UTU News Digest - Tuesday, January 18, 2000

UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Tuesday, January 18, 2000

CANADA: Ottawa expected to introduce rules affecting CN-BNSF deal

OTTAWA -- The federal government is expected to introduce tough, new legislation this spring that would give it the power to control -- or even prevent -- the proposed merger of two railway giants, Canadian National Railway Co. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., the Toronto Globe and Mail reported.

The new legislation would also give Ottawa wide-ranging new powers to oversee and regulate railways once the merger has been completed, an Ottawa source said.

Other provisions would give the Canadian Transportation Agency the right to monitor -- and enforce -- Air Canada's recent verbal guarantee that it will not gouge passengers, cut services to smaller communities or use predatory pricing to drive competitors out of business.

"They will have the power to fine Air Canada if they gouge consumers, particularly in the first two years before competition builds up," the source said. "If they're hit with a million-dollar fine, they will think twice about gouging."

The proposed railway legislation would be included in the Canadian Transportation Act, which is due for its five-year revision this summer. Many of the amendments will be aimed specifically at the proposed merger of CN and BNSF, which has raised considerable concern among railway shippers, union leaders and manufacturers.

"We doubt the consolidation will go ahead as it's now proposed," the source said. He added that the government is expected to raise so many issues that BNSF may rethink the merger, or perhaps cancel it.

The proposed merger has raised hackles among Canada's shippers because it would create the largest railway in North America, with 80,000 kilometers of track, 67,000 staff and revenue of $18.5-billion a year.

North American Railways Inc. will have a head office in Montreal. But many shippers are worried that decision making -- and even the head office -- will eventually gravitate to BNSF's current head office in Dallas once CN's chief executive officer Paul Tellier retires, in about four years.

"Of course, we are concerned," said Lisa MacGillivray, president and managing director of the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association, a shippers' lobby that represents 400 corporations. "Two-thirds of the continent would be covered by one railway."

Other groups worry that CN will cut jobs in Canada, particularly in Montreal, and move them to the United States.

The proposed merger has raised serious concerns because -- under current legislation -- the federal government has very little power to supervise or amend railway mergers.

"There will be no major scrutiny in Canada," said Abe Rosner of the Canadian Auto Workers. "There is no one in Canada who has the jurisdiction to scrutinize this merger. We're the Wild West of deregulation."

Mr. Rosner added that only one government body will take a hard look at the proposed merger of CN and BNSF in its entirety, and that is the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.

ILLINOIS: Trains tempting for gun thieves

CHICAGO -- Weapons stolen from a South Side railyard that later wound up in street gang arsenals prompted a call Sunday for stricter transportation of firearms, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

One of the stolen guns killed a 4-year-old Chicago boy whose relative stored it at his home last summer, said Cook County State's Attorney Richard A. Devine and U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.), who announced a push Sunday to tighten up lax gun transportation.

But there is no way to determine the accuracy of a June 1999 report from a railroad security officer of a single theft of 1,200 weapons from the trouble-prone railyard at 63rd Street and Indiana Avenue, they said. That's because United Parcel Service was unable to provide records about the shipment, Devine said.

Chicago remains a rail hub, and "idle boxcars in desolate railyards are like sitting ducks in the dead of night," Blagojevich said.

At least 37 firearms were stolen in 1998 and 1999 in a string of thefts from UPS trailers at the railyard and in one incident at UPS' Hodgkins hub.

"It's a major source of illegal weapons," said Mike Smith, head of the state's attorney's gang crimes unit. "How many? We have no idea."

Blagojevich said he would introduce a bill that would: require tracking of gun shipments by private delivery services and the U.S. mail; mandate overnight air delivery of firearms, burglar-proof shipping containers and reporting of thefts; require more stringent background checks for delivery-service workers in contact with firearms, and stiffen jail terms for gun thefts from interstate carriers.

UPS "recently required that all shipments of handguns go through our air system so that none of them are transported on the ground any longer" as a result of discussions with law enforcement, spokesman Mike Johl said.

However, "long guns" are still being shipped by rail, Devine said.

ILLINOIS: CTA puts return of express buses on a fast track

CHICAGO -- For Metra riders still mourning the loss of quick and convenient shuttle bus service between their workplaces and the downtown train stations, the Chicago Transit Authority has heard your wails, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The rush-hour buses soon will return to Lower Wacker Drive, Getting Around has learned.

