UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Wednesday, March 8, 2000

CALIFORNIA: Officials Set Date to Open Rail Stations in North Hollywood

LOS ANGELES -- The long-awaited opening of the Metro Red Line extension from Hollywood to North Hollywood has been set for June 24, transit officials announced Monday, and plans are in the works for a major arts festival to greet those who ride the subway system that weekend, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Subway stations in North Hollywood, Universal City and Hollywood/Highland will open on that day as part of a 6.3-mile extension that will link the San Fernando Valley with Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles.

"We've all been waiting with bated breath for years for this to happen," said Loretta Dash, president of the Universal City/North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. "We think it will bring many more people into the community and make it easier for people in the Valley to go downtown."

The chamber and other groups have set this year's North Hollywood International Theater and Arts Festival for the weekend of June 24 to coincide with the subway opening. The festival will be centered on a stretch of Lankershim Boulevard adjacent to the subway station.

The North Hollywood extension, which includes twin tunnels through the Santa Monica Mountains, is coming in within its $1.4-billion budget and six months ahead of the deadline set by the federal government, said Marc Littman, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

All 17.4 miles of the $4.6 billion subway system linking Union Station and downtown Los Angeles with the San Fernando Valley will be in operation once the last three stations open.

In all, adding surface rail lines, the Metro Rail system will have nearly 60 miles of rail in service and 50 stations, including two light rail lines--the Blue Line from Los Angeles to Long Beach and the Green Line from Norwalk to El Segundo.

"This latest expansion of the Metro Rail system will give the transit-dependent, commuters, tourists and others access to major job centers, government, schools, hospitals, shopping, sports, entertainment and cultural venues throughout Los Angeles County," MTA Chairwoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said in a statement.

MTA directors have authorized late-night subway service from April to September to allow riders to attend events at Staples Center, the Los Angeles Music Center and other venues.

The MTA also announced it is debuting its new Metro Rapid bus system June 24, sending special buses along Ventura Boulevard in the Valley and Wilshire Boulevard to help commuters and others connect with the subway system.

To distinguish the service from its regular buses, the specially painted red-and-white rapid buses will feature fewer stops and special equipment that extends green lights to speed the movement of the natural-gas powered vehicles.

OREGON: Plan gaining steam to return rail service to the Pioneer route

THE DALLES -- An 8-month-old task force working to get rail passenger service back on track across Eastern Oregon is aiming for a July 1, 2001, start-up date, the Portland Oregonian reported.

"That's ambitious and, I think, appropriate," said LaGrande City Manager Wes Hare, a task force member. "If you're working toward something, you have to have a sense there's a payoff."

The payoff is restoration of rail passenger service, but that will depend on a solid assurance of revenue to finance the train. "It's a question of money more than anything else," Hare said.

Eastern Oregon has been without rail passenger service since May 1997, when Amtrak ended its thrice-weekly Portland-to-Boise-to-Denver-to-Chicago route, called the Pioneer. The train's ridership had dwindled since 1993, when daily service ended, and had an annual operating deficit of $18.9 million.

A restored Portland-to-Boise train would lose approximately $4.6 million annually, not including capital costs for equipment or track improvements, said Elizabeth O'Donoghue, Amtrak West's director of government and public affairs.

Amtrak West President Gil Mallery, a member of the task force, supports the proposed new train. But he said it must pay for itself. That means luring riders by promoting the multiple attractions along the train's route and finding customers for Amtrak's newly established ability to carry mail and express freight.

The task force was created in June by U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho. It includes civic and business leaders as well as government officials from Oregon and Idaho.

That regional effort could be aided by Amtrak's new, aggressive approach to doing business, which included an announcement last week of a plan to expand the national rail passenger network instead of continuing to shrink service. The expansion plans did not include replacing the Pioneer.

Amtrak's growing mail and express freight business is proving a lucrative source of revenue. Beer, fresh flowers and other produce have been offered as prospective freight sources for a new train east from Portland.

Along the Pioneer's old route, Pendleton, LaGrande, Hermiston, Union County and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation already have pledged financial support with per capita payments. City councils in Boise, Portland and The Dalles also are considering adding money for the train into their budgets.

Train boosters hope the pledges will prompt Oregon legislators to add state funds in the next biennial budget.

