UTU News Digest - Monday, June 28, 1999

UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Monday, June 28, 1999

CALIFORNIA: Conductor killed by freight train; funeral today

ANDERSON -- Services for Jack W, Sparkman Jr., 57, of Anderson, will be at 1 p.m. Monday at Little Country Church in Redding.

Mr. Sparkman died Wednesday, June 23, 1999, in Redding after a train accident. A Union Pacific conductor and 35-year employee, Sparkman was crushed Wednesday between two railroad cars as they were being moved off the main line in Redding, according to UP spokesman Mike Furtney.

Sparkman's train crew was switching two groups of cars from a train on the mainline into a cement plant when the accident occurred. He was pinned between the two groups. UP investigators are trying to determine the cause of the accident, Furtney said. The 10:45 a.m. accident happened on the tracks just south of Grandview Avenue in Redding.

Born July 22, 1941, in Sacramento, he moved to Shasta County in 1969. He was a U.S. Army veteran and a member of Destiny Fellowship in Redding.

Burial will be at Tehama Cemetery in Tehama. Memorial contributions may be made to Destiny Fellowship, 2444 Bechelli Lane, Redding, CA.

PENNSYLVANIA: CSX, Norfolk Southern find breaking up is hard

CONWAY, Pa. -- Stretching four miles along the Ohio River, the freight yard here is one of the nation's largest and normally among the most efficient. But lately it looks more like a big traffic jam, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The 570-acre facility, taken over early this month by Norfolk Southern Corp. as part of its acquisition of Conrail Inc. routes, has been crammed with excess freight cars. On some days, as many as a dozen freight trains have been parked unattended on main tracks waiting for space in the yard. "We're still more congested than we would like," says Robert Bartle, a Norfolk Southern division superintendent. "But we're doing everything we can to return to normal service."

Nearly a month after Norfolk Southern and CSX Corp. carved up Conrail, the companies are finding that splitting a railroad is a daunting task. Computer errors have caused freight cars to stack up. Rail customers complain of delays and shipments gone haywire. And Norfolk Southern has gone so far as to turn to small railroads for help.

The problems are all the more surprising because the companies said they learned from the massive service failures and traffic backups at Union Pacific Corp. in 1997 and 1998. Those problems began after Union Pacific took over Southern Pacific Rail Corp.

"Merging the Conrail operations has proven to be far tougher than imagined, given all the advance planning," says John Taylor, an assistant professor of logistics and transportation at Wayne State University in Detroit.

The count of freight cars, a measurement of railroad congestion, has moved up at a faster pace on Norfolk Southern than on CSX. Many rail customers and analysts anticipated that Norfolk Southern's integration would have gone smoother based on the company's reputation for running a disciplined operation. Still, analysts say that Norfolk Southern is absorbing a larger share of Conrail and has a more complex integration task than CSX.

For example, Norfolk Southern has taken over more of Conrail's industrial-based business, which involves a greater proportion of shipments in separate freight cars.

Officials of Norfolk Southern, based in Norfolk, Va., say they are moving more locomotives and employees to the former Conrail routes to unclog freight yards, while opening new terminals and tracks. They say they are starting to process freight more efficiently and reduce the backlog of shipments even though demand for raw materials and goods remain high. And they expect to clear out the system in July when freight seasonally slows because of auto plant retoolings and coal miner holidays.

"I believe the situation is stabilizing," says Norfolk Southern vice chairman Stephen Tobias.

CSX, Richmond, Va., says it is making headway. "It is not quite where we want it to be, but we are making good progress," says Michael Ward, an executive vice president of CSX's rail unit.

The problems come as the railroad industry is trying to improve its reputation after the Union Pacific debacle. An outbreak of new rail-service problems could provide ammunition for customers clamoring for more federal intervention in the rail industry and for truckers seeking rights to operate longer and heavier rigs on the nation's highways.

Customers of Norfolk Southern and CSX are already complaining of rail service delays and disruptions. One of them, Cerestar USA Inc., sends out rail cars from its corn-syrup plant in Hammond, Ind., to a terminal in Oakland, N.J., to serve customers ranging from candy makers to bakeries and soft drink companies. But its rail shipments lately have slowed to a trickle, and Cerestar has had to turn to trucks and even competitors to get product to the Oakland terminal. Cerestar is now running the Hammond plant at the lowest rate possible to conserve empty rail cars.

