Improving the general public’s perception of freight and passenger rail is going to require a complex balancing act: Not only does the public need to understand and appreciate the economic and environmental benefits of rail, but rail stakeholders also must be convincing of rail’s relevance at all levels, from the hyper-local level and rail’s impact to local businesses, to the national level where rail is an indispensable contributor to freight and passenger transportation networks.
That was the overarching theme expressed at a Jan. 11 workshop at the annual Transportation Research Board meeting. The workshop, which attracted a mix of rail representatives, consultants, municipal planners and students, served as the basis for a lecture session later in the week on breaking down barriers to efficient rail transportation.
In addition to presentations from representatives of the rail and port industries and the Department of Transportation, workshop participants brainstormed on two scenarios. The first scenario was how an imaginary town can convince a large shipper—and the railroad—that their site, located next to railroad tracks, was a prime spot for the development of the shipper’s facility. The second scenario was to convince a passenger rail line to include a stop by their imaginary town.
Serving as a backdrop to discussions at the workshop were statistics presented by the Association of American Railroads, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, and Amtrak showcasing the economic benefits of freight and passenger rail to the U.S. economy.
“It’s one thing, and wonderful, to talk about the economic impact of the rail industry itself, in terms of the number of people that are employed and the jobs relating to the movement of goods,” said Paul Baumer, deputy director for infrastructure development for DOT’s Office of Multimodal Freight Infrastructure and Policy. However, “our overall strategic plan is, how does rail benefit the economy writ large, and how do the industries that rely on rail transportation benefit from a safe and efficient system? And how can we invest? How can we support private sector players as they look at investments? How can we partner with them at the federal level to help make sure everyone’s rowing in the same direction in terms of the economic strength of the United States?”
Baumer’s office at DOT is charged with publishing a federal freight transportation plan, as well as working with state DOTs as they develop their own freight transportation plans. As such, Baumer sees his role as encouraging local and state jurisdictions to think about how their goals align with national goals for freight transportation. However, he also sees his office as helping the private sector align with the federal goal of making the freight transportation network more efficient.
Fellow panelist and consultant Sharon Greene also stressed the importance of trying to develop a multimodal framework for a freight or passenger rail project, especially as it comes to grant funding. She discussed how even a local or state project may have a great impact on the regional or even national rail network. “A lot of the grant programs are looking at the micro level, and they don’t get at the kind of impacts that are being discussed by the speakers at this table. We’re getting an incremental development of a system based on the tiniest piece,” Greene said. However, “the benefits that we want to achieve are the global benefits [related to] making a system decision or making a corridor decision. And it’s difficult to reflect that at the project scale. We look at a range of impacts: local, regional, wide area or broad area impacts.” And while the broad area impacts may not be reflected in a funding application, they may still contribute greatly to the economic competitiveness of a region, she said.
To illustrate how local rail movements can impact on a regional and national scale, fellow panelist Tyson Moeller with the Port of Texas City discussed how the port had to realize the importance of how it manages its land use, particularly as it relates to the port’s access to the freight rail network. “I think if you’re working with agencies, cities and counties, you have to help them be more diligent about the land use around railroads, because a truck facility, a warehouse can be located anywhere within a community. [But] you only have a few connections to a railroad, and so that’s what you look to preserve. And there really is economic value there,” said Moeller, who worked for Class I Union Pacific for 30 years prior to working with the Port of Texas City.
The challenge for ports is that they must show that the economic benefits of having access to freight rail greatly outweigh any potential risks. The ports and the railroads must also show how they can promptly address safety concerns or issues that may arise. “When the general public thinks about the railroads, they think about blocked crossings. They think about nasty disasters like Ohio, right?” Moeller said, referring to the February 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio. “And so, we need to figure out how to convince them that railroads are an economic driver … What we hear in the general media is not about the good-paying jobs and industries. And so, we’ve got to change that narrative a little bit.”
As an example of where a port and a city greatly benefit from rail, Moeller pointed to Houston, where industries take advantage of their proximity to the railroads, pipelines and the port. In Houston, “every railcar represents about three to four trucks, so while blocked crossings have been a complaint raised in Houston, the alternative would be 40,000 to 60,000 additional trucks on the roads every day,” Moeller said. Trucks also can degrade the roads more quickly, while railroads are “set up to handle heavy freight insulation.”
While the public raises concerns about explosions because the railroads handle hazardous materials from the agriculture and chemical industries, railroads are still ultimately safer than trucks, Moeller continued. “When railroads develop properties next to or in a community, all you hear about are big explosions, things of that nature. But in reality, there’s millions of tons of freight being moved every day safely that you never hear about 24/7, and so that’s part of the narrative that we’ve got to go through and change.”
As local and state officials develop rail plans, Moeller suggested, in response to a question to the workshop panel, that metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) have people on staff who understand freight rail. In Texas, “I knew to go to the MPO because we’re looking for potential grade separations around [a] short line … I know that I’m going to increase volumes, and that can impact the general public. And so, I know that the MPO can help kick off an initial study,” Moeller said. Short lines and rail-served industries can also educate MPOs on the benefits of rail, he added.
MPOs are also eligible entities for many of the discretionary grants, with many MPOs being early sponsors of freight rail-related grant applications, according to Allan Rutter, former Federal Railroad Administrator and a freight transportation practice leader affiliated with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. In addition to applying to grants, “the final thing I’d encourage you and your folks to consider is the possibility of MPO-level freight committees engaging your freight stakeholders in your MPO region: truck, rail, waterway—everybody who’s involved in that so that your freight stakeholders understand what it is that you do and how the kinds of projects that you fund can affect them,” Rutter said.
