, but since they’ve got as much as they can handle L.A.-Chicago, they just do
I was riding my scooter in East Chicago In. I passed my turn. I reached a dead end at a set of tracks. I followed them. I came across two unusual Engines.
I met a couple of railroad maintenance men. We talked inbetween me taking some pictures of the engines.
All of a sudden an old woman came out of her house screaming at me for encouraging the trains. She actually told me to stop taking pictures of the trains.
She screamed at me that she wishes the traings would disappear. they make so much noise.
I looked at her and asked if the railroad tracks where there when she purchased her house.
She acturally threw up her arms and yelled, “You railroad people are all alike.” and went into her house.