If the train is to succeed, "It's going to take everybody . . . commitments from corporations, companies like our own, everybody pitching in to make this thing happen again," said Al Tovey, assistant general manager of the Umatilla Tribes' Wild Horse Casino and Resort east of Pendleton. "We're very excited at the opportunity."

WASHINGTON: February railcar loadings fell 1.9%; Coal shipments lead decline

WASHINGTON -- Weak coal loadings drove U.S. and Canadian railroads to a 1.9% drop in car loadings in February. Intermodal traffic, which is not included in carload data, increased 3.4% in the four weeks ended Feb. 26, the Journal of Commerce reported.

For the first two months of the year, originations of 3,169,551 cars was virtually flat, down 0.1%. Intermodal continued to grow, up 3.5% for the two months.

Warm weather in February in much of the country accounted for a 7.3%, or 40,870 cars, drop in coal traffic handled by U.S. and Canadian railroads.

Agricultural products, mostly grain, were up nearly 11,000 cars, or 5.1%, in the month. Chemicals, up 0.8%, and forest products, up 1.1%, were the only commodity categories to show increases.

Declines were small, with metallic ores and metals off 1.4%, or less than 2,000 cars. Motor vehicles and equipment was down 1.5%, or nearly 2,200 cars. Nonmetallic minerals and products was down less than 1,000 cars, or 0.5%.

The gap between intermodal trailers and containers continued to grow. Trailers, which almost exclusively represent domestic merchandise and components traffic, tumbled 7.2% or more than 18,000, in February.

For the first two months of the year, trailer volume was down 8.9%. Containers, which represent imports and exports and an increasing share of domestic traffic, jumped nearly 46,000 units, or 8.5%.

For January and February, container volume was up 9.5%, or nearly 100,000 units. A decline of nearly 12,000 carloads of coal contributed to an overall 2.9% decline in total car loadings for Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway.

Without the drop in coal, BNSF carload traffic would have been slightly higher than in the comparable 1999 period. The story was the same at Union Pacific Railroad, which reported an 8.4% drop in coal and total car loading decline of 2.1%.

BNSF intermodal volume was up 4.4%, while UP reported a 6.8% gain in intermodal originations and receipts. In the East, Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation data now includes traffic formerly handled by Conrail. Neither road has restated 1999 figures to reflect the June 1 breakup of Conrail.

NS carload originations, including the carrier's 58% of Conrail, jumped more than 80,000, while CSXT, which took over 42% of Conrail, reported a more modest 25,496 car increase. Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways continued to show good carload and intermodal growth. CP carload volume was up 5.5%, while CN increased 4.6%. CN intermodal volume spurted nearly 10,000 units, or 17.1%. CP intermodal volume was 6.4% higher than in February 1999.

IDAHO: Depot above aquifer approved; Kootenai County commissioners attach conditions

BOISE -- In the face of widespread opposition, Kootenai County commissioners OK'd permits Monday for a railroad refueling station above the region's source of drinking water, an Idaho newspaper reported.

In a 2-1 vote, commissioners approved permits for the 500,000-gallon diesel locomotive refueling depot Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway wants to build near Rathdrum, Idaho.

Commissioners tacked 33 conditions onto the railroad's permit, including a $5 million cleanup bond in case of a diesel spill.

The depot location -- over the aquifer that supplies 400,000 people in the region with their only source of drinking water -- has created a regional controversy that began in 1997.

A hushed, standing-room-only crowd packed the county hearing room Monday morning as each commissioner took a turn explaining his position. Commissioners Dick Panabaker and Dick Compton said they couldn't turn down the railroad's request.

But Commissioner Ron Rankin passionately opposed it, due to continued pollution at other Burlington Northern sites and alleged worker safety problems.

"It comes down to credibility," Rankin said later. "In my opinion, a substantial part of BN's testimony was not credible."

Panabaker and Compton, however, said they considered only the facts: The railroad owns the land -- 380 acres on the Rathdrum Prairie -- and the depot complies with the industrial zoning and the county's comprehensive plan.

"Nothing is 100 percent, we know that," said Pana-baker, the commission chairman. "That's why these conditions have been put on there."