"This has upset our entire distribution system and generated substantial additional costs for us," says Robert Sieffert, manager of transportation/distribution of Cerestar.

The railroads insist that such problems will fade as they work off backups of freight caused by computer foul-ups. But fixing the problems may also involve additional spending to overcome shortages of rail track and yards in some places.

In Buffalo, N.Y., for example, CSX acquired the big freight yard when Conrail was split, while Norfolk Southern was left with some tiny yards. Norfolk Southern considered expansions but didn't go ahead with them. That may have put an extra burden on its other freight yards. Norfolk Southern officials say that Buffalo was hit by an unanticipated surge of freight cars caused by computer problems after the Conrail split up. Now they plan to boost facilities in Buffalo and may make more investments.

"The companies are demonstrating a commitment to spend what it takes to improve service and complete the integration, and that raises short-term costs," says Scott Flower, an analyst at PaineWebber Inc. Mr. Flower recently reduced his second-quarter earnings estimate for Norfolk Southern to 35 cents a diluted share from 42 cents and CSX to 50 cents from 75 cents.

Meanwhile, Norfolk Southern is scrambling to work off the bulge of rail cars in its system, subleasing locomotives from Union Pacific and turning to short-line railroads. The tiny Lycoming Valley Railroad Co. in Williamsport, Pa., recently started taking in Norfolk Southern freight trains and processing the cars in its freight yard there. Such moves, railroads hope, will ease the pressure on Norfolk Southern's freight yards, such as the sprawling facility in Conway. Richard Robey, president of the Lycoming Valley and other small railroads, says he was only too happy to help. "The last thing this industry needs is another black eye," says Mr. Robey.

OHIO: Stiffer fines asked for rail blockages

TOLEDO -- A local legislator familiar with train delays at grade crossings thinks a tenfold increase in the top fine just might get the railroads' attention, the Toledo Blade reported.

State Rep. Jeanine Perry (D., Toledo) announced yesterday that she and State Rep. Gene Krebs (R., Camden) have drafted a bill that would subject railroads to a rapidly increasing fine for every minute beyond 25 minutes that a stopped train blocks a public road.

While railroads now face a maximum fine of $1,000 for blocking a crossing, Mrs. Perry's bill provides for a $10,000 penalty should a crossing be blocked for two hours or more.

"I think we can all tolerate five minutes, 10 minutes, even 15,'' she said, but railroads need a stronger message that blocking roads for extended periods of time is simply unacceptable.

The bill also would make it easier for local authorities to identify a train blocking a public street, Mrs. Perry said. Police now must either serve a ticket on the train crew or record the number of the lead locomotive.

As some trains are more than a mile long, doing either of those things can be very time consuming if a blocked crossing is far removed from the front of a stopped train. Sometimes the lead engine is simply inaccessible if it happens to be on a bridge or in a remote or wooded area.

Mrs. Perry said the legislation was filed with the clerk of the House of Representatives and l be referred to committee after the summer recess.

Officials at CSX and Norfolk Southern, the two principal railroads operating in Ohio, declined to comment on the bill pending detailed analysis.

The Toledo area has experienced a rash of grade-crossing blockages in recent weeks attributed to problems CSX and Norfolk Southern have had with implementing their joint takeover of Conrail's rail network.

Train crews unable to reach their destinations within a federal 12-hour duty limit have sometimes parked their trains and left them without uncoupling to clear grade crossings. In some cases, roads were blocked for nine or more hours.

But blocked crossings are nothing new to northwest Ohio. And Toledo's Point Place neighborhood, which Mrs. Perry represented while serving on city council, has had particular difficulty because of railroad lines that, when blocked, force motorists to take long detours to reach downtown Toledo and can delay response to police and fire calls.

And when trains stop on each of two parallel rail lines, Mrs. Perry said, one section of Toledo's North End is isolated completely.

As a city councilwoman, Mrs. Perry was one of many local officials who complained that the current penalties for blocking crossings are low enough that railroads dismiss the fines as simply a cost of doing business. She said she welcomes the opportunity, as a legislator, to try to make a change.

