The federal Department of Justice has ignored 49 U.S.C. Section 24308(c) which gives intercity trains the right of way over freight on railroads. This has meant that the freight railroad companies have been able to stifle the growth of Amtrak, regional rail, and commuter routes across the country while introducing frequent delays to the services that do exist. BNSF & UP have failed to maintain the rail beds and tracks, which has introduced severe slow downs as the tracks that slows the movements of passenger trains and caused severe risks to pedestrians and cars that cross these tracks.
With the current administration in the White House, there is no chance that the DoJ will change its course with regards to the railroad companies. The state legislature in Olympia needs to take the lead and introduce legislation to allow the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to seize the railroads to rehabilitate and electrify the state’s trains tracks.
Congress has had several bills stall in committee that would have made it easier for the federal government to penalize the freight companies for the deliberate interference of passenger rail service, but they’ve all stalled. The Association of American Railroads has spent millions of dollars over the last decade to fight any attempt to hold its members responsible for violating federal law. This has made it so that the contracts Amtrak and Sound Transit sign with the railroads don’t include the federally required preference for the passenger train.
When the trains do get to run, they’re speed limited to 79 miles per hour throughout the majority of the rail routes in Washington State due to the age and poor maintenance of the tracks, rail beds, and bridges. The two major corporation that run the railroads is Union Pacific (UP) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) have continued to defer maintenance on the tracks which has made the speeds normal in international rail service unsafe. It’s been even more of an irritant as these billion dollar companies have asked for tax payer money to help make up the cost caused by their negligence.
The thing is, we’ve seen the state step in to purchase the tracks and rail beds due to neglect already. Rural farms in the Palouse have been dependent on rail and river barges for over a century; and when UP essentially stopped its maintenance program on the line through the country’s largest wheat growing county…it became a priority for the state government to step in.
This crisis resulted in Olympia purchasing the rail lines to Pullman, Coulee City, and Hooper Junction from 2004 through 2007. WSDOT has since spent millions to rehabilitate the rails as the department leases out the track rights to small, private, freight carriers at a relatively cheap rate to ensure the continued movement of the state’s crops.
This model is a way for Olympia for to take ownership of the rails that has had bipartisan support in the past. Although Republicans have already tried to paint the PCC as a one off solution, the reality is that it’s a fiscally responsible way to improve safety and maintenance on the rails.
The expansion of Amtrak service across the cascades into Eastern Washington, and Sounder service in the Seattle metro area is one of the most effective ways to reduce traffic congestion and carbon emissions. But for those services to be reliable, it’s going to take millions to rehabilitate the rails and rail beds before those services can be run at speeds to make them more attractive than driving your car. As part of this repair and rehabilitation work, WSDOT should also install overhead electric wires because electric trains and their infrastructure are cheaper to maintain over time than diesel – even if they are more expensive to purchase upfront.
Washington State needs to take bold, aggressive actions if it’s going to improve the reliability of our rail network before we build out high speed rail. Seizing the existing infrastructure from UP and BNSF is going to be the most direct way to improve that reliability while improving the on time performance for passenger service.
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