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TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF A FAMILY-RUN SHOP
www.TrainsMag.com • January 2017
p. 32
ECO units
so far
p. 20
SP slim
gauge
returns
p. 60
CLIMATE CHANGE
How will it
affect the
industry?
p. 38
A BUSY MAIN YOU
SHOULD KNOW:
Chicago-Winnipeg
p. 24
PLUS
Oklahoma
flood claims
an auto
rack train.
Hawaii’s Oahu
railroad lives
p. 48
Heartfelt
salute to EMD
p. 46
BONUS
ONLINE
CONTENT
CODE PG. 3
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Online Content Code: TRN1701
Enter this code at:
www.TrainsMag.com/code
to gain access to web-exclusive content
vol. 77, no. 1 news and features
january 2017
www.TrainsMag.com
ON THE
WEB
Motive power video
FEATURES
38
COVER STORY
>>
Climate change
Is the railroad industry
ready for stronger storms
and more extreme weather?
Justin Franz
24
Tightening the
iron lariat
How Canadian National
created a new back door
entry to the U.S.
Steve Glischinski
32
Reading, writing,
and railcars
The Cathcarts grew up
with trains — now they
run a carshop
Brian Schmidt
46
>>
Check out several great spots
to catch Canadian National
action at Stevens Point, Wis.
So long EMD ... it
was great
Change is not the end of the
world, but we now know why
the move to diesels was so
intolerable to our elders
David Lustig
48
Rails in a Pacific
paradise
Oahu and its narrow gauge
tourist line offer sun, surf,
and an escape from cold,
but dark clouds may loom
David Lustig
54
Five seasons
An ordinary location in rural
Wisconsin has become one
of my favorite places to watch
trains, thanks to nature’s
stunning seasonal shifts
Drew Halverson
56
In My Own Words: 10
minutes at Fassifern
Just another day on the
railroad became a treat for
campers at New South
Wales, Australia
Steve Holmes
Union Station Hotel
>>
Take in a video tour of
a Nashville, Tenn., hotel in a
restored railroad station
<<
ON THE COVER
A Union Pacific auto rack train
smolders in floodwaters after derailing near Kingfisher, Okla., on
March 5, 2004.
AP Photo/The Oklahoman-News9, Steve Sisney
NEWS
5
11
16
17
20
22
News & Photos
Don Phillips
Fred W. Frailey
Passenger
Locomotive
Technology
T
RAINS
newsletter
>>
Sign up on our home
page for a free weekly
email newsletter
20
ECO units so far
24
A busy main you should
know: Chicago-Winnipeg
32
Trials and triumphs of
a family-run shop
38
Climate change: How will
it affect the industry?
46
Heartfelt salute to EMD
48
Hawaii’s Oahu railroad
lives
60
SP slim gauge returns
DEPARTMENTS
4
58
60
63
68
From the Editor
Hot Spots
Preservation
Ask
T
RAINS
Gallery
>>
Subscribers can access all
the latest news and updates to
stories daily on T
RAINS
News Wire
>>
Follow
us on
T
R AINS
Magazine (issn 0041-0934, usps 529-850) is published monthly by Kalmbach Publishing Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI, 53187-1612. Periodicals postage paid
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FROM THE EDITOR
EDITOR
A RT DI RECTOR
Jim Wrinn
Angela Pusztai-Pasternak
David Lassen
Steve Sweeney
Brian Schmidt
Scott Krall
Thomas G. Danneman
PRODUCTION EDITOR
JIM WRINN
A S S O C I AT E E D I T O R
A S S O C I AT E E D I T O R
Here’s to a better 2017
About the time you read this, 2016 will be winding down.
The prospect of a new year will be welcomed to railroad-
ers, both in the field and in the offices, as well as those
trackside. The closing year was tough, as every freight
traffic source, save for automotive and grain, was down.
That means fewer crew starts, a weaker
bottom line, and fewer trains to watch. Last
fall, coming back from a railroad industry
conference in Union Pacific’s headquarters
city of Omaha, Neb., we found the tracks
alongside U.S. 30 in Iowa to be unusually
quiet. It is normally a busy main line with a
headlight on the horizon every 10 minutes
or so. I saw three trains in two hours, two
intermodals and one automotive.
At the conference, CEO, Chairman, and
President Lance Fritz touched on UP’s
long-range commitment to its franchise
during, as he put it, “really difficult circum-
stances.” That means buying long strands of
welded rail with fewer joints and thus less
maintenance, innovations in rolling defect
detectors that can scan a train at 70 mph,
and drones to inspect 700 cell towers and
17,000 bridges along 33,000 miles of track,
to name a few.
Keep in mind that UP is doing this at a
time when coal traffic has tanked to the
degree that we’ll never see it rebound to its
former levels in our lifetimes. Call his pep
talk optimism in the face of adversity. We
find it fascinating for this reason: Since
railroads were deregulated in 1980 and
since the railroad renaissance of the early
2000s, the industry hasn’t faced such a dra-
matic traffic drop. It is the most trying of
times in the last 40 years.
So, to our friends at headquarters in
Jacksonville, Norfolk, Calgary, Montreal,
Omaha, Fort Worth, and Kansas City, and
everywhere in between, keep the faith and
plan for better times. To our friends in
locomotive cabs, shops, and on tie gangs
from coast to coast, we hope for more
work. And for those of us watching from
trackside, we look forward to the day when
there are more trains to appreciate on the
main lines. Here’s to a better 2017!
A S S I S TA N T E D I T O R
E D I T O R I A L A S S I S TA N T
Diane Laska-Swanke
Drew Halverson
SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER
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Thomas Hoffmann
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Fred W. Frailey, Don Phillips
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An eastbound Union Pacific train bound for Council Bluffs, Iowa, makes its way through
Elkhorn, Neb. Will 2017 be a better year for railroads and their fans?
T
R A I NS
:
Jim Wrinn
4
T
rains
JANUARY 2017
NEWS&PHOTOS
A Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority subway train speeds by cars on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia.
T
R A I NS
: Steve Sweeney
Are driverless cars a threat to
passenger trains?
Transportation advocates disagree with a recent report, seeing more harmony than heartbreak
Driverless cars, once the object
of
science-fiction fantasies, are now a reality
and a new report suggests they could have a
big affect on passenger rail.
A report from the Boston Consulting
Group released in late 2016 suggests that au-
tonomous vehicles could cut passenger rail
ridership by more than 40 percent in the
coming decades. But public transit advo-
cates are more optimistic and say rideshar-
ing systems with self-driving cars and pas-
senger trains could have a more harmonious
relationship in the future.
Self-driving cars have been making
headlines across the country as companies
such as Tesla, Uber, and Google test the new
technology. Uber has already rolled out a
fleet of driverless vehicles in Pittsburgh, and
in 2016, the U.S. Department of Transporta-
tion released new regulations for the cars.
The public is also warming up to the idea of
getting behind the wheel of a vehicle they
don’t control. A survey of 5,500 consumers
in 10 countries found that 50 percent of re-
spondents would ride in a driverless car.
Thomas Steffens, one of the authors of
the research paper, tells Trains that it’s un-
clear where driverless technology will be in
a decade but that it would be hard for public
transit systems to compete.
“... [I]f you can get there with a driverless
car,” Steffens says, “why would you take a
train that doesn’t run on your schedule?”
He calls the report a “wake-up call” for
the rail industry, though not everyone
agrees. Andy Kunz, president and CEO of
the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, says
driverless cars pose little threat to trains.
“They think people are going to get into
their driverless car, program in a destina-
getting riders those final few miles to their
destination. Driverless vehicles could im-
prove those services, Grisby says.
“This is going to create a transporta-
tion ecosystem that will allow people to
use their cars less and that’s really excit-
ing,” Grisby says.
That ecosystem is already developing in
certain cities as Uber partners with transit
agencies in Philadelphia, Denver, Los Ange-
les, and Boston. It’s in those cities that Uber
offers discounts to riders whose trip begins
or ends at specific transit stations or stops.
Rideshare services are also helping transit
agencies serve riders when rail lines are
down for maintenance. In July and August
2016, Metro-North teamed up with Uber to
provide discounts to riders between New
Canaan and Stamford, Conn., during week-
end maintenance outages.
In Seattle, Uber even took the step of en-
dorsing a ballot measure to invest more than
$53 billion into light rail. Brooke Steger, gen-
eral manger for Uber in the Pacific North-
west, says that Uber and Sound Transit rid-
ership have both increased in the last five
years, proving the two can co-exist.
“We believe that ridesharing and pub-
lic transit go hand-in-hand,” Steger wrote.
— Justin Franz
www.TrainsMag.com
“...[W]E ALREADY HAVE TAXIS, UBER,
AND TRAINS THAT DO THIS NOW
WITHOUT HAVING TO INVENT
ANYTHING NEW.” — ANDY KUNZ, U.S.
HIGH SPEED RAIL ASSOCIATION CEO
tion, and then sit back and read the newspa-
per while the vehicle does the navigating,
when we already have taxis, Uber, and trains
that do this now without having to invent
anything new,” Kunz says.
But Darnell Grisby, director of policy de-
velopment and research for the American
Public Transportation Association, says
rideshare systems such as Uber and Lyft can
help public transit systems “fill the gap” by
5

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