UTU News Digest - Monday, July 19, 1999

UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Monday, July 19, 1999

ILLINOIS: UTU member shot and killed on Chicago Metra

CHICAGO -- The unprecedented shooting death of a Metra conductor and UTU member on a northbound train from Blue Island over the weekend raised concerns Sunday among commuters and rail workers, who have come to view Metra's commuter lines as perhaps the region's most placid transportation option, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Police said they were searching for two attackers who boarded the train just before 6:45 p.m. Saturday at a stop in the West Pullman neighborhood. The men may have tried to rob longtime Metra conductor Wilbert Hooten, a member of UTU Local 1290, before shooting him in the face, authorities said Sunday, though police could not confirm whether Hooten's attackers made off with any cash.

The incident took place while the train was stopped at 121^st Street and Racine Avenue on the Blue Island branch of the Metra Electric District. It was the first time a working Metra conductor has been the victim of a fatal crime, Metra spokesman Tom Miller said. "It's a very freak, unfortunate incident," he said.

Hooten, a 64-year-old South Side grandfather and jazz deejay, was pronounced dead at 11:35 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. He had worked for Metra for 20 years.

Saturday's episode occurred on one of Metra's electric routes, where, agency officials said, passengers normally buy their tickets from vending machines before boarding and do not pay conductors directly. But in some cases, Miller said, conductors may carry some cash to "make change or sell a ticket if necessary."

Some train workers suggested that installing safes on trains might make conductors less attractive targets to criminals.

"It's not a huge worry, but it's definitely there," said a 10-year veteran conductor who asked not to be identified. "If there's a way to reduce the risk, then they should do it."

Meanwhile, some Metra riders on Sunday said they would like to see beefed-up security on the line's less-busy routes, including those in the late evenings and weekends.

Only a handful of passengers were on the train when Hooten was shot, police said.

"If they've got a security person on that train carrying a gun, then maybe these people would think twice about trying something," said Peggy Schmidt, waiting to board a Metra train out of Union Station on Sunday.

Metra police operate at roughly the same strength throughout days, evenings and weekends, Miller said. Officers are stationed in headquarters along routes, and they do not regularly patrol train cars--except during special events, such as the July 3 fireworks display in Grant Park, Miller said.

"They can be (on trains) at times, but they are not on every train--that's for sure," he said.

Metra officials said no police that they know of were on the train when Hooten was shot.

Police described one attacker as about 25 years old, 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing about 160 pounds and wearing a black and gray cloth Starter-brand jacket and blue jeans. The other is believed to be about 25 years old, 6 feet 3 inches tall, wearing a gray and blue cotton jacket, blue jeans and gym shoes, said Calumet Area Sgt. Ray Madigan.

"It appears that robbery may be the motive," Madigan said. "The shooter was in a discussion with the victim, but we don't know what the discussion was."

In the neighborhood where the slain conductor lived, friends and family members offered images of the man who had worked on railroads for more than two decades.

To his family, Hooten was a loving patriarch with a soft spot for his 12-year-old granddaughter.

"I told him about my Iowa (test) scores, and he was so proud," his granddaughter Shavailya Dunn said at the brick bungalow where Hooten lived in the 7000 block of South Cornell Avenue. "He'd always be so happy when I called him."

But to the jazz fans who knew Hooten by his record-spinning alias, "Van Hooten," the conductor was a savvy and redoubtable competitor on the South Side's competitive deejaying circuit. To those friends, Hooten's memory will forever ring in the music of John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Dexter Gordon, some of the mainstays in his massive jazz repertoire, which he showcased during Sunday night deejaying sessions at the Jo Jo Eldorado Lounge on 79th Street.

"He loved that jazz and he loved to dance," said Ezell "Coop" Cooper, a longtime friend and jazz expert at the record and tape store where Hooten bought much of his music.

"And he was good at both of them."

A few blocks north, while friends mourned in the lounge's dim, smoky light, the promise of a gig that Hooten wouldn't fill was still posted on the wall: "July 25th: Van Hooten vs. Big Gene."

MASSACHUSETTS: State Senator says pact would warrant Amtrak work halt

BOSTON -- Weighing in on a heated debate over whether Amtrak will continue to maintain the MBTA's commuter rail system, state Senator Stephen Lynch told the Boston Globe last week that Amtrak unions would be justified in shutting down service if the maintenance contract is awarded to another company.

''I seriously believe they would be allowed to lay down their tools and refuse to go to work,'' Lynch, a South Boston Democrat, said at an all-day transportation committee hearing on the transit authority's nearly complete effort to contract out to a lower bidder. A strike on the MBTA's commuter-rail system, which Amtrak workers have threatened, would make it difficult for 60,000 regular users, mostly from Boston's suburbs, to get to work, and would further jam area highways.

