A TOWN CALLED PODUNK
Viewing the grand parade of life!Tuesday, August 26, 2008
By our name they shall come to fear us!
The arrival of the Port of Prince Rupert on the international shipping scene seems to have spooked our friends below the 49th parallel just a little bit.
Over the last week or so a couple of news items have popped up across the Podunkian newswire that show that the Fairview Container port is being perceived as a rather looming threat to the business models due south of Vancouver.
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Monster trains coming down the tracks?
Drivers stuck at crossings could see 2 miles of rail cars
By Richard Wronski
Chicago Tribune reporter
August 12, 2008
Call them freight trains on steroids, monster trains double-stacked with containers, long enough to block every rail crossing at the same time in some Chicago-area communities.
Many suburban officials fear the number of such lengthy trains will increase if a plan to divert transcontinental freight traffic through their communities is approved.
In Barrington, one of these 1.5-mile or longer trains could shut down all four crossings simultaneously, said Village President Karen Darch, who worries that even longer behemoths are in the offing.
“Some of these intermodal trains are 10,000 feet. You’re talking [almost] 2-mile-long trains,” Darch said. “That’s really scary.”
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Freight trains on the EJ&E now average about 2,600 feet, about half a mile long. But a CN presentation to analysts in June talked about trains that would run up to 12,000 feet-well over 2 miles long.
Longer, faster freights are the industry’s watchwords, experts say. And CN says its plan to bypass Chicago’s rail gridlock will mean fewer blocked crossings in the city and many close-in communities.
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The many vocal opponents to the EJ&E purchase have raised that question repeatedly. While longer trains are a boon for shippers, they may be a pain for motorists trying to get to work, or for kids trying to get to school, or for emergency responders trying to get to a fire or accident across a blocked rail crossing.
The newly released report by the Surface Transportation Board concluded that motorists would face lengthy delays at 15 rail crossings in a dozen Chicago-area communities if the deal were approved.
The draft report also identified 10 communities along the EJ&E’s 198-mile arc from Waukegan to Joliet and Northwest Indiana where drastically increased freight traffic could hinder emergency responses. The document underscored the need for overpasses and underpasses at many crossings.
Frankfort has six grade-level crossings along the EJ&E where trains would increase from six to 28 a day.
Mayor Jim Holland said he fears more and longer CN trains will mean more blocked crossings, noise and hazardous material passing through town.
“A super train brings super problems,” Holland said.
In Plainfield, the CN’s plan would increase the number of trains at 16 railway crossings from 18 to 42 a day, officials said. Instead of waiting for trains to pass every two hours or so, motorists there would have to stop about every 20 minutes, they predict.
Train length is only one factor in the crossing-delay equation. Another is speed.
CN says its trains will move through at-grade crossings at about 40 m.p.h. At that speed, a 6,000-foot train will activate signals and clear a gated crossing in just more than 2 minutes, the railroad said. A 10,000-foot train would take more than 3.5 minutes.
Holland said he doubts trains will travel through Frankfort as fast as the CN predicts.
The Illinois Commerce Commission’s Operation Lifesaver estimates an average train moving at 55 m.p.h. takes nearly a mile to stop.
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“I understand people in Barrington will see an increase in freight train traffic, but there are millions of people in Chicago who will see a decrease in the same trains every day,” he said. “We live in a world of trade-offs. This is one time in which the positives vastly outweigh the negatives.”
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With the end of the comment period on the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation, and Conservation District’s Redwood Marine Terminal draft business plan just one week away, local groups are continuing to weigh the pros and cons of the project.
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In developing a terminal, Zampol drew a parallel to the port of Prince Rupert in Canada, with a population of less than 5,000 residents, to serve as a gateway for goods shipment.
Dan Hauser, who formerly served on the Arcata City Council, and as executive director of the NCRA and general manager of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, addressed what he said were a number of “myths” regarding the closure of the railroad through the Eel River Canyon, including closure due to geologic conditions.
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Seattle Officials See Canadian Ports As Competitive Threat
08/24/2008
Although the slump in the national economy may be to blame for the current cargo declines at the Port of Seattle, commissioners there fear that competition from Canadian ports may present even greater challenges in the future.
“For years, our major competitive threat was from the ports in Southern California, but today we face an even stronger threat from the seaport in Prince Rupert, Canada,” Commission President John Creighton told the Seattle City Council last week during a special joint work session. The Canadian government is pumping $3 billion into Prince Rupert’s development, and Canadian railroads are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the rail network. Prince Rupert is one day closer to Asia than the Pacific Northwest, and the port is developing as an intermodal port that will carry cargo to the U.S. Midwest.
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