UTU Daily News Digest

 

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Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Tuesday, November 9, 1999

Train, Truck Collide in Canada

ONTARIO, CANADA - A high-speed Amtrak passenger train carrying 37 passengers crashed into a dump truck today, killing the truck driver and causing  minor injuries to six passengers.

The crash of a Chicago-bound train knocked the train's locomotive onto its side and sent four passenger cars off the rails at a road crossing near Acton, 12 miles west of Toronto.

"The driver of the truck is dead as a result of the collision and six passengers were taken to hospital with minor injuries,'' said Sgt. Frank Phillips of Halton Region police.

The Amtrak train was operating under a contract with Via Rail Canada Inc.

WASHINGTON: HMO to leave care decisions up to doctors

WASHINGTON -- UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation's largest managed-care companies, said yesterday that it will stop overruling doctors' decisions about what care patients should receive, the Washington Post reported.

The company, which covers 14.5 million people nationwide (including thousands of UTU members) is abandoning a cornerstone of the managed-care industry's cost-containment strategy and one of the features most responsible for the outpouring of public ill will toward managed care.

United said it is taking the final say out of the hands of the managed-care bureaucracy and returning it to the treating physician because requiring doctors to get prior authorization was costing more money than it saved. Physicians complain that dealing with the industry's "health police" causes needless hassles and delays.

United's action, effective today, could put pressure on other managed-care companies to follow its example, industry analysts said.

Some of the strongest critics of managed care, including the American Medical Association (AMA), which represents doctors, said United's announcement could be an important step.

"If United's move leads managed-care organizations to stop pressuring doctors to ignore the Hippocratic oath, it will be a blessing," said A.G. Newmyer III, chairman of the Fair Care Foundation, a patient advocacy group in the Washington area. But Newmyer added a note of skepticism, saying that if United by other means pressures doctors to withhold care, "then patients will get little benefit."

"I think this is a real sea change for the industry," said Jamie Court of Consumers for Quality Care, a patient advocacy group in California that has bombarded lawmakers with faxes about HMO "victims." The announcement "signals that companies are now having to compete on the basis of quality of care and respond to the patient and physician critique of this industry being too heavy-handed," Court said.

UnitedHealthcare chief executive Jeannine Rivet said the company hopes the change will pay off in the form of increased enrollment and customer loyalty – and happier physicians.

United "wants to restore the joy and art to practicing medicine for physicians and get us out of the way," she said. Under the old system, "we were creating a hoop that somebody had to jump through," Rivet said, and "we didn't make it a satisfying experience for anybody."

The policy change, first reported in the Dallas Morning News, comes at a politically and commercially pivotal time. The House recently approved a "patients' rights" bill that much of the managed-care industry is trying to stop from becoming law, partly by arguing that the industry is reforming itself. Meanwhile, now is the season for many Americans to choose their health plans for next year.

Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa), a physician who has been fighting to curb managed care's power, said United seems to be "admitting that they were wrong in the first place ... in trying to substitute their inadequate expertise for the treating physician's." Ganske said United's announcement may be part of the industry's effort to show that legislation is unnecessary, but "what we really need is something that has the force of law" for all health plans.

The end of the bureaucratic process known as "pre-certification" does not mean that United, the nation's second-largest health insurer, behind Aetna Inc., is getting out of the business of managing care. Rather, it will rely on other techniques that it says are more likely to save money and improve quality.

Under the old system, doctors were expected to get United's approval before proceeding with many of the costlier medical services, such as major diagnostic tests, surgery and hospitalization. Without approval, the doctor could perform the services, but the health plan would not be obligated to pay for them.

Typically, physicians or their office staffs would phone the company, where their requests would be screened by a bureaucracy of administrators, which could include nurses and doctors. Physicians have complained that throughout the managed-care industry, they must frequently answer to people who know less about medicine than they do.