At the urging of the Federal Transit Administration, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority last year began separating its equipment maintenance from operation of the trains and other commuter-rail functions. Amtrak has performed all of MBTA's maintenance work since 1986, but MBTA officials have long complained that their work is too expensive and sometimes poorly done.

After a year-and-a-half procurement process, the MBTA board of directors in May chose Bay State Transit Services to take over maintenance of locomotives and coaches. Bay State is a partnership of Herzog Transit Services of St. Joseph, Mo., and Boise Locomotive Co. of Pittsburgh.

The company bid $35 million a year for a five-year contract, compared with Amtrak's bid of $58 million. But as the November turnover date approaches, political pressure has increased on the MBTA to scrap the process and let Amtrak keep the work. That pressure was evident last week. What committee chairman Representative Joseph C. Sullivan, a Democrat from Braintree, said would be an information-seeking hearing turned into a marathon of attacks on MBTA officials. And the two committee chairmen, Sullivan and Arlington Senator Robert A. Havern III, a Democrat, virtually ordered MBTA general manager Robert H. Prince Jr. to suspend the awarding process while legislators continue to ask questions.

Lynch delivered strong support for the union and lambasted the MBTA for even considering getting rid of Amtrak. He said he would submit a bill requiring the state's auditor and inspector general to investigate the MBTA's effort to seek bids on the work and to report back by Dec. 1.

''The only way Herzog can be competitive is to come in here and lay off employees,'' Lynch said. ''That's not innovation. That's wrong.''

Representatives of the 550 unionized Amtrak workers who now perform the maintenance say the MBTA has shut them out of the process, but yesterday legislators heard their arguments at length. Legislators joined the union representatives in testifying that the MBTA was not telling the truth about the potential benefits of the change. T officials contend they would save $116 million over five years by awarding the contract to Bay State, which plans to do the same work with 300 to 400 workers. Even after what they estimated is $30 million in payments to any laid-off workers required by a federal labor law, the MBTA said it would save $86 million.

Sullivan called that savings ''nothing to sneeze at,'' but he and other legislators expressed skepticism that it would materialize. The MBTA will take away the Amtrak work ''at its own peril,'' warned Havern, because in the Legislature ''we authorize funding.''

The funding threat was ironic, given that the Legislature is debating a law designed to get constantly increasing MBTA spending under control. The bill would cap the T's budget, provide a tax-based funding source, raise fares modestly - and require the T to take cost-cutting measures like the one involving the maintenance contract on the agenda yesterday.

Union officials said Bay State's bid is artificially low, and legislators seemed more worried about smooth service than costs. ''The T should not be able to bum-rush our people out into the street until we get our questions answered,'' said Charles Moneypenny, president of Commuter Rail Workers United, a coalition of Amtrak unions.

Havern summed up the feeling expressed by legislators. ''If there are minimal savings that cause major disruptions, it's not worth that,'' he said. The hearing will continue, and the prospect of more testimony on the issue freezes any action by MBTA managers.

''They have received a message today to go cautiously, to go slowly, and I think that is what they'll do,'' said Sullivan. T officials said they'd meet with legislators before formally signing a contract with Bay State. But a T official, who asked not to be named, said the process had gone too far to allow it to be rolled by politics.

Bay State officials issued a statement saying Sullivan had assured them that the hearing would not be stacked against them. Raymond V. Lanman, a vice president at Herzog, and Mark S. Warner, a vice president at
Boise, said: ''In all of the many bidding processes we have participated in, we've never seen one so infected by union politics. These union bosses are trying to scuttle a fair and open process that would save tens of millions of dollars.''

FLORIDA: Conway announces key executive appointments at CSXT

JACKSONVILLE -- Ronald J. Conway, president of CSX Transportation Inc., announced several key leadership appointments, all effective immediately. They include:

Dale R. Hawk has been named senior vice president-automotive services group. He will continue to lead CSXT's automotive group. Automotive represents more than $750 million in annual revenues to CSXT. Since Hawk assumed responsibility for the automotive group in 1995, carloads have increased nearly 20 percent. A 30-year veteran of CSXT and its predecessors, Hawk has held a broad range of positions in sales and marketing, operations and finance.

Paul D. Sandler has been appointed senior vice president-corporate services. He will be responsible for the railroad's finance and real estate groups. A certified public accountant, Sandler joined CSX Corporation subsidiary, CSX Realty Inc., in 1988 and was named its president and chief financial officer in 1990. He held the post of vice president-planning for CSXT before becoming vice president and general manager for CSXT's Florida Business Unit, his present position. Sandler will relocate from Tampa, Fla., to Jacksonville.

