UTU Daily News Digest
Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees
Thursday, March 9, 2000
CALIFORNIA: Metrolink Rail Safety Week Shows Trauma of Rail Incidents
LOS ANGELES -- They aren't the ones at the front of the train operating the locomotive. They are at the back, making sure passengers, freight and cargo get where they're supposed to in a safe way. But when a train is involved in any type of collision, it is the conductor, not the engineer who is first off the train, Metrolink said in a press release.
Tasked with the often-gruesome job of looking for bodies, conductors are often forgotten when it comes to trauma victims.
Keith Moore, an Amtrak conductor under contract with Metrolink, has been a conductor for more than 30 years. He started with Penn Central in upstate New York and has been working in sunnier California for the past 18 years, 5 years for Metrolink. He has seen 10 to 12 fatalities, and some have been pretty unsettling.
"I'm usually the one that finds the body and the parts," he says. "You try and not dwell on it, but you can't help but think about certain incidents," says Moore.
Although Moore says he's more the type to take his job in stride, he still has memories of specific incidents. He's quick to remember the last one, Feb. 1, 1998, when a man simply laid down and put his head on the tracks. "The image is rather vivid and I can still see it," says Moore.
Moore is currently working on Metrolink's San Bernardino line, and he says he sees motorists trying to beat the train almost every day. "People have a tendency to disregard their safety," he says. "They think it's always going to happen to the other guy." Moore says that the size alone of a train -- 275,000 pounds with 140 tons of engine -- should be obvious enough to be a deterrent. But as Moore puts it, "people forget once they get around the tracks."
Being a conductor wasn't Moore's first career choice. A native of Miami, Florida, Moore was going to college to be a musician, but his former in-laws decided he needed a real job and had contacts with a railroad. But he says he enjoys his work and plans to be a conductor for at least another 10 years.
This week has been designated as Metrolink Rail Safety Week, to increase public awareness of railroad safety with compelling messages and stories. For more information about Metrolink rail safety, visit on-line at www.metrolinktrains.com or to schedule a group presentation, call the Metrolink Rail Safety Department at (213) 452-0239.
WASHINGTON: Wis. Central Pact with BNSF, CN to Support Merger
WASHINGTON -- Wisconsin Central Transportation Corp. (WCLX) agreed to expand its merchandise freight service using haulage rights on the combined Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNI) and Canadian National Railway Co. (CNI) system.
Wisconsin Central told the U.S. Surface Transportation Board it supports the proposed combination of Burlington Northern and Canadian. The railroad companies agreed in December to merge, pending regulatory approval.
The agreement will allow Wisconsin Central to expand its merchandise freight service to about 10,000 route miles throughout the upper Midwest and Ontario, Canada, Wisconsin Central said Wednesday in a press release. While on Wisconsin Central, such traffic will move as it does now, and while on the combined Burlington Northern/Canadian system, the traffic will be in haulage, physically handled by the those railroads.
Intermodal traffic, certain agricultural products, and unit trains of coal, grain and taconite are not eligible for haulage rights under the agreement.
NEBRASKA: Amtrak Expansion a Gamble
OMAHA -- Amtrak's ambitious plan to expand passenger service and carry some freight is the latest in a series of recent moves by rail advocates nationwide and in Nebraska to boost the industry, the Omaha World Herald reported.
But as the drumbeat gets louder, some in the transportation industry are questioning the viability of a mode of travel that has advanced in fits and starts - and consistently operated in the red - in recent years.
At stake are potentially dramatic improvements in rail service between Omaha and other Midwest cities, as well as a proposed commuter line that, if successful, would help alleviate highway traffic congestion between Omaha and Lincoln. And for the nation's passenger railroad, the clock is ticking on its efforts to end its reliance on taxpayer money to keep the trains rolling.
Late last month, a consortium of nine states - including Nebraska and Iowa - joined with Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration in releasing the final report on a feasibility study that calls for a 3,000-mile passenger rail system radiating throughout the Midwest from Chicago. The other states in the consortium are Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Indiana.
Some of the network would include new track on routes not now offered, while some existing lines would be upgraded. The new Midwest network's passenger service from Omaha through Iowa would be on Iowa Interstate Railroad track, which would be upgraded.