Under United's new system, doctors still will be required to contact the health plan in advance of many procedures – but only to address administrative questions such as whether the patient belongs to a UnitedHealthcare plan and whether the proposed care is covered by the insurance policy. The doctor will decide how long a patient belongs in a hospital.

There are exceptions. Prior authorization is still required for several procedures that are often done for cosmetic rather than medical reasons, such as removal of unsightly veins. For some subscribers, prior approval is needed before going outside the network of United doctors and hospitals.

United said it has been denying coverage in fewer than 1 percent of all pre-certification decisions. Analysts note that the process has a "sentinel effect" on physician behavior, much as a state trooper by the roadside influences more motorists than he tickets for speeding.

Yet when United last year stopped requiring pre-certification in a Tennessee experiment, medical costs declined by 8 percent, Rivet said. In other experiments throughout the country this year, the average number of days patients spent hospitalized declined by 9 percent, Rivet said.

United said it is making care better and more efficient by focusing on "care coordination" – doing things such as scheduling inpatient procedures to avoid wasted time in the hospital, making sure the patient has a ride home from the hospital and confirming that equipment such a hospital bed is in the patient's home as needed before the patient leaves the hospital.

To reduce return visits to the hospital, United will spend more of its resources following up with patients to make sure they are taking their medicine and eating properly. If necessary, nurses will be sent to the patients' homes to help them use devices such as inhalers for asthma, Rivet said.

United plans to make more use of profiles that track the way its doctors practice medicine, she said, and it will begin using those profiles when deciding whether to keep doctors in its networks.

United expects to save $25 million a year from laying off an undisclosed number of the employees who did the pre-certification reviews.

Aetna, the nation's largest health insurer, would not comment on United's action.

WASHINGTON: Amtrak, Pennsylvania unveil $140 million high-speed rail pact

WASHINGTON -- Amtrak and Pennsylvania Monday announced a $140 million high-speed rail funding agreement that will cut travel time on the so-called Keystone Corridor between Harrisburg and Philadelphia to 90 minutes, Dow Jones reported.

Under the five-year agreement, Amtrak and the state each will provide $70 million.

The agreement calls for $41.5 million for electric locomotives and upgraded passenger cars, $40 million to replace old wooden ties and install continuous welded rail, $20 million to upgrade the signal system, $15 million to rehabilitate the overhead electric power system, $10 million for bridge repairs, and $5 million for station construction.

"In short, we're looking at the largest infusion of capital in the Keystone Line since the days of the Pennsylvania Railroad," said Pa. Lt. Gov. Mark Schweiker.

"High-speed rail is coming to Pennsylvania, moving the Keystone State to the forefront nationally of states that have turned to passenger rail to attract new jobs,'' said Schweiker. ``In a competitive economy, no one can afford the cost of mounting traffic congestion. Through wise investment in passenger rail, we will cut through congestion and keep our economy on the move.''

A prototype Acela Regional train, representative of the totally redesigned trains that will be phased into service on the Keystone Line starting next summer, was on display. The agreement will feature:

The agreement includes $41.5 million for electric locomotives and upgraded passenger cars, $40 million to replace old wooden ties and install continuous welded rail, $20 million to upgrade the signal system, $15 million to rehabilitate the overhead electric power system, $10 million for bridge repairs and $5 million for station construction.

Since Amtrak and the Ridge Administration negotiated an agreement in early 1995 to save Keystone Service, ridership has skyrocketed from less than 400,000 a year to nearly a million. Keystone was the fastest growing Amtrak service in the Northeast during Amtrak's 1999 budget year, growing 17.5 percent.

The Pennsylvania agreement is the latest in a series of recent state announcements of investment in high-speed rail corridor planning and development. Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who chairs Amtrak's board of directors, announced an agreement between Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Amtrak to purchase high-speed trains to provide 110 mph service in the three Midwest states. Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore announced plans to step up development of the Richmond-Washington high-speed rail corridor.

As part of Amtrak's rebranding of all its Northeast services as Acela, Keystone Service next year will become Acela Regional.

