Railroad yards still help propel local economies

Written by jrood

A morning swig from a plastic milk jug, the refrigerator where it was kept and the spoon used to shovel that first bite of breakfast - the journey these everyday items take from raw materials to finished products started at local railroad yards, according to the Redlands, Calif., Daily Facts.

Few today may realize how
the rail industry and its many parts impact everyday life. But just as
railroads helped shape America as we know it, they remain an integral component
of the machine that powers national and local economies.

"You walk into a
mall and just about everything you touch may have come through the rail
system," said Leif Smith, general director of transportation for BNSF’s
California Division. "A lot of people don’t understand that this country
could not function a day without rail service."

Rail yards in Colton and
San Bernardino, Calif., operated by Union Pacific and BNSF, respectively, serve
as major hubs where goods from just about anywhere in the country are sorted
and carried to another stop on the way to their final destinations. Both
corporations have seen business drop with the recession. Smith says business at
the San Bernardino yard dropped about 14 percent when comparing 2009 to 2008.
UP’s net corporate income was $1.9 billion in 2009 as opposed to $2.3 billion
in 2008, said UP spokesman Aaron Hunt.

Railroad historian Glen
Icanberry of Redlands compares both yards to a post office. 

"They take trains
in, sort the cars out and put them in blocks of cars and then put them back on
as whole trains," said Icanberry, a retired railroad worker, member of the
San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society and director of the San
Bernardino History and Railroad Museum at the Santa Fe Depot. He added that
over the years the main change at both yards is far fewer employees due to more
efficient work practices and new technology that eliminated the need for more
bodies.

The yards have also
transitioned from both freight and passenger transport to just freight,
Icanberry said. The automobile and airplane replaced passenger rail as the
preferred mode of travel, which gradually eroded its market share. BNSF and UP
still operate passenger services in portions of the country, said officials at
both companies.

At the San Bernardino
yard, there once existed a line of shops filled with workers who repaired,
maintained and built steam locomotives, Icanberry said. The advent of diesel
locomotives killed off steam engines in the 1950s. As a result, he said, the
shops were torn out and are now used to store cargo containers and train parts.

Today, the San Bernardino
yard is an intermodal facility, meaning it uses multiple forms of
transportation, such as trucks and trains. Each day, about 1,000 employees
process hundreds of containers filled with goods brought in by truck and train.
Those containers are sorted and then leave the facility, Smith said. The
average train that leaves the San Bernardino yard is about 8,000 feet long,
usually hauling anywhere from 4,500 to 7,000 tons of weight, said BNSF terminal
manager Joe Dickerson. Anywhere from three to six locomotives are strategically
placed at the front, middle or rear of the train to maximize fuel efficiency,
Smith said.

UP spokeswoman Lupe
Valdez said the Colton yard is not an intermodal facility, so it’s devoid of
freight trucks. It only processes train cars stocked with just about anything,
including flour, cement, wood or giant turbines used to generate power at wind
farms.

Today, heavy maintenance,
repairs and overhauls of diesel locomotives are performed at the Colton yard.
But that wasn’t the case years ago.

"The changes for us
have been more structural," Valdez said. "For us it’s been the
consolidation. As opposed to getting out of maintenance, we brought it here. The
yard has also gotten longer as train lengths have grown over the years."

While the San Bernardino
yard ships trains out as far as New York, N.Y., Valdez said the Colton yard
only ships along the "Sunset Branch," a famous rail line between
Southern California and Texas.

"Historically, (Sunset
Branch) has been an important part of the railroad industry," Valdez said.

Tags: