Does the STB like passenger trains better than freight?

Last week, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) issued its decisions regarding two rules that would, in the view of many, benefit passenger rail and, conversely, adversely affect the bottom lines of freight carriers.

In the first decision, the STB determined that it would be appropriate to gauge a train’s on-time performance using all intermediate stops as well as the terminal point of a route. This is a big boost for Amtrak where end points are more often in rail congested areas, like Chicago, and where Amtrak gets little sympathy from the freight carriers who have proven by taking their case to the Supreme Court that they will not be regulated by Amtrak. Addressing that lost love between freight carriers and Amtrak, the STB has also withdrawn its proposed rule that would redefine Amtrak’s statutory right to preferential dispatching.

Despite the Supreme Court ruling, which limited Amtrak’s direct involvement in regulating how freight railroads treat passenger trains, the STB retained its regulatory mandate and has exercised it. So, when all is said and done, the STB appears to have fallen on the side of Amtrak, and passenger railroading in general, on this one.

Then there’s the somewhat quirky STB rule proposal on reciprocal switching. Some are calling this a “forced access rule.” Whatever you choose to call it, the rule would allow shipper facilities served by the tracks of only one railroad to pick another railroad for service. The railroad whose tracks actually reach the shipper facility would be required to switch in the cars brought to it by the competing carrier while charging that carrier a fee for this service. It is certain that the rule would also include safeguards against the serving route “accidentally” allowing a shipment to languish.

The reciprocal shipping rule has been on the STB’s desk for consideration since being proposed by shipper organizations several years ago. The obvious benefit to a shipper facility would be to open up its shipping contracts to bids that might lower its shipping costs. If an unconnected railroad could underbid the connected line while still absorbing the fees it had to pay to the switching railroad, the STB has done its anti-competitive job. This is not really different from areas where reciprocal switching has been entered into voluntarily by two or more competing lines. Nonetheless, the railroads oppose the rule on general principles, primarily that they can do this on their own and do not need STB meddling.

Let’s face it, railroads have long corporate memories. They still smart from the days of the old Interstate Commerce Commission, and they nettle when anything that looks like regulation threatens the status quo.

So what’s the answer to my heading question? The answer is a mixed bag. In addition to railroads’ corporate memories, both railroads and organizations, particularly government organizations, have cultural memories. The STB, and the ICC before it, both have a history of falling on the side of shippers. Coupled with the STB’s statutory mandate to preserve competition, I don’t think one can conclude a bias against freight railroads. But take the favorable rules for Amtrak, throw in the short shrift recently given to freight by the federal Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) TIGER VIII grant program, and I would have to say that the STB (and the DOT) do really, really like passenger rail. (The TIGER VIII decisions are a whole 'nother story.)

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In other news last week, the Democrats and the Republicans revealed their platforms on transportation with no new ideas. The Democratic platform proposes to spend more on all forms of transportation, including public transit and Amtrak, while the Republican platform proposes less spending to align with the generally conservative attitude that it should be up to local governments to fund transit projects that benefit them. In like manner, the Republican platform advocates keeping money in the highway trust fund only for highways and projects that would benefit vehicle traffic.

As my readers may know, I have disagreed with the conservative line on transportation because it fails to recognize that a balance of funding is necessary to keep American transportation ready for anything that the future can throw at it. Railroading and passenger rail are a vital piece of the transportation puzzle. I should note that Donald Trump has tended to my view in his public statements, despite the platform as published.

©2016 – C. A. Turek – mistertrains@gmail.com

(Charles A. Turek is a writer and novelist based in Albuquerque, NM. After four decades working in areas of the insurance industry related to transportation, he now writes on all aspects of American railroading. Charles is a political conservative but believes in public funding of passenger rail as a part of the federal government’s constitutionally conservative obligation to provide for defense and public infrastructure so that private enterprise may flourish.)