Comments on: Midwest Miscellany

By: david vartanoff

david vartanoff — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:10:46 +0000

@ Alon and cdc guy, A bit more detail on track capacity. Perlman downsized NYC from 4 to 2 in the 50’s but retained capacity by adding CTC and reverse signaling. If you travel the ‘Water Level Route’ today, you can be on either main in either direction passing a slower freight. The issue in the I 81 corridor is that line was never doubletracked and until the last twenty five years a minor route. With the huge growth in freight, capacity is now inadequate both by rail and road.
As to CSX, NS, and predecessors reducing capacity, yes particularly the CSX bean counters ripped out way too many sidings/second mains. At the other end of the country BNSF is nearly finished double tracking the ‘transcon’ which had been single w/ passing sidings since it was built. This is BNSF’s speedway for containers from LA/Long Beach east.
As to the tax/capacity nexus, CSX has been agressive in arm twisting state legislatures for tax giveaways (New York, Fla)

By: cdc guy

cdc guy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:06:56 +0000

Columbus was founded in 1812, Indianapolis in 1821.

Both are older than Chicago, founded in 1833.

I don’t think “time” is the key factor in city branding or growth.

By: George

George — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:54:37 +0000

Rename Columbus? Columbus’ problem is that it has tried to throw the hail mary pass for years:
-If we have a larger population than Cleveland & Cincy, people will ntoice us
-If we host the AmeriFlora event (1992 international flower show), everyone will notice us
-If we invest in a great start-up airline (Skybus-lasted 9 months in 2007-08) we will start an aviation cluster and everyone will notice us

I think instead of renaming the city we need to build it. We are newcomers on the national scene. With the excpetion of Indianapolis, which did a fantastic job marketing itself, the rest of the big Midwestern cities have bene around for a while and have more “pedigree”.

We just need to take time to build ours, one step at a time. Focusing on the little thing sthat make great cities will eventually pay off.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:03:13 +0000

The former New York Central and PRR mainlines are still double-tracked – but they used to be four-tracked. The problem is that railroads pay property taxes in proportion to how much infrastructure they have, so when traffic was low, they had an incentive to tear down extra tracks and undermaintain the remaining tracks.

By: cdc guy

cdc guy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:08:23 +0000

What’s sad is that many of the Eastern long-haul rail mainlines WERE double-tracked, or had parallel routes (competition) once upon a time. Penn Central (later Conrail, then CSX or NS) didn’t need two or three parallel tracks laid by their legacy forebears.

Or so they thought.

By: david vartanoff

david vartanoff — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:29:54 +0000

Actually the trucking increases mirror both incompetence and disinterest by the RRs. A few years back Forbes gushed praise that Norfolk Southern had cut travel time from Birmingham to Allentown from 5 to 3 days. A trucker would make the roundtrip in less time. As long as RRs can’t do better, the trucks will continue to choke the Interstates. NS parallels I 81 which is jammed w/ semi’s. NS is waiting for the state of Virginia to pay them to fully double track their main to give them faster throughput. Virginia is thinking about doubling the lanes of I 81. Until we have a genuine “national transportation policy” we will be building lanes to encourage smog. Dumb. As to the bottlenecks in Chicago and St. Louis, CSX Queensgate Yard in Cincy is no paradise and delays carloads which merely need to pass through. The current # is 36.4 hours per the AAR website, and Corbin KY 29.7.

By: David

David — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:54:44 +0000

Both rail and truck’s market share of freight transport has grown over the last thirty years, with rail up to about 45%, and trucks 33%. You can’t ignore either without crushing the economy, and the labor costs to build new tracks or roads are going up faster than inflation, which is beyond the control of any politician. This road vs. rail debate, on both sides, is rooted in political philosophy that is completely separate from any economic reality.

Also, rail lines are all privately owned, which means unprofitable ones get cut off. This is an issue in the Great Plains, where many bulk grain shipments, ideal for rail, have to get trucked first because there is no track by the nearest grain elevator.

Aaron’s point is important, because downtown Chicago needs the L just as Cincinnati needs its interstates. But that doesn’t mean we need an interstate through Wrigleyville, or a subway to Covington.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:47:16 +0000

On the one hand, a gas tax that reflected the costs of pollution and CO2 emissions would reduce car traffic and make things slightly easier for truckers, who’d trade higher gas prices for less congestion.

On the other hand, a user fee that reflected the costs of road maintenance would be brutal to trucks. The road wear a vehicle causes is proportional to the fourth power of axle load. A 30-ton 18-wheeler causes 250 times the road wear of a 3-ton SUV and 20,000 times the road wear of a 1-ton sedan. Fewer trucks on the road would mean much lower maintenance costs for highways.

By: JG

JG — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:49:03 +0000

Investment in interstate highways will continue to be necessary as our population grows. However, moving goods by freight rail uses remarkably less energy than by truck. Larger cross country trips by single tractor trailor trucks should take a smaller role in freight transit 10 years from now. I too support investment in both but with trucks operating in a radius of 100 (maybe 200) miles depending on location.

The Chicago, St. Louis, etc freight rail bottle necks seem to be a big hurdle in getting more goods on trains and off the over capacity interstate highways.

By: The Urbanophile

The Urbanophile — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:16:30 +0000

Des, there are some proposals out there such as the four state I-70 dedicated truck lanes “corridor of the future” project that is being debated. You are right that it is mostly shared lanes though. I think there’s increasing recognition of the incompatibility of truck and auto traffic, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.