Ridership on the CTA's express buses has fallen 7 percent since the four bus routes that formerly used Lower Wacker as a short-cut were redirected last May to Upper Wacker because of repairs to the crumbling underground roadway. As a result, travel times doubled and commuters fled to find better options.

The city's Department of Consumer Services also noted an increase in the number of companies that provide--or are thinking about providing--their own employee shuttle bus service to and from Union Station and the Ogilvie Transportation Center (the former NorthWestern Station). Officials said the trend is due to worsening construction-related congestion and the need to have an alternate plan in place before reconstruction of both levels of Wacker begins in 2002.

The CTA, which above all prides itself on its downtown service, had to do something, even if its express routes--Nos. 120, 121, 122 and 123--provide only about 11,500 rides each weekday.

"We've heard our customers' complaints that things are slower by having to compete with traffic above ground. So we are working with the city on creating a hybrid of the old and the new routes to run buses safely and effectively on Lower Wacker again," said CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney.

Officials in the CTA's Planning Department said they haven't set a date for the buses to return to Lower Wacker, explaining that "several options were being studied" because of lane reductions and reduced headroom on Lower Wacker, especially between Lake and Franklin Streets.

But how complicated can it be?

Some commuters say the situation has become so bad that occasionally bus drivers have devised their own routes using Lower Wacker, bringing a trip that can take more than 20 minutes down to six minutes.

Meanwhile, other CTA riders whose 10 bus routes were detoured off Michigan Avenue, also last May, continue to gripe about the diversion to State Street, which commuters say has stretched travel times on the Nos. 20, 151 and 157 routes to a half-hour between Michigan Avenue and the train station.

The rerouting, necessitated by lane reductions on Michigan related to the Millennium Park construction zone between Randolph and Monroe Streets, appears to just have shifted the logjam of buses onto State Street. In some cases, the buses cannot turn onto State from Upper Wacker, and vice versa, because the entire block already is filled with CTA buses that are going nowhere fast.

Miraculously, ridership on buses that were detoured off Michigan Avenue declined only 1 percent between May and October, CTA officials said. But the downward shift has occurred while CTA bus ridership overall grew a healthy 4.6 percent last year.

The CTA said the congestion has eased somewhat now that the city's street-lighting project on LaSalle Street is complete, but once riders vamoose, it is difficult to lure them back.

"We are definitely seeing a trend of more businesses developing shuttle services for their employees," said Connie Buscemi, spokeswoman for the Department of Consumer Services. She could not provide useful numbers, because only companies that charge their employees a fee to ride the shuttles are required to be licensed as a charter service by the city.

It looks like the Chicago Tribune will be one of the next companies to operate an employee shuttle because of the rerouting of CTA express buses.

"We will begin an evening shuttle service from Tribune Tower to both the Union and Ogilvie Stations as soon as a contract with Chicago Motor Coach is finalized," said Chasity Middleton, a Tribune human services coordinator.

Middleton said the shuttle service, like at other companies, will run until the commuter boats are back on the Chicago River in late April.

IOWA: Locomotive pulls Sioux City preservation

SIOUX CITY -- Members of the Siouxland Historical Railroad Association have spent nearly every weekend for the past 15 years quietly working to restore pieces of Sioux City's railroad history, the Omaha World Herald reported.

The steam locomotive was donated to Sioux City, Iowa, in 1955.

They dismantled, restored and reassembled a 114-ton steam locomotive nicknamed Chief Ironhorse, which once hauled people and freight across the country.

They reclaimed the former Milwaukee Road Roundhouse complex from weeds and piles of junk, hoping someday soon to turn decaying wood and crumbling mortar into a railroad museum.

Their weekend work finally appears to be paying off.

Chief Ironhorse has been deemed eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, an important step in the group's struggle to fund its restoration projects. If the nomination is approved, Chief Ironhorse would be Iowa's first locomotive, and one of a handful in the country, on the National Register.

"It's extremely good news," said Larry Obermeyer, secretary of the Siouxland Historical Railroad Association. "It gets things rolling for us again."

Obermeyer said he also anticipates that the roundhouse complex will be named to the Iowa Historical Preservation Alliance's annual list of the state's most endangered properties.

The list, which won't officially be announced until Tuesday, seeks to raise awareness of historic structures threatened by demolition or neglect. Obermeyer said he nominated the roundhouse complex for the list.

Now that Chief Ironhorse is eligible for the National Register, the local group can begin spending the state and federal grants it has received for finishing the project. Several of the grants required that the locomotive achieve that status before the money could be used.