The line runs through central Iowa, between Union Pacific Railroad tracks to the north and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line to the south, which Amtrak now uses.
The proposed line would run through Iowa City and Des Moines, population centers not now served by Amtrak. Dan Franklin, policy and legislative services director with the Iowa Transportation Department, said Amtrak would continue to serve the southern portion of Iowa on the existing Burlington line.
Much of the improved network would accommodate high-speed trains, traveling at up to 110 mph, though trains on the line from Omaha through Iowa would be limited to a top speed of 79 mph.
Altogether, Amtrak, which on Tuesday announced its plans for weaning itself off federal subsidies by 2003, is planning service improvements in 21 states, adding 11 routes and increasing train frequency on three routes. It would expand into new markets with a combined population of 4 million.
The estimated price tag to build and improve track, signals and stations in the Midwest network is $3.4 billion. An additional $652 million would be needed to buy 66 locomotives and the passenger cars they would pull.
The 479-mile route from Omaha to Chicago, running on improved tracks of the Iowa Interstate Railroad, would cost $263.9 million for line improvements and an additional $43 million for locomotives and passenger cars. Of those costs, 80 percent would be borne by the federal government if Congress goes along with the plan. The rest - $61.4 million - would need to come from the states of Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois.
Passenger rail advocates also have been busy in Nebraska, pushing for a new line providing commuter service between Lincoln and Omaha. The Legislature last year approved a bill - introduced by Sen. Shelley Kiel of Omaha - that created the Nebraska Transit and Rail Advisory Council to investigate commuter rail and high-speed train routes.
Kiel said a commuter line between the two cities might be a way to relieve Interstate 80 traffic, which is projected to nearly double in 15 years between the cities. Unsuccessful so far in obtaining a $250,000 study grant from the Federal Highway Administration, proponents now are seeking funding through an appropriations bill introduced this year in the Legislature.
Among the most active supporters of the plan is a nonprofit organization called ProRail Nebraska Inc., whose president is Dan Lutz, a retired University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor.
"Our feeling is that you can't build yourself out of congestion by continuously adding lanes to the Interstate," Lutz said.
Not everyone is convinced that trains are the answer.
"We're monitoring the various proposals," said Bud Cuca, president of the Nebraska Trucking Association.
Cuca's trade group is concerned about funding for new rail service, including the possibility that highway funds could be diverted to pay for it. He said, too, that he wonders whether a commuter rail service would be beneficial enough to justify its costs and whether "it is realistic, given our culture."
Nebraskans, he said, are independent and prefer to use their cars to get from place to place. "There simply aren't enough numbers to make (the Omaha-Lincoln line) economical without substantial government subsidy," Cuca said.
Lutz envisions the line, which could use all new track or an existing route that would be upgraded, being used primarily by commuters. But other users - such as UNL students, Husker football fans, State Fair goers and people traveling to the recreation area in and around Mahoney State Park - would help fill otherwise empty cars.
The system would begin as a conventional passenger railroad, traveling at speeds up to 79 mph, Lutz said. To reach high-speed status and travel at up to 125 mph, crossing would have to be upgraded to allow trains to pass above or below roadways.
That would add millions of dollars to the project's cost, Lutz noted.
Working in favor of passenger train supporters in Nebraska and Iowa is the recent ridership trend in both states. Passenger volume at Amtrak's five Nebraska stops increased 13.6 percent between the railroad's 1998 and 1999 fiscal years, ended Sept. 30.
In Iowa, ridership rose at all six stops by an average of 8.6 percent.
"There is a little bit of rebirth," said Kevin Johnson, an Amtrak spokesman in Chicago. "We've had ridership increases the last three fiscal years. Hopefully, it's a result of a smart company finding out what the customer wants and providing that service."
Still, the company continues to lose money. Congress has mandated that Amtrak become self-sufficient, saying that the government will quit providing operating funds after the railroad's 2002 fiscal year.
Johnson said the latest Amtrak plan departs from strategies used by the railway in the past, including extensive cutbacks. "We've learned that cutting doesn't work," he said.
Amtrak said it expects service expansions and other changes to generate $229 million a year in additional revenue and result in annual profits of $65 million by the subsidy cutoff date.