Amtrak now operates eight roundtrip Keystone trains daily between Harrisburg and Philadelphia, of which seven also serve New York. In addition, the long distance Pennsylvanian and Three Rivers trains operate roundtrip daily between Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Chicago.

Stations along the 104-mile line include Ardmore, Paoli, Exton, Downingtown, Coatesville, Parkesburg, Lancaster, Mount Joy, Elizabethtown and Middletown. The line enjoys strong ridership in both directions throughout the day because of the endpoints of New York and Philadelphia to the east, and Lancaster and Harrisburg to the west.

WASHINGTON: STB requires more reporting from CSX, NS on Conrail transaction

WASHINGTON -- Surface Transportation Board (Board) Chairman Linda Morgan announced that the Board's Director of Compliance and Enforcement has required additional reporting from the "CSX" and "Norfolk Southern" (NS) railroads to facilitate the Board's operational monitoring of the implementation of the "Conrail transaction."

The new reporting requirements represent the third addition to the original data requirements imposed by the Board's decision approving the Conrail acquisition. They respond to concerns about resource utilization, system fluidity, system velocity, on-line rail car populations, and erratic service for shippers on the former Conrail system.

The additional reporting will include the submission of information in such areas as train delay on main lines and in terminals, and in the Shared Assets Areas; and critical resource information on train crew utilization and locomotive availability.

Chairman Morgan noted that the Board continues to be actively involved in monitoring the implementation of the Conrail transaction. Board representatives have regular communication each week with CSX and NS officials, and discussions with officials of other railroads, and with employees, regarding solutions to transitional service problems.

Additionally, Chairman Morgan has sought from both CSX and NS information regarding their plans for handling seasonal peak traffic flows, efforts to improve the operations of the Shared Assets Areas, and cooperation between the two railroads to improve overall service performance.

The Chairman has also requested CSX and NS to undertake certain activities relative to the Buffalo, N.Y., area. Finally, Board representatives have regular meetings with individual shippers and with shipper groups regarding service during the implementation period, and the Board's Office of Compliance and Enforcement (OCE) continues to work with shippers and carriers to resolve service issues informally.

Shippers requiring OCE's assistance may telephone 202-565-1573 or fax information to 202-565-9011 or -9012.

The new reporting will become part of the public record in the docket entitled CSX Corporation and CSX Transportation, Inc., Norfolk Southern Corporation and Norfolk Southern Railway Company--Control and Operating Leases/Agreement-- Conrail Inc. and Consolidated Rail Corporation, STB Finance Docket No. 33388. To enhance public accessibility, the reports also will be placed on the Board's website at  www.stb.dot.gov.

VIRGINIA: Norfolk Southern upgrades rating on Delmarva Peninsula routes

NORFOLK, VA -- Anticipating new markets and customer demands on the Delmarva Peninsula, Norfolk Southern announced that after an extensive inspection and evaluation, all Norfolk Southern-operated main and branch lines between Newark, Delaware, and Pocomoke, Maryland, will be authorized to handle individual rail car shipments up to 286,000 pounds. This is the standard elsewhere on the Norfolk Southern system, the Associated Press reported.

The upgraded rating of the Norfolk Southern lines on the Delmarva will benefit customers shipping large volumes of heavy commodities, such as coal, grain, feed, fertilizer and construction materials, and should provide a boost to industrial development. Prior to the re-rating, the Delmarva routes were rated for 273,000 pound shipments.

CALIFORNIA: Train hits, kills woman in her car

SOMIS--A 24-year-old Saticoy woman was killed Sunday afternoon when her car was struck by an Amtrak train near California 118, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Evelia Alonso was driving northbound on a private road about 4:20 p.m. when a westbound Amtrak train traveling at 70 mph slammed into her car, cutting it in two and sending both pieces tumbling down an embankment.

The railroad crossing, which is marked with a stop sign instead of retractable safety gates, is near California 118 and La Cumbre Road.