Compton said the county could lose the right to apply any conditions to depot operations if it rejected the railroad's application and BNSF turned to the federal Surface Transportation Board for relief.

"If something is going to be imposed on you, you should at least try to control the game," he said.

But Rankin said the public was being misled by the railroad's assertions that BNSF's pollution problems are in the past, at yards such as Mandan, N.D. and Livingston, Mont.

The railroad continues to have trouble satisfying Washington state regulators at its Pasco yard, he said.

More than 4,000 anti-depot comments and 5,000 petition signatures flooded into Kootenai County in the last year. Disappointed opponents, Friends of the Aquifer, said the decision ignored recommendations against the depot from two separate hearing examiners, the Panhandle Health District and the Washington Department of Ecology.

The group is $3,000 in debt and is trying to raise money for future legal appeals, members said. "We need 10,000 people to send us a dollar each, yesterday," said Spokane's Richard Rush.

Railroad officials celebrated Monday's decision. "This facility sets a new standard for fuel storage over the aquifer and will fully protect the area's drinking water," BNSF president Matt Rose said in a statement.

But railroad promises didn't sway many of the folks eating lunch at Granny's Pantry in Rathdrum on Monday. Though the homey restaurant in the heart of town usually has a reputation for pro-railroad sentiment, few diners voiced support for the depot. Customers at several tables said the commission's decision was a slap in the face to obvious public opposition.

"I don't trust them," said a Twin Lakes man who works for Union Pacific and did not give his name. "Look at their history."

At a nearby table, Twin Lakes logger Dick Graf voiced similar concerns. "Seems to me they could put that depot somewhere else where it's not over the aquifer," Graf said. "There's always room for disaster. It would devastate Spokane."

Post falls resident Robert Hunt and his lunch companions said they support the facility. Hunt said he also thought the controversy and public scrutiny ensured more caution from the railroad. "I really don't think there's anything to worry about as long as BN is careful fueling their trains," he said.

Along with the cleanup bond, the BNSF agreed to meet all conditions imposed by the commissioners, including:

The railroad also has pledged to buy a new, $200,000 fire engine for the Rathdrum Fire Department.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based railway first floated the project in the offices of then-Gov. Phil Batt in 1997. Next, the depot was officially proposed to the county in 1998, as a nearly 2 million gallon facility. After a hearing examiner rejected the depot that year, the company regrouped and hired a public relations firm. Last year, the railroad returned with plans for a smaller depot with more environmental protections: two, 250,000-gallon diesel tanks over a concrete pad and two underground liners.

Hearing examiner Jean DeBarbieris recommended against the depot earlier this year.

PENNSYLVANIA: Jury absolves Amtrak in Del. train yard slaying

PHILADELPHIA -- A federal jury Monday cleared Amtrak of any liability in the 1997 murder of a company foreman slain by a mentally ill worker who had been taunted and dubbed "pigeon man" by his coworkers in Wilmington, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The eight-member U.S. District Court jury deliberated for about three hours before determining that Amtrak managers could not have predicted the April 10, 1997, rampage by Richard Herr, who shot and killed his foreman, John J. Jensen, 41, and seriously wounded two other Amtrak employees at the locomotive repair yard.

Herr, who believed pigeons sent him messages, was shot and killed by Wilmington police.

"What's to say? The jury has spoken," said Mark T. Wade, an attorney for Bonnie Jensen and her daughter Virginia, who had sued the national passenger railroad. "We always knew that the hard part of this trial was believing that Richard Herr was violent because of the lack of any prior criminal behavior or criminal record."

The Jensens' declined to comment after the verdict, but Wade said his clients would consider filing an appeal for a new trial.

"This jury's verdict speaks much louder than anything we could say, and it was clearly based upon the evidence of no prior criminal acts," Amtrak lawyer Mark Landman said of yesterday's verdict. "Obviously, we also regret what happened to Mr. Jensen and the other workers."

The eight jurors declined to comment.

Their verdict was foreshadowed by the first trial of the Jensens' suit, a proceeding that ended in a mistrial in August. After four days of testimony, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers mentioned, while questioning a witness that Amtrak had settled another lawsuit arising from the shootings.