"We think $10,000 is a number that will get the attention of the railroads,'' Mrs. Perry said.

WASHINGTON: Rails provide guards, advice on cargo theft

WASHINGTON -- Railroads offer shippers and logistics managers a crucial service airlines and truckers can't match -- free security advice and in-transit surveillance from a private police force, the Journal of Commerce reported.

These aren't rent-a-cops or contract security guards but are professional law-enforcement officers employed by the railroads to hunt down freight thieves before they strike, said Bob Lewis, supervisory special agent for Norfolk Southern Railroad in Chicago.

"Railway police have a tradition of proactively protecting a customer's freight before we have a problem," said Lewis, who spent 25 years in Conrail's police department and is president of the Chicago Railway Police Association.

"We're state-certified police officers and we can go into neighborhoods and arrest known cargo thieves," Lewis said.

Thieves who target railroads tend to be organized, frequently by street gangs, Lewis said.

They often use juveniles to commit crimes, because they may get lenient sentences, Lewis said. "They are organized. You have female drivers in the getaway cars, lookouts with cell phones. Entire families have been doing this for years."

Lewis said railcar thieves will usually cut a seal on an intermodal trailer or a sea container and grab as much merchandise as possible when the train slows or stops to refuel, change crews or add or drop cars.

Improved security by automakers has made it rare for entire automobiles to be taken, Lewis said, but tires, radios and sound systems frequently are stolen.

"Thieves also know good things come in small packages and go after coast-to-coast ground shipments carried for express shippers," he said. "Thieves don't want to waste their time opening large boxes."

But those losses are on the decline.

"You will find incidental pilferage but not the large-scale cargo theft common to air and trucking companies," said Ron Thornton, president and chief executive of the Inland Marine Underwriters Association, New York, which has 69 members representing nearly 400 property/casualty insurers.

Lewis said railway police work closely with shippers, almost like insurance loss-control specialists, to arrange extra security for high-value shipments.

"They may also self-insure for legal liability of goods in their care, custody and control," Thornton said.

Cargo insurance, usually written on shipments from sender to receiver, includes the time the shipment is on the railroad. There is no separate policy for when the cargo is on the railroad.

However, Thornton advises risk managers to buy owners' insurance on goods so that they aren't drawn into claims settlements, "which may well be protracted."

Lewis said railroad police will help rail shippers improve loading and security, and will provide advice on freight seals and protection devices.

"Many shippers still use plastic or inexpensive tin seals. They are no deterrent even to the smash-and-grab crook." Sometimes entire door hasps are removed and seals are intact.

The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway has a 13-person Crime Prevention Department, which conducts major investigations and consults with shippers and customers, said Otto M. Motley, the railroad's manager of police.

"We've been educating our shippers for the last four years on cargo security and we're beginning to see a big change in attitude," he said. "Shippers know they have a responsibility."

Each year, the Chicago Railway Police Association identifies its "top 40 list" of cargo thieves in the city and concentrates on them. Last year 36 on the list were arrested and prosecuted. Any thief with three arrests for stealing freight from railroads is automatically added to the list, Lewis said.

Chicago Railway Police Association members let prosecutors know when a suspect facing trial is a repeat offender. "Now they're getting longer sentences, not just wrist slaps," Lewis said.

TEXAS: TV show produces flood of calls on railway killer

HOUSTON -- The FBI has received a "flood of calls" concerning Rafael Resendez-Ramirez since the "America's Most Wanted" television program aired a profile about the rail-riding serial murder suspect, officials told CNN on Sunday.

The FBI Command Center in Houston has received more than 3,000 leads, many following the broadcast of the program Saturday evening, FBI spokesman Rolando Moss said.

The suspect's common-law wife, Julieta Dominguez Reyes, told the Houston Chronicle she finds the accusations hard to believe.

"I don't think he's the one, because he would have to be extremely cold and calculating, and he would have raised some of the details in front of me," she said.

"But if he were involved in this, if he touched death, then death should touch him, right? It's cause and effect," she said.

The only known survivor of an attack blamed on the suspect describes her experience in an article published in this summer's issue of the national Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority magazine, The Key, and obtained by the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader.

The young woman was a 20-year-old University of Kentucky junior at the time of the August 1997 attack.