Gary M. Spiegel has been named senior vice president-operations. He will lead the railroad's transportation, engineering and mechanical departments. Spiegel joined CSXT in 1998 as vice president-network operations following a 28-year career at Conrail. While at Conrail, Spiegel acquired strong operations experience, including posts as general manager-Dearborn Division, assistant vice president-train operations and vice president-service delivery.

"Dale, Paul and Gary have demonstrated effective leadership skills as individuals but, more importantly, the ability to build powerful, results-oriented teams," Conway said. "The depth and breadth of their knowledge and talents will complement the strong leadership team already in place at CSXT."

WASHINGTON: Changes urged in railroad loan program

WASHINGTON -- Shippers, small railroads, banks and insurers are seeking changes in a $1 billion federal loan program to improve rail lines that primarily serve rural America, the Journal of Commerce reported today.

They said the Federal Railroad Administration's Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program could hurt the secondary lines instead of improving them.

Nearly all of the 93 parties commenting on the administration's rules for the program objected to the requirement that potential borrowers be rejected twice by commercial lenders before turning to the government as the lender of last resort.

The lender-of-last-resort provision "was kind of a head fake to keep people from wanting the money," said Burton Etchison, president of the Stewart Grain Co. of Williamsport, Ind.

"If they are serious about making infrastructure enhancements, they need to make it (loan funds) available to people as an option for people to do right away. An agricultural lender of last resort lends to people who shouldn't be in business anyway."

Etchison's company, which has been in his family for 77 years, owns the Bee Line Railroad Co., a 10-mile short line that handles up to 500 cars of grain annually.

"When the time comes to spend considerable funds to fix it up, we are going to be in trouble," Etchison said. "We've been lucky. We haven't had to spend much. Now we have to do some significant tie replacement and clean the ballast up." He said repairs to tracks his company bought five years ago could run well into six figures.

Doug Christy, president of Iowa Interstate Railroad in Iowa City, noted a potential irony in the rules. He said his railroad might not qualify for the rehabilitation fund because it can get financing now for some projects.

"The bottom line for the smaller companies is that we are looking for very economical ways to rebuild our railroads," Christy noted. "We don't have a lot of cash. We need easy, simple, economical, low-cost financing."

James Johnson, traffic manager of Empire Wholesale Lumber Co. in Akron, Ohio, took the argument further.

"The communities and employers who are dependent upon continuous rail service will experience rapid erosion of their viability while the applicant extends time and limited human and fiscal resources on a wholly unproductive, futile pursuit of unattainable loans."

The controversy has been stimulated by technological changes that could handicap both small railroads and their customers. Those changes include a shift to larger railcars that are too heavy for many older branch lines to handle.

"The transportation of grain by rail is undergoing a major transformation," said the National Grain and Feed Association. They said the larger equipment can offer double-digit rate savings.

"Those type of rate advantages quickly translate into competitive advantages, since a grain elevator or feed mill with access to a lower rate can afford to bid more money to farmers for their grain," the association said. "As grain is drawn away from the lighter loading stations to the heavier loading stations, the demise of the light loading lines will not be far behind."

Among those who have complained about the proposed rules are key House transportation leaders, including Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the transportation and infrastructure subcommittee.

Shuster and three colleagues chided the Federal Rail Administration, saying there was no "last resort" requirement in the legislation they approved last spring.

Some industry officials predict the widespread complaints will prompt the agency to change the rules when they are put in final form later this year.

A FRA spokeswoman would say only that the comment review should take at least 90 days.

"It is very important that the RRIF loan program regulations should be user-friendly for small railroad companies like many of our clients, with a minimum of unnecessary paperwork, administrative burden and delay," said C. Howard Caputo, a senior vice president of NationsBank, Charlotte, N.C.

Willis Corroon Corp., Nashville, Tenn., which has more than 100 rail clients, urged the agency to simplify procedures for applications and calculation of the risk premium, and to drop the lender-of-last-resort provision.

Backers of the loan program say it has worked successfully.

Bob Zelenka, director of the Minnesota Grain and Feed Association in Minneapolis, said farmers and communities along a 100-mile rail line that was rebuilt have captured $4 billion in economic benefits from a loan of $22 million back in 1979. Those benefits included avoidance of higher costs to truck grain and repair highways.

ILLINOIS: UP eating BNSF's lunch?

CHICAGO – Far from moving to increase customer service and improve operations, the United Transportation Union sees the latest personnel and operational changes at Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway as the railroad's response to a revitalized Union Pacific Railroad.

On June 17, Matt Rose, BNSF's newly appointed president and chief operating officer, sent a letter to the homes of all scheduled railroad employees explaining the reasoning behind the railroad's elimination of 1,000 union positions.

