UTU News Digest - Tuesday, November 30, 1999

UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Tuesday, November 30, 1999

WASHINGTON: Passenger rail projects gaining momentum

WASHINGTON -- New passenger rail projects are quietly gaining momentum around the U.S. despite the dominance of road and air travel and some skepticism about rail's economic viability, Reuters reported.

Besides Amtrak's 150-m.p.h. service that will link Washington, New York and Boston next year, there are some 13 projects in various stages across the country. Most are being funded by state governments at this point or Amtrak money.

"We are not on a nostalgia trip," says James RePass, president of the National Corridors Initiative, a coalition of passenger rail supporters that met in Washington this summer to hear progress reports and swap ideas.

The projects include one that has begun in the Pacific Northwest between Portland, Ore., and Seattle and up to Vancouver. Sleek new trains have seen ridership grow by double digits since the early 1990s.

Officials for the Northwest project think higher speeds and more frequent service will create a self-sufficient system.

Nine states in the Midwest are on the verge of building a high-speed network centered on Chicago. Amtrak trains run on some routes but not all participants are certain the government railroad should run the entire system.

In the Southeast, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia envision a system that will hook up to the Northeast corridor in Washington. Gulf Coast states are kicking around ideas for a system that would ultimately link to Atlanta.

Top speeds are not the focus for many of the plans. The biggest gains in many cases will come from increasing the slowest speeds on routes by eliminating grade crossings and bypassing slower freight trains.

Passenger rail accounts for just 1.2 percent of intercity journeys, swamped by the post-World War II development of the interstate highway system and the huge growth in air travel.

But faced with highways clogged with commuter traffic and crowded airports far from city centers, many state and local officials are re-examining rail as a third option.

Even in Washington, where many conservative lawmakers disparage Amtrak's reform efforts, there is recognition that rail may work for distances too short to fly and too long to drive.

"There is a real hope of future intercity passenger (rail) service," said Glenn Scammel, majority counsel to the Republican-controlled House subcommittee on ground transportation.

Scammel discounts Amtrak's promise to wean itself from public operating subsidies by 2002 but he does not rule out successful regional corridors. "I think you need to look beyond the current Amtrak scenario," he told the meeting.

Amtrak defenders say the railroad has been starved of capital since it was formed through a 1971 federal takeover of struggling passenger services freight railroads had to maintain.

"Amtrak has always struggled to function because it has always been funded at the very last minute with just a little bit less than it needed," RePass said.

A $2.3 billion injection by Congress in 1997 accompanied by legislation putting the national passenger railroad on a more business-like footing gave Amtrak a chance to prove its critics wrong.

Nowhere is Amtrak's reputation and future more at stake than the nation's first high-speed rail service linking Washington, New York and Boston.

Amtrak President and CEO George Warrington predicts that by 2003 the service will return $180 million a year to Amtrak's bottom line and be a model for similar projects around the country.

"It will demonstrate that high-speed rail can be an important profit source," Warrington told the corridors meeting.

But Edward Hudgins, a passenger rail skeptic at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based center of conservative and libertarian thought, said Amtrak had struggled for years to be profitable on the densely populated Northeast route.

"If you still have to subsidize the hell out of the Northeast corridor, where else in the country are you going to get something close to these population densities?" he asked.

WASHINGTON STATE: WTO listens to critics on eve of meeting

SEATTLE – Hoping to reverse beliefs that it is secretive and undemocratic, the World Trade Organization today hosted hundreds of its critics in a meeting hall here for a dialogue on trade's impact on development and human rights, the Washington Post reported.

The three-hour encounter was polite – even though friends of some of the guests were outside on the street angrily waving banners attacking the Geneva-based organization.

WTO Director General Mike Moore argued that the current world trading system benefits just about everyone. "Over 30 countries – 1.5 billion people – want to join the WTO," he declared to the gathering.

But Martin Khor, from a group called Third World Network, had a different view. The consequences of more trade liberalization, Khor said, could be "so negative and serious in the Third World that there will be tremendous political instability over the next five years."

With 3,000 WTO delegates set to formally begin new talks on trade liberalization negotiations Tuesday, the meeting was the first step in a program to put a more sympathetic face on the trade agency and make its operations more open.

Since its creation five years ago to police world trade, the WTO has become the target of a diverse international coalition of activist groups that include environmentalists, labor unions, consumer groups and private development agencies. They contend that the WTO has too much power, that it infringes on countries' sovereignty by making them change environmental rules. The critics also complain that an agency that forever praises "transparency" in trade – the establishment of clear rules, the elimination of back-door deals – is notably lacking in the quality itself.

Dispute panels that act as judges when countries have trade disputes operate in secrecy. There is no requirement to make filings and briefs public. Often little is known publicly until the panel issues its decision. The official rationale is that the panels are essentially government-to-government negotiations, and that contacts of this kind always take place in private.

No one in the WTO or in the major industrial powers wants to weaken its authority in dispute settlement – it has established "rule of law" in world trade, they say, and that is only for the better. But on the question of openness, pressure is building for change.

The Clinton administration has come to voice the rhetoric of some of the people in the streets. The White House proposed today's meeting with the advocacy groups as a way of getting them invested in the process. Officials say it marks the first time in eight rounds of trade negotiation over the last 50 years that the outsiders' views have been sought.

"It's terribly important that the views of civil society not just be heard but incorporated into the work of the WTO," U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said after today's meeting. "The openness of civil society is a stabilizing force and lends credibility to the system."

