Railroad Relocation on the Council Bluffs Interstate System Improvement Program

The $1.4 billion Council Bluffs Interstate System Improvements Program—the largest highway project in the state of Iowa when it began—celebrated its ribbon cutting last year, capping a process that began about 20 years earlier. Many strategies contributed to its success, including a complex railroad coordination and relocation project.

The project involved extensive coordination with multiple railroad companies, namely BNSF, CBEC Railway, Iowa Interstate Railroad and Union Pacific, to reach agreement on modifications and improvements to their existing infrastructure. Among the improvements was an award-winning railroad relocation task involving the CBEC and BNSF Railways, creating a common corridor.

This complex effort improved traffic operations and greatly reduced roadway/railroad conflicts by eliminating numerous at-grade rail crossings and the CBEC rail corridor that had run adjacent to a local high school and middle school. Improved railroad operations now allow select BNSF trains to bypass Council Bluffs. The project also included modifications to the existing Union Pacific railyard.

The project shows the importance of looking at large transportation programs from a holistic perspective, focusing not just on cars and trucks but the entire transportation system. That outlook helped community and project stakeholders seize this once-in-50-years opportunity to optimize the whole system, improve safety, and keep both trains and drivers moving.

A Railroad Town

Council Bluffs is one of seven principal Midwest railroad gateways, with one-fourth of all the trains that move between the eastern and western United States passing through the city. Commencing in 1869 as the eastern terminus of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad, Council Bluffs remains a nationally strategic rail center. Nine railroad main lines of five major railroads converge at Council Bluffs, each feeding traffic into two regional classification yards.

Originally constructed when Council Bluffs was a small “railroad town” before the invention of the automobile, these lines converge in “shortest distance between two points is a straight line” fashion. The result has been a city divided by rails and a street network congested by a multitude of railroad grade crossings.

Council Bluffs is also a regional railroad transportation hub for agriculture, ethanol, new automobiles and manufacturing in a 200-mile radius. Trainloads of grain, ethanol, animal feed, corn sweetener, cereal, steel fabrications and agricultural implements are picked up to be delivered elsewhere. Dozens of transcontinental trains each day also carry coal, grain, minerals and consumer goods through the city.

Big Idea to Streamline Rail Traffic

In 2004, the Iowa Department of Transportation and the City of Council Bluffs posed a question as they began the $1.4 billion program to modernize and increase the capacity and safety of Interstates 80, 29 and 480 in Council Bluffs: “What if we also used this opportunity to streamline and reduce the impact of the railroad lines these interstates crossed?

The railroads this project affected were approached, and BNSF Railway, Iowa Interstate Railroad (IAIS) and CBEC Railway responded enthusiastically. Iowa DOT selected HDR to develop the railroad relocation plan, and to assist it with the numerous agreements and federal filings.

HDR’s team began with an extensive railroad consolidation alternatives analysis—informed by the railroads—that identified a relocation plan for four main lines that approached Council Bluffs from the south and east, and eliminated numerous grade crossings, including one across the primary entrance to a major shopping center. Additionally, it relocated one of the main tracks away from a high school and middle school. This removed the shipping of hazardous materials adjacent to the high school and highly utilized sports complex.

The preferred alternative that was advanced through final design and construction moved a BNSF main line and the CBEC main line that serves the large MidAmerican Energy electric generating station just south of Council Bluffs to a joint corridor on the southeast side of the city, as well as relocating a portion of the BNSF main line near downtown Council Bluffs. It also revised connections to several rail-served industries within the project area, including a major grain elevator and a major ethanol refinery.

In total, the project eliminated nine at-grade roadway/railroad crossings; improved traffic operations at the city’s South Expressway Interchange as well as South Expressway; reduced interstate bridge cost for South Expressway; eliminated a main line ran adjacent to Lewis Central High School property; improved railroad operations by enabling railroads to eliminate switching across streets in Council Bluffs; and provided for future capacity expansion of the rail lines.

Solving the Complex Timing Puzzle

The project team employed several innovative strategies in the development of the Council Bluffs Railroad Relocation Project. Most important of these was recognition that the timing of land transfer, construction, relocation, temporary access and utility agreements was critical to ensuring that the numerous parties could agree to the project.

An innovation that in hindsight seems simple, but was crucial to the project, was the development of special exhibits of every land transfer that not only clearly defined the boundaries and ownership of land transfers but also established the sequence, as the project was constructed in more than 70 discrete staging activities with individual agreements becoming effective only at specific points in time.

These special exhibits enabled the project to be broken down into a constructable sequence complying with complex federal railroad economic regulations, railroad customer service contracts, railroad interline traffic contracts, and state and federal land acquisition regulations. Without solving the agreement puzzle, the project was not buildable. HDR’s national experts in railroad operations, economic regulation, safety regulation, and construction sequencing developed the agreement plan and construction and land transfer plan.

With portions of the multifaceted interstate project built concurrently, as well as multiple parties involved in the railroad relocation, the project required close coordination between interstate and railroad contractors to meet the schedule.

The railroad improvements were constructed by four main responsible parties. The Iowa DOT contractor was responsible for overall grading and drainage and all track; BNSF’s grading contractor worked on its property; BNSF Railway constructed its own track; and Iowa Interstate Railroad completed turnout installation on existing mainlines. HDR’s team developed a detailed staging plan and a pre-letting construction critical path method schedule to maintain rail access during construction. This production-based schedule included all aspects of the railroad construction, as well as key milestones of the interstate construction improvements and site constraints.

Shorter Trips, Reduced Maintenance

As a result of the project, a substantial reduction of delays for trains and vehicles was expected to save railroads more than $10 million over 20 years. Thanks to more direct routes, BNSF trains can travel approximately 2 miles from the Bayard Subdivision to the Council Bluffs Subdivision in only 10 minutes, compared to the 7-mile distance and average 75-minute time frame under previous operations.

Additionally, the shortened bridges at the South Expressway interchange reduced construction and maintenance costs for the highway. This improved operations for vehicles at South Expressway interchange ramp intersections and enhanced access to the Lake Manawa Power Centre and other businesses in this commercial development area.

By eliminating at-grade crossings and improving route efficiency, the project produced sustainable benefits as well. The removal of train traffic through urban areas reduced the noise generated by the trains themselves and eliminated train horns at the closed at-grade crossings. Decreasing vehicle delays at at-grade intersections resulted in reduced idling, emissions of greenhouse gases and fuel consumption for drivers. Similarly, reduced train idling during switching also reduced emissions and fuel consumption.

Community-wide Benefits

The Council Bluffs Interstate System program offered an opportunity to holistically examine the combined benefits of all transportation modes that could be achieved in the community, as opposed to just a single goal. Importantly, the program recognized that complex land use, transportation, manufacturing, construction, and economic and environmental regulatory puzzles can only be solved through a detailed breakdown of the project and clear understanding by all parties of the regulatory approval and construction process.

This approach considered not just traditional engineering, environmental, and real estate components. Including all the land users, the public and looking at the entire transportation system rather than a narrow set of goals allowed the team to make investments and changes that simply would not have been possible otherwise. The major interstate work going on in Council Bluffs provided a rare opportunity to also improve the city’s rail network, but it required a team and partners who recognized and acted on that opportunity. With the work complete, the community is now reaping the benefits.

Will Sharp, P.E., a regional highways director for HDR, formerly served as HDR’s program manager for the Council Bluffs Interstate System program. Craig Hunter, P.E., is HDR’s Nebraska/Iowa transportation manager and served as the project manager on the railroad relocation final design efforts in Council Bluffs.