Charlotte Gateway Station and Railroad Improvements

[dubone]

No, Gateway Station is not on schedule.  It is not funded, and a major pre-requisite has been pronounced dead with very little hope of finding new money to meet the insanely high requirements of the 3 corporate stakeholders who are being extremely short-sighted.

 

For the laymen:   O line, CSX, Norfolk Southern are the 3 rail corridors that all cross behind the ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) Flour mill on the tracks in Fourth Ward.    The ~$200m of stimulus money was to separate the tracks on two levels so that there would not be as much congestion.   To do this, they would need to also remove some silos from the ADM site.   This is the largest flour mill in the southeast, and we have all very likely eaten food with flour that passed through this mill.  So they are saying no to construction work that will disrupt their operations, even if it is only for a couple years, unless they are compensated at levels that is unaffordable to the state.   By declaring this project dead, and redistributing the money, it is also possibly declaring Gateway Station and the Red Line Regional Rail dead because it has long been considered a pre-requisite project in order to allow enough trains to go through this junction.    

 

This is making me really angry, and that's why I am suggesting the city retaliate against ADM to make it worthwhile for them to move forward instead blocking progress.

 

[kermit]

^ good summary!

 

It seems like this is why we have eminent domain. Too bad its politically unlikely in the current climate.

[dubone]

Even with eminent domain, we need to compensate to buy the property.  

[kermit]

Even with eminent domain, we need to compensate to buy the property.  

 

yes but that price is set by an independent appraiser, not ADM. I also believe that they can just take (and pay for) a fraction of the property rather than the whole thing.

Edited August 23, 2013 by kermit

[mallguy]

This is making me really angry, and that's why I am suggesting the city retaliate against ADM to make it worthwhile for them to move forward instead blocking progress.

 

 

It's frustrating, but please keep in mind that the same laws that protect ADM and its property also protect you and me from the government just doing whatever it wants to us and our property.

Edited August 23, 2013 by mallguy

[emansius]

I'm by no means an expert, nor do I have any engineering background, but hypothetically, how practical would it be to burrow under ADM and leave the portion of the track they rely on intact? I realize this would be very expensive, but would it be more expensive than what they're already demanding from the state? It would kind of be like the Big Dig project in Boston, where they didn't want to shut down all of I-93 for years while they built a new highway, so they left it open while tunneling underneath it.

[mallguy]

It looks from reading other articles that CSX is also an obstacle in not wanting additional passenger trains on its lines (systemwide).

 

The main issue seems to be how to alleviate congestion at a crossing between CSX and Norfolk Southern lines, though.

 

CSX and Norfolk Southern must not care too much about the congestion or think that the costs of the congestion are too high; otherwise wouldn't they be making more of an effort to solve the crossing problem?

 

Alternatives could be (1) routing NS or CSX lines around the ADM plant or (2) paying NS and/or CSX to have their freight trains wait while passenger trains go in front of them to a new Gateway Station.

 

Penn Station in NYC has only 2 tracks leading into it from NJ, with many more trains per day than uptown Charlotte has, and Grand Central has 4.  If those stations can deal with many more trains than Gateway can, surely Gateway can find a way to manage.

[southslider]

I see a silver lining. I never liked how the Red Line lacked connectivity with the Blue Line. I say build Gateway at 25th St and rebuild Amtrak where it is with

[kermit]

There are several decent opportunities for new intercity station sites along the BLE at 11th st, 25th, Sugar Creek, Old Concord and 485 (that one would require  a slight extension of the BLE). But the biggest bummers are:

 

1) the lost opportunity to run intercity and commuter rail South and West to the airport, Belmont, Gastonia and (ultimately) Atlanta

2) The committed funding for the service / storage yard for commuter and intercity trains at Summit street looks like it will likely vanish along with the funds for the grade separation since there will be no way to get the empty trains there without the grade sep.

 

If all the grade separation really doesn't happen (because of a flour mill!) then Charlotte is likely to miss out on nearly $200 million (?)  worth of rail improvements.

 

EDIT: I will be genuinely stunned if the grade separation doesn't happen since both NS and CSX are are going to run more intermodal trains through the crossing (see earlier notes from the trick about CSX asking for their underpass being double tracked). I have no doubt that both railroads would prefer to have the federal government pay for the removal of the bottleneck. Perhaps the railroads (not the city) should be pressuring ADM to play ball.

Edited August 24, 2013 by kermit

[orulz]

They should cut the O-line out of the CRISP project to save money. Improve the connector near 32nd street instead and have red line trains use that. Surely this would make ADM happier as well because it gives them some breathing room. It will add a few minutes onto the travel time for commuter trains but it also would allow for a connection with the BLE at 25th street.

[thetrick]

What I don't get is why CSX has such an aversion to passenger trains crossing their tracks. This is done all over the country and all over the CSX system, what is it about this crossing that is an issue? Or is CSX just being difficult?

[skymiler]

What I don't get is why CSX has such an aversion to passenger trains crossing their tracks. This is done all over the country and all over the CSX system, what is it about this crossing that is an issue? Or is CSX just being difficult?