UTU General Chairperson John Fitzgerald responded specifically to several points of Rose's letter, including assertions that BNSF is running more efficient locomotives, that improved velocity means fewer cars are needed on the system, and that improved maintenance-of-way practices reduce the need for maintenance. "So much for the fairy tale," Fitzgerald said in his letter. Reading between the lines, Fitzgerald said, "UP is eating our lunch."

Fitzgerald conceded that Pacific Rim economics have taken a toll but that doesn't explain the entire loss of traffic. "BNSF picked up share from UP when UP was in their dire straits over the last year and a half, especially in California," he said. "But UP has gradually taken most of that back now. From what I've seen, they're starting to eat into traffic that wasn't UP's before."

(For the full story, see the July 19th print edition of Traffic World. )

ILLINOIS: Board booted Burkhardt at Wisconsin Central

CHICAGO -- A letter sent by an "outraged" Sandy Burkhardt, wife of Wisconsin Central President and CEO Ed Burkhardt, to company employees and their families confirmed speculation that it was the board's decision—not Burkhardt's—to resign his post.

The letter was made up as a mock employee newsletter, entitled "The Rest of the Story," and subtitled "From an Angry Wife." Her purpose: to set the record straight as to the facts of her husband's "resignation."

On July 8, the company announced that Burkhardt, 60, would retire as president and CEO of the company effective Aug. 31, to be replaced by Chief Financial Officer Tom Power. Reilly McCarren, vice president and chief operating officer, would be promoted to president and COO of the company's North American operating subsidiaries.

FLORIDA: CSX in talks to sell container-shipping business

JACKSONVILLE – CSX is in talks to sell its international container-shipping business to Maersk Inc., a combination that would strengthen Danish-owned Maersk's leading position in world shipping, several news organizations have reported.

A transaction could be announced as early as this week and involve about $800 million in combined cash and assumption of debt, according to people familiar with the talks. The sale would include the international operations of CSX's Sea-Land Service Inc. unit, the largest U.S.-flag container carrier and the only one serving virtually all major ocean trade lanes.

CALIFORNIA: 13-year-old boy is hit, killed by Blue Line Train

LOS ANGELES -- A 13-year-old boy was killed Friday afternoon in South Los Angeles after he apparently hopped through a row of stopped freight cars and into the path of a Blue Line commuter train.

Gilberto Reynaga was struck by a southbound train at about 4:30 p.m. as he and a friend darted across the side-by-side rail tracks north of Slauson Avenue.

The boy, who had been playing basketball on one side of the tracks, was headed in the direction of his home on the other, witnesses said.

Police said the boys apparently jumped between the cars of a stopped Union Pacific freight train as warning signs sounded.

The boys looked one way when they came from the freight cars, witnesses said, but didn't realize the commuter train was approaching from the other direction.

"Every day we fear that something like this could happen," said Mabel Cail, who lives in the victim's apartment complex next to the rail corridor near Long Beach Avenue. The neighborhood has large numbers of children, she said, who constantly crisscross the freight and passenger tracks. "It's in a residential area...it would be much better if there [was] an overpass."

Gilberto, an eighth-grader with several siblings, was described by relatives as an avid ballplayer.

"He loved basketball," said his sister-in-law, Lillian Salazar. "He was happy, outgoing. . . . He was a sweet, sweet boy."

"He was the baby," said Gilberto's older brother, Everado.

Passengers on the Blue Line train said they saw the victim's friend dash away from the train.

"We saw him almost get hit. He was running. He seemed so scared," said L.P. Tutankhamon, a retired designer from South Central Los Angeles. "We were laughing."

But the feeling of relief turned to horror when the train made an emergency stop and they realized another child had been hit and dragged along the tracks.

Later, after the body had been removed, a black tennis shoe remained on the tracks. As one of Gilberto's relatives went to pick it up, investigators told her it had to remain where it was.

Gilberto was the first child on foot killed by a Blue Line train, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman said. Friday's fatality was the second this year on the Blue Line. The first occurred less than a month ago when a man stepped in front of a train near the Watts station.

Forty-five people have been killed since service began between downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach in 1990, mostly motorists or pedestrians trying to go around barriers, said the MTA's Gary Wosk. Fatalities are down slightly this year, Wosk said, partly because of new warning signs and increased distribution of safety literature.

KANSAS: Woman hurt flashing train

OLATHE -- A young woman who flashed a freight train has paid a painful price.

Police say the woman bared her breasts at a railroad crossing in Olathe, Kansas, early yesterday. But she was standing too close to the tracks when she lifted her shirt.

The wind from the passing train apparently caused her to lose her balance, and she bounced off one of the freight cars. Her right arm was broken in ten places. After leaving the hospital, the 20-year-old was charged with trespassing and under-age drinking.