Although Congress plans to quit funding Amtrak's operating losses, the 3,000-mile system envisioned by the nine-state consortium - called the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative - will need significant sums of money from the federal government.
"To get the system up and going, there are some hurdles," said John Hey, a planner with the Iowa Transportation Department. "The system is not going to happen unless there is some federal funding."
Beyond the $4.1 billion in start-up costs - 80 percent of which would be paid for by the federal government - it would take until 2010 for the network to start operating at a profit, according to the study. The Chicago-Omaha leg, which could begin service by 2009, wouldn't reach break-even status until 2016.
Omaha's Union Pacific and other railroads that haul only freight - and operate on rails sometimes used by Amtrak - are watching the developments closely.
"The problems with a lot of the proposals that we have learned of in other states over the years is that the only people who really make money are the consultants," said Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis. "That is tax dollars paid to consulting firms to determine the passenger base isn't there."
So far, the study for the Midwest rail network has cost $2.3 million. Of that, about $1.7 million came from Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration, according to Hey, the Iowa planner. State governments and other organizations have paid the remaining $630,000.
The Nebraska Roads Department has contributed $28,000. The Metropolitan Area Planning Agency in Omaha has chipped in $20,000 paid to the consulting firm, Transportation Economics and Management Systems Inc. of Alexandria, Va.
Dan Rosenthal, a public transportation engineer with the Nebraska Roads Department, said each of the nine states is being asked to contribute an additional $50,000 for the final phase of the study. "We haven't decided yet whether we are going into that next phase," he said.
COLORADO: Railroad museum gets authentic roundhouse
DENVER -- For decades, hundreds of railroad roundhouses across the country fell to the wrecking ball, the Denver Post reported.
A great many of the huge buildings, where locomotives and rail cars once docked for repairs, had turned ghostly silent as automobiles and airplanes replaced rail traffic. Now, at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, construction workers are nearing completion of a new roundhouse - a 20th century structure that will feature 21st century bells and whistles.
"I don't think there has been a roundhouse built since the 1920s," said Paul Luning, museum board member and volunteer construction manager. "It's unique construction for everyone involved."
When finished, sometime this summer, the roundhouse will be used to restore and maintain the 60-plus cars and engines at the museum. The roundhouse will be part of a working display, where visitors will be able to watch volunteers as they bring trains back to life.
"This is living history," said Ed Peterson, president of Annandale Consultants, Inc., the construction firm building the roundhouse. The roundhouse is the final stage of a six-year, $1.5 million improvement package at the museum that includes a library built to resemble a train depot, and a looped track. The 40-year-old museum is owned by the Colorado Railroad Historical Foundation, a nonprofit corporation. The Robert W. Richardson Railroad Library, dedicated in April 1997, contains more than 10,000 railroading books and more than 20,000 photographs, said Chuck Albi, the museum's executive director.
"We're probably not the largest" railroad library in the country, "but we're close to it," Albi said. Volunteer librarians receive hundreds of research requests during the course of a month through drop-in visits and by e-mail (mail@crrm.org).
Library users include authors working on books, model-railroad buffs in search of details and family members of old-time railroad employees looking for information to round-out genealogies. "Unfortunately, we can't help (genealogists) out. We don't have personnel files," said Kenton Forrest, archivist. But the library does hold thousands of old railroad documents such as equipment reports and engineering maps - magnets for model-railroad enthusiasts seeking authenticity. "You could rebuild a railroad if you wanted," Albi said as he looked over a railroad report to the Interstate Commerce Commission dated August 12, 1916. "It's all right here."
The museum boasts Colorado's oldest operating steam locomotive, the Denver & Rio Grande Western No. 346, an 1881 narrow-gauge engine. "We don't go very far, and we don't go very fast," Albi said. "But the smells are just the same and the embers just as big."
By the end of this summer, old No. 346 will be able to pull into the roundhouse for repairs and pampering. A massive turntable, 60 feet of reinforced track weighing about 20 tons and built in 1927, will pivot trains in front of the roundhouse, steering them toward one of five bays. Wooden doors, 17 feet tall and 1,200 pounds, will be attached to the front of the bays with custom-made, 40-pound hinges. The doors and surrounding detailed brick work are true to original roundhouse details. "We could have put up a building that looked liked a typical highway department building," Albi said. "But this is a museum. We have to make it look like the real thing." The museum is open daily days a week, but the steam engine runs on a limited basis. Scheduled operating days are: June 17-18; July 15-16; Sept. 23-24; Oct. 28-29; and Dec. 2-3.
