Power to the PPP
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor
A couple great articles this week made it clear to me that if rail (high-speed or otherwise) is going to succeed in the United States, it will only happen by partnering with private businesses.
My boss, his boss and I discussed how good it felt when you make a list of things to get done and actually complete it a few days ago. That must be how it is feeling in areas around the United States as they make their lists for new rail lines, cross off the completed items and see their plan come to fruition.
That seems to be the case here in Wisconsin. Plans for a new Madison-Milwaukee rail line are coming to fruition despite clamoring to take money away for other purposes. I would have to say the feeling is one of cautious optimism. Sure, you will have people on the far sides of the fence for and against rail, but I’m throwing them out of the bell curve.
But that feeling could slip if progress doesn’t continue. Already the feeling of “Yeah! We got rail money!†for the FRA lotto winners across the country is starting to get drowned out by detractors. California’s high-speed rail authority is being assailed from a host of directions, making it rethink some of its plans.
The most interesting group staying quiet (at least from making major media statements) is the freight rail companies. Frankly, this needs to change. I’m not calling out the freight rail companies here so much as the various rail authorities who need the Class I railroads if they are going to make this resurgence in passenger rail a success.
The freight rail companies are a key component in this picture of a future “rail-topia†because, well, they control the tracks. As the one article above notes, laying new, passenger-only tracks is expensive and duplicative. Let’s call it like it is — stupid and wasteful.
The freight railroads need to stand arm-in-arm with the passenger rail authorities and let the public know that they are working to do for passenger rail what they have for freight rail in the United States. Sure, we look to Europe and Asia when it comes to passenger rail, but the United States moves nine times the freight by rail than Europe does.
The United States isn’t necessarily behind Europe in terms of rail, it just went in a different direction. To move into the future we don’t need to lay new tracks, we need to merge with the ones we have and use all that freight rail know-how to make the U.S. rail system world class no matter if you are moving people or products.
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Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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July 16th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Mr. Jandt —
True high-speed passenger rail (200 mph +) will require new track, and high-speed passenger and freight trains shouldn’t mix anyway, so I already see some “roadblocks” to the AMTRAK-like model you suggest.
Maybe it is more appropriate to emphasize that the freight rail companies have the existing ROW, and should share that ROW with the new (double)tracks that high-speed passenger rail will require.
Putting the two on the same tracks would be “stupid and wasteful” of human and property safety. Not to mention the scheduling priorities problem that plagues the current AMTRAK system. demands for
I’m afraid I cannot share your optimism about “sharing,” because I haven’t seen any moves on the part of freight rail companies to share without exorbitant compensation from the governmental entities involved.
— Paul C Crews, President, THE AART GROUP
National, Regional and Urban Passenger Rail Advocates