Who makes the decision on a Spokane turn?

[greatcats]

Ryan, aren't you being a little hard on BNSF? The situation with the Empire Builder has been pretty bad, I agree. On the way to the Gathering, my friend and I made a circuit trip by way of the West Coast and we were six hours late into Chicago. Not good, although we were not really inconvenienced. It is known that BNSF has been doing major work to improve the railroad and there has been a boom in freight traffic, plus weather problems. From other posts I have read, BNSF is concerned about the situation with Amtrak on that route. They have had for a number of years a reputation for being cooperative with Amtrak, as opposed to another well known large railroad. I live on the route of the Southwest Chief, which most of the time runs on or close to schedule.

 

[Ryan]

Not really. They've demonstrated that their agreement on a schedule means nothing when presented with the opportunity to make more money. At some management level inside BNSF, someone had a choice to make:

1. Run as much freight over the line as possible without disrupting the schedule.

2. Run as much freight over the line as humanly possible, and if that means failing to live up to the schedule that they agreed to, tough $h-t for Amtrak. The revenue brought in by the extra freight offsets the lost money from Amtrak.

They chose 2, and it's a crappy choice to have made, to the detriment of thousands of travelers. Being concerned about the problem does absolutely nothing when you hold the keys to the solution.

 

[anir dendroica]

Not that BNSF would have made a different decision were this not the case, but I believe railroads are not allowed to refuse shipments. They could raise their prices to the point where shipments started to decrease, but I'm not sure they're allowed to do that with captive shippers either (and doing so with non-captive shippers would drive business to competitors).

Overall I would say BNSF has two good options here, assuming that traffic volumes will continue to grow and remain high for years:

1. Double-track the Hi-Line from Fargo or Minot to Havre, MT.

2. Upgrade the line through southern Montana to provide two high-capacity single track lines between Fargo and Sandpoint, ID.

I'm not sure what they're all doing in their current construction. Track repairs are necessary but won't help things. More sidings will help a little. Double track will help the most.

 

[jis]

Most of the southern route through Montana is now Montana Rail Link, and not BNSF.

 

[Ispolkom]

Not really. They've demonstrated that their agreement on a schedule means nothing when presented with the opportunity to make more money. At some management level inside BNSF, someone had a choice to make:

1. Run as much freight over the line as possible without disrupting the schedule.

2. Run as much freight over the line as humanly possible, and if that means failing to live up to the schedule that they agreed to, tough $h-t for Amtrak. The revenue brought in by the extra freight offsets the lost money from Amtrak.

They chose 2, and it's a crappy choice to have made, to the detriment of thousands of travelers. Being concerned about the problem does absolutely nothing when you hold the keys to the solution.

All true, but it's difficult for me to imagine any railroad turning away one income stream (increased freight traffic) to keep another, smaller income stream (Amtrak bonus payments). A corporation is in the business of making money, not making passengers of a different corporation happy. I'd prefer, like anir dendroica, that BNSF double track the part the Hi Line that's suffering most of the delays, but I don't expect that to happen either. Double tracking the Hi Line would be a long-term project, and I'm not sure that BNSF expects the oil patch traffic to be there when the double-tracking would be completed. What they are doing now (fixing a deteriorated single-line road, adding sidings, etc.) seems to be a good long-term investment regardless. But what do I know?

And I write this as someone who mostly travels on the Empire Builder, and has been repeatedly inconvenienced by its poor OTP performance. Heck, I'm going to Minot after Christmas, and now I wonder if there will even be a train on my travel date. We live in hope.

 

[montana mike]

As my BNSF people here in MT have said repeatedly, the cost to double track the Hi-Line would be huge. The $1.4 Billion they are spending now is focused on a small part of the entire picture (perhaps 11-13%). They may be forced to do this eventually, but it won't happen in the next several years. :-(

As far as the oil patch not being there--Eastern MT is just starting NOW and will be developed to almost the same level as the Williston area in the next five years. Friends who live in eastern MT say the amount of oil in play there has about a 50-70 year life span using today's technology. BTW-BNSF is working on plans to expand this area's capabilities greatly as well beginning next year and this will be another 3 year project!! I have asked my local BNSF guys how long it would take to double track the Hi-Line, just for giggles. It will be interesting to see what they say. My guess is this too would be a 5+ year project

 

[Ryan]

All true, but it's difficult for me to imagine any railroad turning away one income stream (increased freight traffic) to keep another, smaller income stream (Amtrak bonus payments). A corporation is in the business of making money, not making passengers of a different corporation happy.