How much success they had in making the other side feel involved was unclear, however. There was no real dialogue in the meeting, which was delayed by more than three hours as police dogs searched for possible security threats in the convention center after a broken door lock was discovered. People on both sides simply stated views one after another.

Mike Dolan, field organizer for Global Trade Watch, called the session "nothing more than a giant suggestion box." He said that only "reasonable" critics were allowed to make presentations. "Their strategy is to peel off the moderates, that's what they need to do politically."

Jason Mark of the San Francisco activist group Global Exchange said: "We get to talk while the real decisions are being made somewhere else, behind closed doors."

The U.S. side is also pressing the issue of openness in the trade-dispute panels. The trade representative's office already publicize U.S. government filings, placing them in its reading room in Washington.

"Empty chairs should be reserved for the public" at the dispute panels' meetings, Barshefsky said in an interview earlier today. "Why shouldn't they be able to sit and observe? Why aren't the briefs available to the public. It's astonishing – these are government documents."

One of this week's expected controversies disappeared when Cuban President Fidel Castro announced in Havana that he will not seek a visa to attend the conference. Though U.S. officials had indicated Castro would be allowed to enter the country, he said he was certain they would not do so. "I did not want to be submitted to that humiliation," he said.

CALIFORNIA: Ebuses roll on the streets of Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES -- Early this morning the streets of downtown Los Angeles got a little cleaner and a little quieter as electric buses supplied by Ebus Inc. began transporting delegates in support of the National League of Cities Convention, a press release said.

Ebus, a Los Angeles-based manufacturer, has delivered these vehicles under a contract to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power with the specific intent of providing clean transportation for this high-visibility event as well as next year's Democratic National Convention.

The contract, awarded earlier this summer, consists of 15 transit buses and three trolley replicas. Both models seat 22 passengers and feature all ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) required components as standard equipment.

The electric-powered buses achieve a top speed of 43 mph and have a range of 50 to 60 miles on a single charge. An optional rapid charging system provides additional range for these vehicles.

"As a local manufacturer of electric buses, we were excited to help bring the Department of Water and Power's vision of clean public transportation to the local community," said William G. Webster Jr., president of Ebus Inc. "The League of Cities Convention is the perfect place to showcase our line of electric buses and the city of Los Angeles' commitment to green transit programs," Webster continued.

This bus order has delivered multiple economic benefits to Southern California, and specifically to Los Angeles County. To meet the aggressive delivery schedule required under this contract, Ebus has employed 35 additional production workers from the local labor pool, not including increases in support staff.

Additionally, heavy emphasis was placed on purchasing as many components and raw materials from local, state and U.S. sources as possible. The net effect has been to return a high percentage of the contract dollars right back into the community that generated the funds for this important purchase.

Ebus is a recently formed electric-bus manufacturer, and current production models include 22-foot Transit Buses and Trolley Replicas with either all-electric or hybrid-electric propulsion systems. Both vehicles are low-floor platforms, have space for 22 seated passengers, are completely ADA compliant and are fitted with anti-lock brakes, all as standard equipment.

A battery management and cooling system designed to facilitate fast/opportunity charging is available as an option, as well as a wide range of accessories and configurations. Ebus is currently finalizing the design for a new 30-foot electric and hybrid-electric bus, which will be available in mid-2000.

ILLINOIS: Wisconsin Central names White vice president

ROSEMONT, Ill. - Wisconsin Central Transportation Corp. has named Richard White as vice president of corporate development.

White had served as vice president of human resources since joining WCTC in 1996, and had negotiated the company's Canadian and U.S. labor contracts. He joins vice president John Bradshaw on the corporate development team, and reports to executive vice president James Fisk.

Corporate development executes WCTC's expansion and acquisitions strategies, and also monitors current operations.

In other news, WCTC, in conjunction with its consortium partners, expects to begin operating the Aqaba Railway in early 2000 under a lease agreement with the Government of Jordan. Terry Corson has been named chief executive officer and general manager of this operation, which will transition the Aqaba from a government-operated railroad. Corson had been superintendent of the locomotive department for the Wisconsin Central System since 1996.

WISCONSIN: Man sentenced to 3 months for driving around gate crossing

RACINE -- A 36-year-old Waterford man found guilty of driving his truck around a railroad crossing gate before being struck by a train was sentenced last week to three months in jail, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

James E. Jenshak was given the jail term by Racine County Circuit Judge Dennis Flynn. A jury earlier had found Jenshak guilty of second-degree recklessly endangering safety.

A passenger in Jenshak's truck suffered head injuries in the Jan. 13 accident.

According to a criminal complaint, conductor Patrick Vandesslund told Burlington police that as his northbound train approached the Chestnut St. crossing in Burlington, a pickup truck was driven around the railroad crossing gates, which were down to warn of an oncoming train, and the truck was struck broadside by the train. The truck's driver then drove away, Vandesslund said.

Police later determined that the truck belonged to Jenshak, of the 500 block of E. Main St. in Waterford. They found the truck at the home of a friend of Jenshak, who said Jenshak had asked to leave the truck at the home.

Jenshak told investigators that on the day of the accident, he and a friend had been drinking while ice fishing on Delavan Lake. Jenshak said that several days before the accident, he had waited for train at a crossing and this time decided to drive around the gates because he didn't see a train coming.

Jenshak said he didn't stop after the accident because he had been drinking and his truck was not insured.