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A report in the Wall Street Journal that freight railroads are balking at sharing their tracks with high-speed passenger trains highlights a long-standing dispute that threatens to stall the progress of high-speed rail. It’s an issue that needs to be resolved, and resolved soon.

The railroads fear that the high-speed program will hamstring freight operations at the very time when freight traffic is undergoing a renaissance and track capacity on many mainlines is limited.

While some of the posturing by the railroads has bordered on “public-be-damned” insolence, the bottom line is that they are right. Fast passenger trains are not compatible with slow freight trains on the same track. They have different track dynamics, different acceleration and braking ratios, and different weight characteristics.

What’s more, even if freight trains were banished from some routes, the existing rail plant, with its sharp curves, meandering river routes and tight clearances, is incompatible with high-speed (more than 150 mph) train service.

As PPI pointed out last January, the reality is that if we are going to get serious about high-speed rail, we need new, dedicated lines. We can learn from elsewhere: High-speed lines developed overseas all require a self-contained right of way free from interfering traffic.

Yet only California and Florida have proposed construction of dedicated new lines that would allow true high speeds; the other 31 projects awarded federal stimulus money involve upgrades of existing rail infrastructure.

The freight railroads – which own 99 percent of America’s 140,000 miles of line – are mindful of a potential backlash if they walk away from “stakeholder agreements” negotiated with state transportation officials to facilitate federal stimulus spending. But public promises of cooperation that mask private bickering and lengthy delays are a poor way to get the administration’s ambitious rail program up and running.

Amtrak’s Troubled History

This clash should come as no surprise. We already know from 40 years of Amtrak that sharing lines does not work well. Freight railroad executives have complained that passenger trains disrupt operating practices, delay freight traffic, and present safety risks. And from Amtrak’s perspective, a government report found that poor performance by freight railroads, including sidelining passenger trains to let freight trains pass, was a major cause of late-arriving Amtrak trains.

A clash became almost inevitable last May when the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued guidelines that included penalties for railways failing to meet performance standards dependent on improved speeds for future passenger traffic.

Freight rail executives were stunned by what they perceived as federal interference with their private property, according to transportation analyst Ken Orski. Although Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood tried to paper over the uproar by saying the FRA would be flexible, the die was cast as rail executives reconsidered the worth of cooperating with Washington.

So far, friction between railroad and government has taken place mostly on the state level, where railroads are negotiating the stakeholder agreements with state transportation officials needed to release federal stimulus funds.

But slow progress on these agreements means that FRA has distributed just $597 million of $8 billion in stimulus funds awarded in January to jumpstart the high-speed program, the Journal reported. Even when states and freight railroads have signed agreements, disputes remain over the speeds at which future passenger trains will be allowed to run.

For the most part, the freight rail industry wants upgraded service at no more than 90 mph. That’s less than half the speed trains travel in Europe and China and only marginally faster than the present 79 mph limit.

Seeking a Solution

Surely there’s a better way to untangle this problem. One approach would be for the rail industry to come clean. Through the Association of American Railroads, the industry could announce its support of dedicated passenger lines as a better use of public investment and throw its lobbying clout to achieve that end in Congress.

What’s more, the industry could back up its words by offering capital to facilitate construction of at least a demonstration line. After all, the American railroad wasn’t built by faint-hearted entrepreneurs who followed existing rights of way, which in the 19th century were old Indian trails. It was built by those who lit out for the new territory.

Photo credit:  David Sherret