Alonso was thrown about 20 feet from the vehicle, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Mike Cooper.

The train's engineer told officials the car failed to stop at the stop sign. The engineer sounded the train's horn four times, but was unable to avoid hitting the car, Cooper said.

Alonso was dead when Ventura County Fire Department and California Highway Patrol officers arrived on the scene.

None of the train's 150 passengers was injured, Cooper said. But the Amtrak was delayed for several hours while officials assessed the damage to the locomotive. The train sustained moderate damage to its engine, Cooper said.

An Amtrak representative said the train originated in San Diego and was headed for San Luis Obispo. No other trains were delayed because of the accident, the representative said.

The train makes Ventura County stops in Simi Valley, Oxnard and Ventura, Amtrak representatives said.

Alonso had left a family party at a nearby house in the 6600 block Los Angeles Avenue and had driven only a few hundred feet up a long private drive before she was struck by the train.

Manuel Duren, 15, who lives at the house and was an acquaintance of Alonso, said she stayed for about an hour and had not been drinking.

Aurora Ordaz, who also lives at the residence, said she wants officials to install mechanical gates at the crossing. School buses regularly cross the intersection, and Sunday's accident was the second fatal accident at the railroad crossing that she knew of in the seven years her family has lived at the house, she said.

NEW YORK: Rail Firms Seek To Damp Cell-Phone Din

NEW YORK -- You know the scene. There you sit, trying to read, your train zipping through the European countryside. But you can't get past the first sentence - everyone around you is yapping into a cell phone. "I should be there in about an hour," says one man, yelling because of spotty reception. A woman, three rows behind, perhaps bored by the tedium of the trip, decides she'll show her companion the variety of rings her mobile device is programmed to emit, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Such is the everyday experience of today's rail-bound traveler in Europe.

"It can be such a nuisance," says Philippe d'Hemery, a private equity investor based in Paris. A cell-phone user himself, Mr. d'Hemery shuttles to and from Bordeaux on a high-speed TGV train at least two times a week.

"If my phone rings I usually get up and walk over toward the loo," he says. Griping about less courteous phone-toting passengers, he relates his own special remedy to get them to quiet down: "I start to read my book aloud - they either get quiet or move."

Train operators increasingly are seeking to solve these problems themselves. Rail groups throughout the Continent are launching a two-pronged approach to cut down on the interference both suffered and caused by users of mobile telephones. They hope to improve reception for cell phones while separating chatty users from their phoneless fellow passengers.

Norwegian State Railroads, for example, installed onboard repeaters, or relay devices that enhance mobile-telephone signals, on new trains that began running this week. Germany's Deutsche Bahn AG recently installed similar technology on its newest high-speed trains. In Switzerland, where repeaters have also come onboard, Swiss Federal Railways has begun designating certain train coaches as "quiet cars," or wagons in which passengers aren't allowed to use their telephones.

"We just want to meet the needs of our customers," says Christian Krauechi, a spokesman for the group. "Some people, especially business people, need their telephones, but others do not want to hear them."

Such efforts are a response to the pervasiveness of mobile telephones in Europe. According to ESM World Cellular Database, a U.K.-based provider of market information for the wireless industry, there were 138.5 million mobile-telephone customers in western Europe as of September, compared with 95.7 million customers at the end of 1998. And the numbers are expected to keep growing.

Cross that with the millions of passengers zigzagging across the Continent's rail routes each day and the potential for onboard communications is, well, a train that telecom operators don't want to miss.

Early efforts to blend mobile technology with mass transportation proved largely unsuccessful; the cell-phone explosion quickly outpaced attempts to mount fixed wireless telephones on trains and, ironically, airplanes, where mobile phones for the most part still aren't allowed.

Cell-phone usage on trains has become so common that many of Europe's rail operators are ripping their mounted phones out altogether. "There's no point in having them be cause everyone talks on their mobiles," says Marie Andreani, a spokeswoman for SNCF, the French national rail company.