Call the museum at 303 279-4591 or visit its Web site at www.crrm.org
TEXAS: Railroad killer to face the death penalty
HOUSTON -- Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against accused rail-riding serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, after he refused to undergo an exam with a court-appointed psychiatrist, the Associated Press reported.
Harris County District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. made the announcement after Maturino Resendiz told state District Judge Bill Harmon he would not take the test to evaluate his sanity.
"I think his refusal to cooperate shows that he knows exactly what he's doing," said lead prosecutor Devon Anderson.
During a Tuesday court appearance, Maturino Resendiz said he felt betrayed by Texas lawmen and federal agents whom he said promised him and his family that the death penalty would not be sought if he surrendered.
"He doesn't trust America, the district attorney's office, the Texas Rangers or the FBI," defense attorney Allen Tanner told the Houston Chronicle for today's editions. "In his mind, the court-appointed psychiatrist is just another arm of the state trying to put him to death."
Last week, Tanner filed court papers saying he would use an insanity defense. A defense psychiatrist had been evaluating Maturino Resendiz for weeks leading to that filing.
Maturino Resendiz, a Mexican national, has been held since his surrender in El Paso on July 13 after a nationwide manhunt. Police say he has been linked to nine killings in three states. Authorities have repeatedly said the only promise made to end the manhunt was that he would be given a psychological examination and be able to have extra visitors in jail. Jury selection in Maturino Resendiz's first trial is set for March 27.
JAPAN: Tokyo Subway Derails; 3 Killed
TOKYO -- A rush-hour commuter train derailed today in Tokyo, colliding with an oncoming train packed with 1,300 passengers. The impact ripped away seats, killing three people, the Associated Press reported.
Glass shards and gnarled metal were strewn around the accident, and the derailed train, carrying 240 passengers, had a gaping hole in its side. More than 30 people were injured.
"I saw a huge lump of metal penetrating my car, and everybody was panicking," a 21-year-old commuter told national broadcaster NHK. "Many passengers were collapsing."
The trouble began when a car in the rear of a train emerging from a tunnel derailed near the elevated Nakameguro station in western Tokyo, sideswiping another train.
The cause of the accident was not immediately known. An initial press report blamed the derailment on an explosion, but officials – including the Prime Minister -- quickly denied that.
The president of Teito Rapid Transit Authority, the company that operates the derailed train, apologized for the accident.
"We will conduct a thorough investigation without delay to ensure a similar accident doesn't happen again," Kiyoshi Terashima said.
Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi has also instructed the Transport Ministry to conduct a "thorough and speedy" investigation, said Obuchi's spokesman, Akitaka Saiki.
A 17-year-old boy and a woman in her twenties were killed upon impact, said fire department official Akihiko Umehara. A 37-year-old newspaper employee died after she was taken to the hospital, Umehara said. Two other passengers were in critical condition.
Sachie Uehara, a train spokeswoman, said two of the dead were in the car at the end of the derailed train, but it was unclear where the other victim was riding at the time of the accident. Two cars in the midsection of the other train were also heavily damaged.
The accident was believed to be the worst on Tokyo trains since 1988, when a train rammed into the rear of another stopped at a station during rush-hour, killing two and injuring 92. In May 1991, a crowded tourist train slammed head-on into a local train in western Japan, killing 42 people and injuring 415.
INDIA: Train-Bus Smash Kills 22
NEW DELHI -- Twenty-two people were killed and 30 others injured when a train hit a bus on Tuesday evening at an unmanned crossing at Raja Ka Bagh, 65 km from Dharamshala in north India, the United News of India (UNI) reported on Wednesday.
The bus was carrying a marriage party, including the bride and the bridegroom, when the train rammed into it, the UNI quoted local police sources as saying, adding that the bus was "crushed badly."
So far eight bodies had been removed from the wreckage, but most of the bodies were still trapped in the wreckage and the casualties could be more, said the UNI.
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