She recalls how she and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Christopher Maier, were ambushed as they walked along railroad tracks near the university.

A man appeared out of the bushes "and stuck what appeared to be a knife into my boyfriend's side and demanded money," she said in the article.

The assailant fatally struck Maier in the head with an object before beating and raping the young woman and leaving her for dead, Lexington police Sgt. Mark Barnard said.

As she recovered, the woman wrote, "I wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out again, but that would have meant that I let this monster take me away."

Since 1997, Resendez-Ramirez has been implicated in eight murders near railroad tracks. Five were in Texas and one in Kentucky.

He has been charged with murder in two cases, the killings of George Morber and his daughter, Carolyn Frederick, in Gorham, Illinois.

Seven of the killings have come within the last six months, four between June 4 and June 15.

Resendez-Ramirez is suspected in at least a dozen additional murders, according to FBI sources. A $125,000 reward is posted for his capture.

ILLINOIS: Hobos resent serial-killer image

CHICAGO -- They were transients riding the rails across America - hobos who gave each other colorful names like Frypan Jack and Slow Motion Shorty, the AP reported.

Buzz Potter remembers the days when these boxcar-riding nomads were welcome to knock on his mother's door looking for jobs or handouts. Those days, he said, are long gone.

Now Potter, president of a loosely knit group called the National Hobo Association, is worried about Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, a rail rider who is suspected of being a serial killer.

"They're calling him the 'hobo killer,''' Potter says with disgust. "It's giving us a bad name.''

Bad name or not, Potter acknowledges that times have changed for hobos, that today "anybody who'd see two grimy guys at the back door would bolt the door and call 911.''

No firm numbers on hobos are available. Union Pacific agents detained about 97,000 people for trespassing last year, releasing most with a warning, says spokesman Ed Trandahl. Officials at other major railways say they have similar problems.

But the category of trespassers includes rail riders as well as people who illegally walk across company property, and the railways wouldn't give breakdowns.

Investigators believe Resendez-Ramirez has traveled the country extensively on freight trains. He has become the object of a nationwide manhunt.

He has been charged with the two slayings in Illinois and is suspected of a 1997 Kentucky killing and five since last fall in Texas. The crimes occurred in homes near railroad tracks, and fingerprints have linked Resendez-Ramirez to at least some of the killings.

Porter said that although rail riding is often associated with the Depression, jumping on trains without a ticket has never really gone away.

Railroad officials still detain people for trespassing, and there's still an annual Hobo Convention at Britt, Iowa, where old-timers, modern-day rail riders and fans can swap tales.

These days, however, not many people who jump a freight fit the image of homeless, rootless hobos living on handouts and camping in hobo "jungles'' alongside tracks.

Railway workers are concerned that there seems a growing interest in the hobo life, partly among adventure-seekers armed with credit cards and train schedules out for a two-week trip. Others include undocumented immigrants who are traveling to jobs.

Potter, one of those who admits he occasionally hops freights, says the public has the wrong impression of rail riders.

"You have to be more careful out there. There's no doubt about that. But I know more guys who have Ph.D.s who ride freight trains,'' says Potter, who lives in Nisswa, Minn.

"I'm head of 3,400 guys who wouldn't hurt a flea,'' he says. In addition to true hobos, the late author James Michener was a member. The association even has a Web page.

Last year, railways reported 522 trespassing-related deaths, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. That number also includes suicides and pedestrians hit by trains.

"It's clearly a problem - and it's totally unsafe,'' says Richard Russack, a spokesman for Burlington Northern & Santa Fe.

Loners by nature and well aware of the illegal nature of what they do - even it's mostly a misdemeanor violation - most rail riders are reluctant to talk publicly about what they do.

One who will talk is Duffy Littlejohn, author of "Hopping Freight Trains in America.'' He estimates that he's ridden nearly 500,000 miles on freight trains since 1970, but he's also a lawyer living in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Why does he do it? "There's danger. There's thrill. There's risk because it's illegal,'' says Littlejohn.

"This is a rich, rich American tradition, riding the rails,'' Littlejohn says.

"We celebrate the tradition. We have a campfire and drink the wine. And most of us ride the trains once in a while to keep our hand in it,'' Potter says. "But it'll never be the same."