In-flight telephone usage, meanwhile, is proving to be a bust. British Telecommunications PLC and France Telecom SA recently decided to scrap Jetphone, a joint venture that provides airlines with onboard telephone service. "Mobile telephones make it no longer necessary," says John Salmon, a BT spokesman. "Most air travelers simply choose to pick up their messages when they touch down."

Until mobile phones can be used during flights, trains will likely blaze the trails for onboard telecom potential - especially as high-speed rail becomes an increasingly practical alternative to short-haul air travel. Telecom manufacturers and service providers are aiming to maximize wireless capacity on trains so that passengers can both talk on their cell phones as well as carry out the wide array of voiceless applications - e-mail and Internet access, among others.

"We need a stronger partnership with the rail industry," says Mike Short, director of network strategy at BT Cellnet, BT's mobile unit. A former chairman of the Dublin-based GSM Association, an industry group of wireless providers, he adds: "Both our industries are about mobility but we need to find ways to connect."

In their efforts to provide mobile coverage through as much of Europe as possible, telecoms operators have peppered the landscape with devices that transmit and boost wireless signals. Yet train interiors, essentially the inside of an enclosed metal box, tend to distort, if not block those signals entirely. The sheer velocity of high-speed trains, moreover, creates a target too fast to track by many conventional relay devices.

Hence, the onboard repeaters like those being used in Norway, Germany and Switzerland. Similarly, enhancement devices are beginning to appear in tunnels, canyons and other obstructed areas. They are even going underground - telecom groups in Hong Kong recently succeeded in providing mobile coverage in the city's subways, prompting metro systems in London and other European cities to consider the possibility as well. Even Eurotunnel PLC, operator of the sub-Channel link between England and France, says it is considering the possibility of installing repeaters as more wireless services become possible.

Above ground, though, the drive for competent wireless capacity is becoming paramount among rail operators' customer-service efforts. SNCF is at present adapting the areas that used to house the onboard phones into chatting zones for mobile customers. Plans include small, office-like cabins - similar to the salottini, or little salons, already in place on Italy's newest trains - where a passenger can sit and plug-in a cell phone or a laptop.

And telecom experts say the range of services will grow rapidly when the rail groups themselves get in on the cellular communicating. Train operators, for example, could update schedule and pricing information via text messages to passengers' mobile phones. Some mobile industry firms point to the potential for agreements between telecom operators and rail groups that could lead to special pricing rates or phone-linked loyalty schemes for frequent railroad passengers. "They're going to be able to do much more than just transmit information," says Nigel Deighton, the Paris-based research director for the Gartner Group Europe, a market analysis and advisement group. "They're going to be able to get very creative."

But first, he adds, they're going to have to solve the courtesy issue. Further evolution of text messaging and data transmission may eventually cut down on the noise, but until then train cars are likely to remain a crucible of wireless etiquette. "For me as a passenger, I can totally relate. The last thing you want is someone yelling into their cell phone beside you."

CANADA: Labor dispute disrupts ports in Vancouver

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- A labor dispute that closed the port of Vancouver for a second day Monday also shut down smaller ports in the area and caused shipping companies to seek alternate routes, the Associated Press reported

The lockout of 2,000 longshoreman halted trade valued at $61 million a day, said Jamie Lamb, a spokesman for the port authority.

The lockout by the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association also shut down provincial ports at Fraser River, Prince Rupert, Port Aberni and Nanaimo.

"It affects just about every major industry in the West - agriculture, mining, the forest industry,'' Lamb said. "It affects trade with 90 countries.''

Only grain handlers, considered essential workers and therefore exempt from the lockout, were on the job, allowing bulk grain shipments to move. All other work at the port was stopped.

The longshoreman's union has rejected contract offers by the employers' association because one company, Sultran of Calgary, hired a nonunion firm in 1998 to test its sulfur shipments.

Union officials say they cannot sign any deal with the employers' association that fails to guarantee the use of union labor in the testing and sampling of cargo.