"Our volunteers have taken the restoration work as far as they can," Obermeyer said. "Now we need a professional to take over and complete the work."

However, it could be six months or more before the locomotive is added to the National Register, Obermeyer said. The nomination will be revised, sent back to the State Historical Society for final review and then forwarded to the U.S. secretary of the Interior.

Nebraska's only locomotive on the National Register is the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy No. 710, which is on display near Lincoln's historic Haymarket district. It was added to the National Register in 1997.

Chief Ironhorse was built in 1909 for the Great Northern Railroad. During its heyday, the locomotive served the Great Northern system, stretching from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest and into Canada.

In 1955, Chief Ironhorse was donated to the City of Sioux City.

"That was unusual," Obermeyer said. "As big as Great Northern was, it didn't donate locomotives like the other railroads did."

In 1984, Obermeyer's father, Larry Obermeyer Sr., founded the Siouxland Historical Railroad Association in order to preserve the locomotive and build a permanent railroad museum. The elder Obermeyer died in 1998.

The group moved closer to its museum goal in 1995, when it bought the roundhouse complex. During the height of Sioux City's railroad era, the roundhouse employed 500 people and serviced 850 locomotives a month.

In 1996, Chief Ironhorse was moved to the roundhouse complex and the group began working on both projects.

About 20 to 25 members of the group, including some from Omaha, South Dakota and Minnesota, have worked on the locomotive for years.

First, they dismantled the entire locomotive, then cleaned and examined all the parts. They stripped the black paint that covered the locomotive's original green-and-white color scheme. They installed new boiler tubes and put in new rivets.

"They did all the tedious work," Obermeyer said. "And there's nothing light on that locomotive."

Now that the group has basically halted work on the locomotive, the members are turning their attention to the roundhouse complex. Weekends are spent replacing windows and floorboards in a former carpenter shop that the group plans to make the heart of its museum, said group member Chet French.

Besides the museum, the group plans to turn a dining car into a gift shop and a refrigerator car into a home for its model railroad. The grounds also include what the group believes could be the country's last remaining wooden sand tower. Sand was crucial in making the wheels turn on steam locomotives.

What they need now, French said, is more money and even more volunteers.

"Know anybody who wants to help us wash windows?" French asked. "That's what we really need."

WASHINGTON: Income gap between rich and poor is growing

WASHINGTON -- Two think tanks report the booming stock market is widening the income gap between the poorest and richest U.S. families, the Associated Press reported.

The earnings for the poorest fifth of American families rose less than 1 percent between 1988 and 1998 but jumped 15 percent for the richest fifth, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute said in a report issued Tuesday.

Income for the poorest families -- defined as two or more relatives living together -- rose $110 to $12,990 during the 10-year period. For the richest families it increased by $17,870, to $137,480, more than 10 times that of the poorest sector, the report found.

"The benefits of this (economic) growth have not been evenly distributed," said Elizabeth McNichol, one of the study's authors. "The incomes of the poor and middle class have fallen or stagnated."

McNichol attributed the widening gap to Wall Street's long-running bull market, which favors wealthy investors; lower-paying service jobs replacing manufacturing jobs; and the largely stagnant minimum wage.

The gap between rich and poor was widest in New York, with the poorest fifth earning $10,770, down $1,970, while the wealthiest group earned $152,350, up $19,680. Income was most evenly distributed in Utah, where the poorest families had incomes of $18,170 and the richest $125,930.

The income gap narrowed in just three states -- Alaska, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Stephen Moore, director of social policy for the Cato Institute, said the study contorted data to put a negative face on a "spectacular economy."

"The rich are getting richer but the poor are getting richer too in this expansion," said Moore.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute are nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations pushing for changes in tax laws and other federal policies to benefit low-and moderate-income families.

The study used before-tax data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The figures were adjusted for inflation.

The income gap has made its way into presidential politics. Last weekend, Arizona Sen. John McCain lashed out at the tax plan of his Republican rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, saying it would do nothing to alleviate the widening gap between the "haves and the have-nots." The Bush campaign countered that McCain was engaging in "class warfare."

Democrats Al Gore and Bill Bradley also have talked about the need to ensure that the nation's poorest residents aren't left behind by the booming economy.

McNichol said increasing the minimum wage would help bridge the gap. Ten states and the District of Columbia currently have minimum wages above the $5.15 national rate. The Senate last year passed a $1 minimum wage increase over three years but the House failed to act on the measure.

McNichol also suggested strengthening states' and social safety net programs for low-income workers, such as providing transportation and child care.