It's simple, the CSX business model is hauling freight, not passengers. Anytime there is a passenger train in the way, CSX trains are not moving. You won't find 1 class railroad that likes having passenger service cross over its rail lines.

Also, this CSX mainline is owned and maintained by CSX. It was built with CSX money, not government handouts. I would say this gives CSX the right to be difficult.

[kermit]

Also, this CSX mainline is owned and maintained by CSX. It was built with CSX money, not government handouts. I would say this gives CSX the right to be difficult.

 

Not exactly true. The Seaboard was a land grant railroad IIRC.

 

While this line may not have been a grant, many of the CSX predecessor lines were certainly heavily subsidized by the federal government.

Edited August 26, 2013 by kermit

[Bikeguy]

By way of "no government handouts", you couldn't possibly be referring to The US Congress granting RR's the right of eminent domain.. or was that just an oversight..?

[emansius]

Somehow I've never seen these renderings and this video before, but it would be a shame if all this gets shut down...

 

http://charlotteeqv.com/images.html

[orulz]

I've never seen that either. Great find. That rendering reminds me of Dorton Arena, which is in my opinion the coolest building in Raleigh - and one of the most influential modern buildings in the state - so it's in good company.

[ah59396]

I've never seen these renders either. I'll also be infinitely more depressed if this falls apart. What a gem.

[ScottCLT]

Somehow I've never seen these renderings and this video before, but it would be a shame if all this gets shut down...

 

http://charlotteeqv.com/images.html

That is freakin' stunning. I have never seen that before either. Wow, I really hope this happens more than ever now.

[kermit]

Unfortunately those renderings are from the loosing team in the RFP process.

Bummer

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/print-edition/2012/10/12/big-names-in-line-for-gateway.html?ana=e_ph&page=all

[tozmervo]

I thought that at first, too, but some of those renderings are by Little, who was on the winning team.

[kermit]

Ummm, maybe. The cbj article linked above suggests otherwise.

There are also several places on the renderings which say 'by Yun Capital'

I have been wrong before.....

[TotalLamer]

I'm unsure on this whole "CSX won't allow more than 2 passenger trains a day to cross their tracks" idea simply because the diamond at ADM is Norfolk Southern's.  CSX crosses there at the Southern's discretion, not the other way around.

[mallguy]

Not exactly true. The Seaboard was a land grant railroad IIRC.

 

While this line may not have been a grant, many of the CSX predecessor lines were certainly heavily subsidized by the federal government.

This topic has been studied, documented and researched almost to death.

 

SOME railroads got discounted or free land, particularly out West.

 

In exchange, they were required to give the government significantly discounted rates for passengers, freight and mail.

 

In those transactions alone, the government came out far ahead, and the railroads would have been better off economically if they'd just bought their own land themselves and been able to charge the government fair-market rates for transportation.

 

Plus the government, mostly at the Federal level through the Interstate Commerce Commission but also through state governments:

 

1. Forced railroads to operate money-losing passenger trains until the 1970s (at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars a year starting in the 1940s)

2.  Forced railroads to staff trains with excessively large crews

3.  Prohibited railroads from being able to raise and even lower fares for freight and passengers (in order to protect bus lines and airlines); railroads had to charge government-set or government-approved rates until the 1980s

4.  Refused to allow railroads to use large, efficient freight cars (until the Southern Railway took the matter all the way to the Supreme Court in the "Big John" case and won)

5.  Refused to allow railroads to abandon unprofitable lines

6.  Charged railroads excessive property taxes- even for lines that weren't profitable and that the railroads wanted to abandon, but couldn't- and used tax money to subsidize railroads' competitors

 

As a result of all of this, railroads were all on the verge of death by the 1970s.  Only a lessening of the oppressive practices described above, mainly through the Staggers Act and by letting Amtrak and government-sponsored commuter train agencies, in the 1970s and 1980s, let railroads survive.

 

In short, railroads got some free land, but they paid a far heavier price.

Edited August 27, 2013 by mallguy

[kermit]

^ The balance sheet behind land grant subsidies to US railroads is certainly subject to debate (I never said it was not). I did want to refute the point that CSX built the line "without government handouts" as this was almost certainly not the case. 

 

Online sources for land grant status are scarce but I did find this legal filing that documents that Seaboard was a land grant railroad (see the second paragraph).

https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/330/330.US.238.56.57.html

 

Interestingly the same paragraph stats that the ACL (not a land grant RR) agreed to charge land grant freight rates from the US govt because it was better than not getting the freight at all -- it appears that the land grant rates we not that bad. I think we may disagree on the severity of government exploitation of the railroads. I do agree that ICC regulation of freight lines was damaging to the fiscal health of the lines, but this regulation was independent of land grant status.

Edited August 27, 2013 by kermit

[mallguy]

^ The balance sheet behind land grant subsidies to US railroads is certainly subject to debate (I never said it was not).

It's been studied and documented ad infinitum.  The government came out way, way ahead.