American railroads have been losing ground since World War II. Some changes were needed where others were not.
I love trains as a hobby and the real railway. Even as hobbyists, we care about the heart of our transportation system: America’s railroads.
In this particular discussion, I would like to provide you with a condition that affects the economic stability of the Pacific Northwest and perhaps the Nation.
Railroads have been an important part of the Seattle/Tacoma metropolitan region for more than a century. So has the ability of ships from the sea that bring us goods to be shipped by railways across our vast land. However, a man-made disaster has begun due to mismanagement and lack of foresight.
The combined Seattle/Tacoma ports are designated the ninth largest in the world and the third largest in the United States. This is a feather in the cap of those who have helped build such an industry. There is a catch in this progress. Railroads cannot move freight out of Seattle/Tacoma. It’s going to get worse because the Seattle Port Authority has bought three super cranes that have the capacity to reach a ship 100 meters wide. These boats are under design in Korea. They can hold a huge container load numbering in the thousands.
To give you an idea of how fast a container can be loaded onto the ship and the same time off the ship is about a minute and a half each way. The very skilled men of Long Shore do this 24/7. The cost of a ship in port can range from $1,500.00 and up per hour. So loading and unloading must be fast, but so is the ability of the railways to handle these containers. In our current situation, the railroad administration cannot meet the requirements to meet shipping targets. This is without the superships.
To give an example of how bad the situation is, it was the loss of Nissan’s contract with this West Coast port for all its cars and trucks. They moved to Long Beach, California. This was expensive for Seattle and for Nissan. The city lost significant revenue and Nissan lost a day of sea travel. It’s a day closer to Seattle from Asia than it is to southern ports. It cost approximately $43,000 per day at sea.
With this in mind, we will look at the four railways that once existed in this region. Before some of the major mergers in the railroad industry, the railroads in this area consisted of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Milwaukee Road.
With the advent of specialized flat cars, railroads could now carry two containers on top of each other with a maximum of four containers per car. Unfortunately, only two of these railways could carry the double stacks, as they are called. With the merger of Great Northern/Northern Pacific and CB&Q into the Burlington Northern Railroad, which eventually included Santa Fe to become Burlington Northern Santa Fe, plus the disappearance of Milwaukee Road left us with only two rail passes through the Cascade Mountain Range. The Union Pacific route is south of Portland and east through the Columbia River Gorge.
Two, get the double stacks through the mountains, you must have tunnels that can support the height of the double stack freight cars. Currently, only a tunnel can do that. That’s through the BNSF’s North Cascade Tunnel through Stevens Pass. Problem, the tunnel is about 7.8 miles long. It originally had electrified motors to pull freight and passenger trains through the tunnel. They now use diesel engines that generate poisonous and toxic gases in the tunnel. Because of this, the railway was required to build huge fans to suck out the gases before another train could enter the tunnel. This creates a 20-30 minute delay in achieving this. You basically lose half a day of travel time.
Second, the North Pacific route through the Cascades was closed for economic reasons. More recently the line has been reopened due to traffic problems but has a problem. Stamped Pass tunnel is too low to handle double stacks. The railroad is thinking of re-drilling the tunnel or building a new tunnel adjacent to the old one due to other problems with the current tunnel.
The third and worst problem for the railroad situation was allowing the Milwaukee Road to go bankrupt through both mismanagement and an arrogant group of railroads. This railway is vital in helping goods get in and out of the two port areas. It has the lowest decision grade of the other two 1% tracks. The other two railways have a dominant slope greater than 2%. The Milwaukee Cascade Tunnel was designed for electrification and had to have additional space in the tunnel to allow the worker to maintain the system. This would allow double stacks with enough free space.
Union Pacific has double stacks all the time, but with a catch. The track goes about 180 miles south before heading east.
This total inadequacy has become a headache that can shut down a large part of our trading and sadly no one is doing anything about it. They only talk about it. The cost of retracing the highway from Milwaukee to Spokane, Washington will be minimal compared to the cost of having a poorly managed port or ports and a well-groomed railroad when super cargo ships come into view.