Rail News Home Passenger Rail May 2017 Rail News: Passenger Rail Completed in late 2014, the Englewood Flyover replaced a heavily used Metra and Norfolk Southern Railway crossing at 63rd and State streets in Chicago. Now each day, nearly 80 Metra trains cross the bridge over tracks used by about 60 freight and Amtrak trains.Photo – Norfolk Southern Railway By
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Sound Transit’s Sounder commuter-rail service runs between Everett, Seattle and Lakewood, Wash., on tracks owned by
BNSF Railway Co. The transit agency owns the stations and provides security, while the Class I operates Sounder trains and
Amtrak maintains them.BNSF is exploring the possibility of establishing a command center in the Seattle area to co-locate all parties involved in Sounder operations. Sound Transit officials back that effort because they believe a local governing facility would enable each party to have a representative available to promptly respond to issues as they arise and elicit joint input on service matters.“This would serve to enhance operations coordination for communicating to passengers, responding to emergencies, and addressing security issues and service interruptions,” Sound Transit officials said in an email.When it comes to the operational complexities of passenger railroads sharing freight railroads’ track — namely, dozens of each other’s trains trying to make it through congested metropolitan areas each day in tight windows and during rush hours — coordination is vital. It’s also paramount in vice-versa situations, such as in Dallas where BNSF and
Union Pacific Railroad use a
Trinity Railway Express (TRE) corridor.The delicate working balance between the track owner-host railroad and user railroad teeters on three other “C” words, as well: communication, cooperation and compromise. In order for freight roads to meet shippers’ transit-time needs and passenger roads to achieve their on-time performance (OTP) goals, the four Cs come into play essentially 24/7. For commuter railroads, OTP typically is defined as pulling into a station within five minutes of a scheduled arrival.“We continually endeavor to meet or exceed our customers’ expectations, thereby earning their loyalty,” Sound Transit officials said. “Our target is to operate at or above 95 percent on time.”One other C word is essential, too: clockwork. It takes that precision to keep all trains moving efficiently each day in a busy metropolitan area like Chicago, where several passenger railroads and six Class Is interplay, says Don Orseno, executive director and chief executive officer of
Metra, which uses track owned by BNSF, UP and
Canadian Pacific.“We operate 750 trains a day, plus there are more than 400 operated by others. You must have open lines of communication … [and] be committed to working together,” he says. “You need to have an understanding of each other’s needs and trust what the other party is saying.”Commitment issuesBut there isn’t always that level of commitment and consideration. Since a Class I might have a premium train that’s behind schedule or a track maintenance issue on a shared line that triggers a slow speed order, a passenger railroad’s needs could take a back seat. Moreover, a Class I might not immediately inform a passenger road about freight pattern changes that could affect a line, while a passenger road might not readily alert a Class I that it needs more track capacity on certain days because ridership is fluctuating.“We are diametrically opposed in our missions — with them, it’s freight, and for us, it’s passengers. There are some tensions,” says Tim McKay, executive vice president of growth and regional development for
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), which owns and operates the 275-mile TRE corridor with the
Fort Worth Transportation Authority (FWTA).The biggest challenges in balancing operations between freight and transit are passenger performance expectations and capacity consumption, said UP officials in an email.“These are best addressed when the passenger entity is willing to share responsibility for the solutions,” UP officials said.Therefore, finding common ground through some give and take is job No. 1 for hosts and users. And it’s a task they both continue trying to get better at, especially given the money at stake for hosts in usage fees and infrastructure costs, and the working relationships at stake for both parties as operational partners.Canadian Pacific handles dispatching duties for Amtrak’s Hiawatha service between Chicago and Milwaukee — the national intercity passenger railroad’s busiest Midwest corridor.
Canadian Pacific
Perhaps no railroad better understands the implications of a track-sharing relationship than Amtrak. The national intercity passenger railroad works with 29 host railroads across the nation, including Class Is, short lines, commuter railroads and state departments of transportation that manage passenger rail.
Amtrak relies on those parties to help maintain OTP and prevent delays, which could be caused by itself (perhaps an impaired passenger car), a host (such as freight train interference) or some other issue (severe weather, for example). Delays and how Amtrak communicates them to passengers are the two biggest factors in meeting customer satisfaction.