BNSF: Obama’s Moderate-Speed Rail Plan Not Workable

Obama’s high-speed rail plan calls for running passenger trains at 110 mph on the same tracks as freight trains that typically run at 40 to 60 mph. But the CEO of the nation’s largest railroads, BNSF, says this won’t work. BNSF CEO Matt Rose testified to Congress that 90 mph passenger trains would be compatible with freight trains, but if Obama wants to run passenger trains any faster than that, it will have to build new tracks.

Although BNSF owns more track than any other railroad, Obama’s plans do not rely heavily on the western lines. The Portland-to-Vancouver, BC is the only one that would have to use BNSF. But if the leaders of CSX and Norfolk Southern, which would host most of the proposed trains, agree with Rose, then Obama’s plans are effectively blocked. Of course, that won’t stop the government from spending billions of dollars for virtually nothing.
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“Make no mistake about it,” said Rose, if the U.S. wants high-speed rail, “this is a trillion-dollar funding proposition.” Trains with top speeds of 90 mph would have average speeds of 60 mph or less, which is hardly enough to attract anyone out of their automobiles or off of commercial airlines. So it seems Obama has to choose: spend a trillion on true high-speed rail, or spend tens of billions on moderate-speed rail and only get 60 mph trains.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

9 Responses to BNSF: Obama’s Moderate-Speed Rail Plan Not Workable

  1. coyote says:

    I was wondering why Obama signaled that his stepped up anti-trust prosecutions might focus on railroads first. Like the airline industry, these guys have about zero cumulative net income over the last two decades, so its hard to see who they are exploiting. But now it starts to make more sense. A bit of the bend over / rubber glove treatment from the FTC and these guys may be willing to shoulder some sort of silly new passenger rail plan just to get the Feds off their back.

  2. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    As most readers of this blog know, the only line in the U.S. that currently comes close to high-speed intercity rail is Amtrak’s N.E. Corridor (NEC) between Washington, D.C. and Boston, Mass.

    Most (maybe all) of this line was built and once owned by the now-defunct Pennsylvania Railroad.

    Most of carried at least some freight (and most of it still does). Norfolk Southern has trackage rights on the NEC between Washington and New York. CSX also has trackage rights on some segments of the NEC.

    But in the aftermath of the horrible 1987 wreck at Chase, Maryland, most freight trains may only operate on the NEC during overnight hours.

  3. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    coyote wrote:

    > A bit of the bend over / rubber glove treatment from the
    > FTC and these guys may be willing to shoulder some sort
    > of silly new passenger rail plan just to get the Feds off
    > their back.

    I don’t think the FTC has jurisdiction over railroads.

    To the extent that railroads are subject to federal regulation (and much federal regulation was ended by the Staggers Rail Act in 1980), it is through the Surface Transportation Board (STB), part of the U.S. Department of Transportation (and formerly the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)).

  4. the highwayman says:

    Well there’s over 100,000 miles of rail line missing in the USA.

    Also there are a lot of lines that have been down graded over the years.

  5. the highwayman says:

    The Autoplanner wrote: “In 1935, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad — known as the Milwaukee Road for short — began operating steam-powered passenger trains at speeds up to 110 miles per hour between Chicago and Minneapolis.”

    The Autoplanner also wrote:”Obama’s high-speed rail plan calls for running passenger trains at 110 mph on the same tracks as freight trains that typically run at 40 to 60 mph.”

    THWM: Thanks for another fresh load of hypocritical bullshit O’Toole.

  6. John Thacker says:

    highwayman, again, I don’t think you know what “hypocritical” means.

    It is possible to run passenger trains at 110 mph on freight lines, though you have to upgrade the track to at least class VI. Class V is for 90 mph traffic, as BNSF’s CEO mentions. But it does certainly limit the amount of freight that you can put on the same line. Roughly speaking, you can optimize a rail line (and its movements) for freight, or you can optimize it for passenger service.

    I suspect that BNSF’s CEO does not believe that running passenger trains at 110 mph on his freight lines would be impossible, but it would be impossible to do without degrading or limiting the amount of freight traffic. Furthermore, the moderate improvements of double-tracking and class V track are at least somewhat useful to freight traffic, whereas the marginal benefits to freight of the additional work to support 110 mph passenger trains are pretty low. Naturally, since freight is where his profit is, he’s reluctant to sacrifice the core of his business for passenger trains without considerably more subsidy.

    While he is engaged in some rent-seeking, his perspective should be taken into account. After all, if increased passenger traffic requires decreasing the amount of goods carried by freight rail, then it’s not necessarily going to be good for the environment to switch freight to trucks at the same time as some passengers move to train.

  7. the highwayman says:

    Over head wire can be strung too and improve things vastly.

  8. prk166 says:

    The more comments I read that are attributed the account labeled “highwayman”, the more I’m convinced that those posts are the result of some computer science grad student’s research into coming up with design patterns (code) that can mimic what a human would right. Pretty good code but unfortunately many of the comments just don’t quite make sense nor really address the conversation that’s going on. So it goes.

  9. Pingback: Not So Fast for High-Speed Rail » The Antiplanner

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