Sadly, I agree - but it doesn't make it right in my idealistic mind where people do the right thing, even if it isn't the expedient thing.

If it were up to the corporations, we wouldn't have passenger rail at all.

 

[Blackwolf]

As my BNSF people here in MT have said repeatedly, the cost to double track the Hi-Line would be huge. The $1.4 Billion they are spending now is focused on a small part of the entire picture (perhaps 11-13%). They may be forced to do this eventually, but it won't happen in the next several years. :-(

As far as the oil patch not being there--Eastern MT is just starting NOW and will be developed to almost the same level as the Williston area in the next five years. Friends who live in eastern MT say the amount of oil in play there has about a 50-70 year life span using today's technology. BTW-BNSF is working on plans to expand this area's capabilities greatly as well beginning next year and this will be another 3 year project!! I have asked my local BNSF guys how long it would take to double track the Hi-Line, just for giggles. It will be interesting to see what they say. My guess is this too would be a 5+ year project

Somebody, somewhere, within BNSF's administration must know that double-tracking is really the only way to fix the problem. I would hope that there have been undisclosed bean-counter figures of what it would cost, and how long it would take to do the required ground work (I imagine they'd need to do Environmental Impact Studies, yes?) before any real blue-collar shovel-turning could begin. Maybe construction of new sidings can segway into a double-track main in the future at some point... Sort of a "connect the dots" scenario?

 

[jis]

If they are not using federal funds they will not have to do NEPA. They will need to do whatever states require of them, which may be minimal in Montana and North Dakota.

 

[Trogdor]

One significant problem with the "just change the schedule" approach is that the delays are so varied and inconsistent that the train still wouldn't be on schedule even with an adjustment. Using the chart Ryan posted as a guide, how much time would you add? In 2010, the train ran pretty reasonable most of the year, then it got bad towards the end (maybe due to weather? Can't remember). The train in 2011 was terrible in ways nobody could have predicted. Things got quite a bit better in 2012, did about the same in summer and early fall, then got worse in winter.

There are discussions about having a sort of "get well program" for the Builder, but I don't know what the result of those discussions will be.

A few years ago, Amtrak did something similar on the California Zephyr, adding time while getting UP to agree to eliminate slow orders. Since then, the train has gone back to its old schedule, which much better reliability (on the UP side, anyway; I think it's gotten worse on the BNSF side).

 

[Nathanael]

1. It would break connections with other trains.

2. It would have to be negotiated not just with BNSF (whom I wouldn't trust to actually live to up their agreement), CP and METRA.

I wouldn't trust CP either -- since Hunter Harrison is in charge -- and Metra might simply veto certain schedules, as they have a tight commuter schedule and any interference with that is a problem.
Also, there seems to be a *very* long lead time on significantly renegotiated schedules when multiple organizations are involved.

The Lake Shore Limited / Capitol Limited rescheduling seems to be taking a very long time -- which is perhaps unsurprising given that Amtrak must negotiate with multiple divisions of NS, multiple divisions of CSX, Metro-North, the MBTA, and possibly MARC, as well as Amtrak's own people at Washington, Chicago, Albany, Boston and NY, *and* there is trackwork & signal work going on at the Boston end, the Chicago end, between Pittsburgh and DC, between Albany and NY, and between Albany and "Hoffmans", *and* station alterations going on in multiple locations.

Probably any schedule which is proposed turns out to have some problem *somewhere* along the line, and it starts to seem advisable not to bother with changing it until some of the projects are completed.

Likewise, on the Empire Builder, it seems silly to change the schedule permanently until the mudslide work north of Seattle is done, until the station is moved in St. Paul, etc... and coming up with a *temporary* schedule which is agreeable to all parties may take so long that by the time it's agreed to, it's obsolete becuase the disruptions have relocated to a different area.

3. Most importantly, you would need a 6th trainset, and the equipment for that doesn't exist.

That is the key. I'm not sure where Amtrak found the temporary 6th trainset in 2012 (or was that 2011).

 

[Ryan]

I think that was last year.

I can't wait to get the 2013 data for that chart. It's going to be ugly!