The two Amtrak workers wounded by Herr - manager John Fedora, 41, of Secane, and electrician John Morrison Jr., 37, of Newark, Del. - settled their suit against Amtrak in August 1998 for about $1.5 million.

Despite the news of Amtrak's settlement with Morrison and Fedora, the jurors in the first trial told the lawyers in an unusual trial post-mortem that they were divided 7-1 in favor of Amtrak at the time of the mistrial.

At a time when incidents of workplace and public violence continue to fuel the debate over gun control, the Amtrak case has raised the issue of to what extent corporations can be held responsible for protecting employees from potentially violent coworkers.

The Jensens' lawyers contended that Amtrak was responsible because Herr, 40, of Rehoboth Beach, Del., had demonstrated increasingly bizarre and threatening behavior in the year before the incident. In fact, they said, his conduct had led the Wilmington yard's on-site occupational nurse, Loretta Burton, to recommend a psychological evaluation as a condition of Herr's continued employment.

Burton was overruled by Amtrak medical officials in Washington. That is why, witnesses testified, Burton repeatedly apologized to the victims on the day of the shooting, saying: "I knew that this was going to happen."

Herr had complained to Burton about hearing ultrasonic noises that he said penetrated his skin.

He told a supervisor that pigeons communicated with him and gave him instructions. Amtrak managers investigated the shop where Herr worked, and eliminated workplace and physical causes for Herr's complaints.

Coworkers testified that Herr was a loner who became increasingly confrontational and who, before the shootings, was twice reprimanded by Jensen for insubordination. One worker testified that Herr threatened to kill coworkers if they did not stop teasing him, and another said Jensen himself told colleagues he believed Herr would "blow me away one day."

But Amtrak's lawyers hung their defense on the fact that Herr, "odd duck" that he was, had worked for the railroad for 20 years without committing a violent act or getting arrested.

In his closing arguments to the jury yesterday, Landman maintained that employers cannot start ordering psychological profiles for every worker who happens to be a loner or acts odd. "Is that what we're going to start doing? Start profiling everyone?"

VIRGINIA: Amtrak Joins RailNet-USA.com

DULLES -- RailNet-USA.com(TM), the first subscriber-based, online working community for the national railroad contracting industry, announced in a press release that Amtrak has become the third Class I railroad to subscribe, joining CSX Transportation, Inc. and Norfolk Southern Corp.

As a RailNet-USA.com member, Amtrak will be able to electronically issue requests for bids and purchase orders, as well as communicate with its trading circle of contractors, subcontractors, suppliers and service providers.

"Amtrak has remained competitive by seeking and implementing new technologies to help perform our business operations more efficiently," said Mike Rienzi, vice president of procurement at Amtrak. "We believe RailNet-USA.com is a tool to help us obtain that competitive edge," he added.

"Amtrak is among the most pre-eminent companies in the rail industry today," noted Larry Goodman, general manager of RailNet-USA.com. "We're proud to welcome them to our growing community," he added.

Among other features, RailNet-USA.com enables subscribers to search for vendors by area of specialty, geographic area and minority business status; access vendor catalogs; send documents and attachments in original format; transmit blueprints without special software; submit online purchase orders; e-mail requests for bids, proposals and quotes to individual or multiple recipients; access archived e-mails; and verify transmission and receipt of information. In addition, the application features a bulletin board and an auction site, which is offered on a fee-for-service basis. The auction site enables railroads to sell surplus material, and other companies to buy and sell supplies and services.

Amtrak operates a 22,000-mile intercity passenger rail system, serving more than 500 communities in 45 states. Under Amtrak's new leadership, the corporation is turning the corner to become a successful business enterprise. As part of its turnaround, Amtrak is focusing on growing public and private business partnerships, improving and guaranteeing consistency and quality of service, introducing high-speed rail in the Northeast and developing other high-speed rail corridors nationwide. For more information about Amtrak, including schedules, fares and reservations, visit Amtrak's Web site at www.amtrak.com.

RailNet-USA.com was launched by Internos Corp. in 1999 to improve efficiency in the highly fragmented national railroad contracting marketplace. The online trading community provides enhanced marketing, bidding, communication and commerce for Class I, regional and short line railroads; general contractors; subcontractors; suppliers and service providers.

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Last modified: March 02, 2000