Union Pacific has a main line east from Portland Oregon running along the southern side of the Columbia River Gorge. (BNSF is on the northern side of the river). Most all of this UP route is double tracked except for about a four mile segment west of Mosier Oregon that is single tracked. This causes an interruption in free flowing trains each direction and UP has long wanted to double track this four mile section to eliminate stopped idling trains awaiting the opposite direction trains. They own sufficient land and part of this four mile section is a existing siding but my understanding is it is not long enough for current trainsā¦ This area is along the river and in an environmentally sensitive location. They applied a number of years ago to the Wasco County Planning Commission to double track this area and this was approved with appropriate mitigations, I understand. The local Indian tribe, the Yakima Nation, appealed that commission decision to the full county commission who denied the project construction. UP then appealed this to a court in Portland who have also denied the project. As I understand it, UP has appealed this to the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco where it remains and has been delayed for 2-3 years. No further information has been available on when a decision will be handed down. This seems to be a good matter for Trains magazine to cover if there is any further details available.
JohnQuilter:
Where you are coming from is not clear, but most of the UP route along the south side of the Columbia River is single track, not double track, and it has been that way for decades. Also be advised that UP uses the terminology of two tracks over double track when both tracks are signaled bidirectionally.
Thanks, I have asked Aaron Hunt, Senior Director of Public Affairs in Portland to clarify this trackage matter in case I am mistaken.
Just look at Google Maps or other online aerial pics. You can zoom in plenty close enough to see how many tracks there are.
JohnQuilter:
Timz is correct and is how I checked what the scene looks like.
Contacting railroad PR departments is inadvisable unless someone over there is a personal friend.
In Southern California where Iām based, there is a timebomb situation involving a railroad and it has nuclear connotations, and I see it eventually going to the U.S. Supreme Court! In that, Iāve been dealing with a State agency for information and NOT a railroad. State agencies are friendly (and know they answer the people), whereas railroads only appease stockholders (and convey to the Press how many railcars were involved in a derailment).
Thanks. So I took a tour with Google satellite maps and topography and from what I can tell from the areas I looked at along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Hwy (I-84) there is mostly single track. Some places are double tracked but these may be sidings not main line track. Interestingly looking at the north side of the Columbia along the Lewis & Clark highway I believe I see BNSF trackage, also single track. For UP to increase the double track areas there would need to be tunnels and bridges widened.
Iām in touch with Mr. Hunt about once a year and he has been responsive but limited to what can be disclosed given the matter is in litigation. Maybe he was impressed with the letter I wrote a few years ago on this double tracking project to my former Congressman who was on the federal transportation committee. He responded to me but did not indicate he sided with the railroad and was not likely to summit an amicus brief to the 9th circuit on behalf of the railroad.
So what, then, is the original story about the importance of the four miles ānear Mosierā having to be double-tracked, with all the supposed excitement in court? It certainly doesnāt seem as if bottleneck line congestion easily appliesā¦
What constitutes single track and double track has changed over the years. In the early 1960ās the B&O decided to install single track CTC operation between Sherwood, OH and Pine Jct. near Gary, IN. The installation took formerly double track territory that had current of traffic signaling into a property that had 8 miles of single track and 8 miles of double track, alternating between the points named. When you are running 5K and 6K foot trains, such a configuration seems reasonable. Todayās trains in many cases are in the 10K to 15K foot length and such a railroad has a definite capacity in the number of trains it can operate.
With the ConRail split in the offing - in the last half of the 1990ās CSX saw that portion of the network as being a choke point and they reinstalled multiple tracks across the entire territory with control points approximately every 8 miles with universal crossovers and all track signaled in both directions.
Well, the UP must consider it a bottle neck or they would not be going through all this effort to try to add a second track in that Mosier area.
Thatās exactly the question, isnāt it, now that weāve established most of the rest of the line is not double-tracked.
If any of the court records or pleadings are accessible, they might contain information about why UP treats this as a priority.
JohnQuilter:
Ariels of the Mosier, OR area make me wonder about the practicality of two tracking only four miles. What is the difference between two tracks and a siding if a train has to stop and wait 30 minutes for a meet anyway? It looks like the trackage through that area is pretty slow going, so an effort to two track ten or fifteen miles may be more constructive and have more success with regulators. The four miles situation strikes me as only an effort to make points with upper management that probably doesnāt have a clue about the area.
Incremental improvements. Build what you can afford, when you can afford it. Double track lines are rarely the original build for a line. A single track line is the original build and sidings are added as necessary graduating to multiple track operation if the business on the line warrants.
But that does not explain why UP is going to court repeatedly over this one stretch when, as noted, there are other areas of single track that might give comparable average-time reduction with less or no controversy, confusion, and delayā¦
News story link: https://www.columbiagorgenews.com/news/federal-court-dismisses-up-lawsuit/article_852228d2-a3b6-5e54-bd08-1d4304b6a91e.html
2012 UP flyer describing the project: https://cityofmosier.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mosier-fact-sheet.pdf
I couldnāt find any updates after 2017. UP had an oil train derailment and fire near Mosier, OR in 2016. That might have something to do with all of the local opposition. 2023 Google Earth imagery shows the passing siding still at 6,300 feet long. Pretty useless these days.
I was able to see the current timetable and General Order for that line. Except for some double track near Portland and a roughly 20 mile segment east of The Dalles, itās single track. All tracks are governed by CTC. Some of the sidings have had their lengths adjusted in the GO, but I didnāt cross reference them to the TT listed lengths. I would expect some were lengthed, but some new lengths indicated just an adjustment for whatever reason.
A note about terminology. The General Code of Operating Rules uses āDouble Trackā where there are two tracks with a current of traffic, usually with signals for one direction. On two tracks signalled for movement in both directions, usually CTC, the term used is āTwo Main Tracks.ā For general discussions either term, to me, is acceptable.
Jeff
Thanks for this new information. I suspect UP wants more trackage in this area for some reason or they would not go to the construction and legal expense to make it happen. I read a while back in some news article that they did not like having some trains wait idle in Mosier for opposing trains and a 6300 foot passing siding is not near long enough these days.
What I remember about Mosier was that there was a kind of stringlining accident on a sharp curve with an oil train back in the Blast Zone days. Iād suspect, at least, that the oil cars afire were part of what took place regarding this project.
I wonder if after all this time the presumptions, and perhaps the perception of actual risk, have changed. Oil-train explosions are a thing of the pastā¦ but East-Palestine-style bearing failures are certainly notā¦
jeffhergert1:
Thanks for your authoritative input as a railroader in the know.
A very strange phenomena about ātwo tracksā and ādouble tracksā has arisen. Freight railroads and their management generally know the difference between the two and define the type of tracks correctly. Transit people, on the other hand, while they may have rail routes, are rarely railroad knowledgeable and quickly float around in political systems and seldom stay in one position long enough to learn the correct ārailroadā terminology!
That all suggests railfans that use ādouble trackā incorrectly are inexperienced in the hobby and havenāt learn the correct terminology yet ā¦ OR they have political leanings. Can you imagine a railfan reading TRAINS Magazine on the street corner and tell passersby āPlease vote for me for Mayor.ā When I was in junior high in 1965, a friend and I saw a Southern Pacific DD35 on a side track in Colton, Calif. I excitedly called it a U50. Dumb now, but we all learn in time the correct designations of things. The same with ādouble trackā and ātwo main tracks.ā
The difference has nothing to do with the tracks. It concerns the signaling.