I've written a couple of times this month about the resurgence of the automobile industry, but it's important to note that the renewed strength of American manufacturing is not limited to cars and trucks. A quick glance through the news offers solid proof that the American railroad industry is also thriving.
In North Dakota, for example, freight rail loads are growing so fast that BNSF has opened a $35 million railcar facility in Minot just to keep cars in service. In 2011, the railroad added 150 workers to its Minot workforce, bringing the total above 330, with plans to hire even more employees this year.
Passenger rail has grown significantly as well. Between Milwaukee and Chicago, for example, Amtrak's Hiawatha line provided a record 823,163 passenger rides in 2011, up from 792,848 in 2010. And systemwide, Amtrak carried a record 30.2 million passengers last year, setting an annual ridership record for the eighth time in the past nine years.
According to the Association of American Railroads, rail business in the U.S. is poised for even greater gains, with companies expecting to invest a record $13 billion in 2012 to expand, upgrade, and enhance the nation’s freight rail network. These investments include expenditures such as intermodal terminals that facilitate truck to train freight transport; new track, bridges and tunnels; modernized safety equipment; new locomotives and rail cars; and other components that ensure the U.S. freight rail network remains the best in the world.
The freight railroads also expect to hire more than 15,000 employees this year, replacing retiring workers and adding new positions nationwide. That's tremendous news. As Ed Hamberger, AAR President and CEO, said, “As the demand to move more freight by rail increases, freight railroads are continuing to add and fill jobs nationwide. These jobs are well paying, highly skilled careers that cannot be offshored.”
That kind of expansion will require a major investment in capacity. As Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo said at the Southwestern Rail Conference in Dallas last week, "We can’t expect our current freight network will move goods as efficiently in the future unless we make it a national priority to do more than just maintain existing infrastructure."
That's why we've assisted the freight rail industry with support for projects like Fort Worth's Tower 55, the crossroads of American rail. We've invested $34 million in competitive TIGER grants to create 900 jobs upgrading a major chokepoint and helping increase rail capacity by more than 30 percent. A similar project is underway on Chicago's Englewood Flyover, where we're putting 1,500 men and women to work untangling another infamous rail bottleneck.
The ability to move goods and people efficiently is a key part of America's economic foundation. Easing rail traffic means greater economic competitiveness. We can move parts to factories faster. We can move goods to market faster.
And DOT is proud to partner with states, with local governments, and with America's rail companies to build the foundation for an economy that lasts.
The railroad industry is planning a $13 billion investment in the nation’s freight rail network in 2012. That would round out the biggest three-year period of investment in history, according to the organization.
Posted by: Web Application Developer | January 31, 2012 at 12:14 AM
LRT and Keystone Pipeline
During a recent Congressional hearing about the controversial Keystone
Pipeline a Republican asked the witness “why from September 2008 until
August of 2011 it takes so long to get approval for the pipeline?” The
answer is basically there was not enough time to complete the review but it
would get done in the next few months.
Whatever your position on the pipeline, whether finally approved or not,
the review process for a 1,500 mile pipeline requiring massive amounts of
everything, only takes a few short years.
Compare that with the process for an environmentally sound LRT line of 15
miles. Years and years of study, more study, hearings, and more hearings
and not a spade of earth for construction. Meanwhile the review process
gets sidetracked and attention to the original plan is circumvented.
In the meantime, staffers, consultants, and engineers of good will but
without much LRT experience pile on the costs to stratospheric heights
while patient constituents die on the vine and local communities turn tale
and instead head for buses. LRT does not need gold plating. We see design
elements being gold plated going far beyond what is needed and costs
skyrocketing and time stretching out for years and years.
We see massive wide multi lane highways and roads being newly built and
others rebuilt while 2 simple LRT tracks, and maybe even only one LRT track
in some places, can’t be approved or built for eons, even when given an ex
railroad right of way to build on.
We see large grants of money from the oil related foundations being handed
out ONLY for buses, not even general transportation or other vital public
needs. Ever wonder why an oil company would give a quarter million grant
only for buses? Ever wonder why or how that happened? All by itself?
SOMETHING IS RADICALLY WRONG.
How can a massive extremely controversial and potentially environmentally
dangerous pipeline get approval, or nearly so, in a short time while public
transit in the form of a 15 mile LRT takes a ½ century or more? The
process is broken. The politics are broken. The public good is
blackballed. This is not about pipelines – this is about building vital
public transportation. But the comparison remains. It has gotten to the
point of being tragic.
Interestingly a new O’Malley administration in Maryland almost instantly
approves the construction of the ICC – no hesitation. A colossal sized
interchange between I-695 and I-95 is built (what was wrong with the old
one?). But it takes years and delays to get this same governor to approve
a 15 mile Purple Line LRT. And he still has not played his card for the
mode of the CCT while the Montgomery County Council has switched its
original LRT preference to buses and a bus wide county scheme, as though
the county needs more buses. Do you think this Governor will now switch
back to LRT for the CCT? Maybe when hell freezes over, but not otherwise.
Danger – politicians at work.
SOMETHING IS RADICALLY WRONG.
The process, the politics, and the lack of leadership to get LRT instituted
and stop playing games with Montgomery County’s future is at stake. The
county politicians voted to switch to buses, but they do not use them on
any regular basis. They won’t admit to that bit of extremism for
themselves – ride a bus. However, like all politicians they want others,
those who don’t have long titles after their names, to use buses and not
rail. Like all politicians who like to follow the leader and avoid
independent thought they band together to vote on something they know
little about, or understand, or have ever seen or experienced. Like most
politicians they say things that don’t add up because they have not checked
the facts. They say just like rail but cheaper. No. Politicians, that is
100% false. They wouldn’t know the difference anyway. They think in third
world terms except when it comes to mega colossal highways. Then they can
think huge and do more of the same that is failing.
SOMETHING IS RADICALLY WRONG.
It is not me. It is the system that produces poor results instead of good
ones. It is the system trying to help the blind across the street except
taking them in the wrong direction.
Pipelines can be done quickly but LRT, well, who knows – probably not in my
lifetime. All I can finally say is:
SOMETHING IS RADICALLY WRONG.
George Barsky (no title)
P.S. I get zero compensation of any kind: no money, no historian fees, no licenses or permits, no awards or medals or commendations – not even a free bus pass for the day or cable TV appearances, handshakes or pats on the back for my thoughts.
Posted by: George Barsky | January 31, 2012 at 12:26 PM
Trains have been a great mode of transportation. Every since, it didn't got out of the loop.
Posted by: Volkswagon Servicing Coventry | February 06, 2012 at 11:49 PM