The employers' association says the union has refused to vote on a contract that would raise salaries $1.64 an hour over four years. The average compensation of a longshoreman, with benefits, is the equivalent of $52,492.

Union president Tom Dufresne said the offer was similar to another one rejected by 85 percent of the workers in June.

OPINION: Rural America could lose a key connection

WASHINGTON: America's small railroads have built a remarkable record of success in recent years. However, today they face a major crisis, ALICE C. SAYLOR writes in Traffic World.

Short-line railroads serving rural areas must quickly find funds for massive capital spending to upgrade track and bridges to handle larger, heavier freight cars that shippers and large railroads are bringing on line in record numbers. If they do not, hundreds of rural communities across the nation could be cut off from the national network.

First, some history. In the 1970s, the U.S. rail system was in terrible shape. The federal government mobilized with aggressive planning and funding to prevent a major rail collapse.

The feds poured in more than $7 billion to stabilize Class I operations and local service throughout the Northeast and Midwest. The Staggers Act in 1980 revised the line sale process to encourage sale, not abandonment, of light-density lines. The number of small railroads surged, and today they operate 29% of U.S. rail mileage, 49,000 miles of track.

This transformed the industry. Entrepreneurs bought hundreds of light-density lines and turned them around with customer focus and a can-do attitude. Thousands of miles of rail lines and jobs were saved, mostly in rural areas.

Today small railroads face a new threat: 286,000-pound rail cars, called 286 cars. Handling these heavier cars requires substantial new investment.

Frank Turner, president of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, calls the 286 cars "the darkest cloud on the short-line and regional railroads' horizon." They are rapidly becoming the norm for commodities that are the bread-and-butter for many small railroads: grain, lumber and paper products, to name a few.

This heavier equipment puts significant strains on rail infrastructure. Many short lines today can handle 286 cars only with difficulty and at slow speeds, or not at all.

The impact of the proliferation of heavier cars is comparable to the railroad industry's switch from steam to diesel power half a century ago. It is a rapid, one-time change driven by superior new technology that offers clear benefits but requires major capital expenditures.

Two things are needed. First, hard technical data must be obtained on upgrades necessary for small railroads to efficiently handle 286 cars. Second, sources of funding must be identified.

The effect of 286 cars on main-line track has been studied since the 1980s. However, light-density branch lines have been largely ignored.

The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association is working to correct this. Research under way soon will establish 286 requirements for track, turnouts, ties, ballast and bridges on light density lines. That is the first piece of the puzzle.

The second piece is to find sources of funding. Early estimates indicate a price tag of billions of dollars. Small railroads cannot generate all these funds internally. This need for upgrade was not anticipated when these lines were purchased.

The revenue small railroads receive from heavier cars is not sufficient to pay for the upgrade in most cases, although it should cover added maintenance attributable to heavier equipment after that.

For small railroads to meet the challenge, internally generated funds and conventional lending sources must be augmented. The states cannot shoulder this burden alone. Federal funding must also be available, since the rail network is truly national in scope and importance.

One source of federal help will come from the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program. This new program will provide at least $1 billion in federal loans and loan guarantees for small railroads, hopefully beginning early next year.

But loans alone cannot do the job. Additional federal funds are needed.

Twenty years ago, the railroad crisis was in large measure a regional crisis affecting the Northeast and Midwest. Today's short-line 286 crisis is a regional crisis that affects the entire rural segment of this country and the economy.

A comparable federal response to the short-line infrastructure crisis is needed today. The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association's top priority, working with Congress, the Clinton administration and the rest of the railroad industry, is to identify federal funding sources to help viable small railroads meet the challenge of 286 cars.

Only by solving this puzzle can small railroads and the shippers they serve remain an integral part of our national rail network.

Alice C. Saylor is vice president and general counsel of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, a trade association with 425 short-line and regional railroad members. She can be reached at  asaylor@aslrra.org.

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