Railways on the rise?

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As he briefly removes his conductor’s hat, Kyle Dudley slides into his leather dining car booth somewhere between Kansas City and St. Louis. Gazing out the window at the rustic Missouri landscape, Dudley knows this track as well as his father, and even his grandfather.

“We’re five generations deep on the railroad, and my father is usually my engineer,” Dudley said.

From the “all aboard” to the final destination, Dudley and fellow Amtrak conductors orchestrate the train’s movements while keeping up with the drumbeat of passenger demands. And lately, Dudley is seeing more and more of these customers. Amtrak has reached a record ridership of more than 25 million passengers in 2007.

While the new record is reason to celebrate, Marc Magliari, Amtrak Midwest media relations manager, said more riders meant more trains and infrastructure—assets in short supply.

“Too many trains are fighting for too little track, like here in Missouri,” Magliari said.

Magliari said that in the last five years, routes between Kansas and Missouri have carried a huge increase in the freight business, which is not good news for rail passengers. Private companies such as Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and Union Pacific own the tracks, and passenger trains must wait on a siding when freight trains need to pass.

Kyle Dudley said the Kansas City-St. Louis route was one of the busiest in the country for coal shipment, which was the biggest reason for delays.

“Our problem is not with our equipment or track,” Dudley said. “It’s just the congestion with the amount of freight traffic out there on the line.”

Steve Forsberg, general director of public affairs for BNSF, said the private railroads have also seen an increase in rail congestion because higher fuel prices have hurt the trucking industry more than the railroads, adding more trains on the tracks.

Both Magliari and Forsbeg said the increased traffic on the track was not the only problem the rail industry was facing. For the first time in U.S. history, Forsberg said, the country was running out of transport capacity, not just on railways but also on freeways and airports.

“We’re going to have to make significant investments in our infrastructure,” Forsberg sad. “Our nation hasn’t really come to terms yet with where those dollars are going to concentrate.”

U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said members of Congress recognized the importance of rail transportation and were working on bills to solve infrastructure problems. He said the U.S. Senate passed the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2007 (Senate Bill 294) at the end of October. If passed into law, the $11.4 billion bill would reauthorize funding for Amtrak similar to that of the nation’s freeway system. States would apply for federal dollars to expand on and improve track, and federal dollars would match the request.

Moran said that while the bill passed in the Senate with little opposition, he was not optimistic about a vote in the House. He said some members of Congress don’t believe the government should be subsidizing rail service, which he said was short-sighted.

“Some members feel it’s not a function of the government to make it affordable or viable,” Moran said. “But that attitude is discriminatory because we certainly provide funds for highways and for that kind of surface transportation for automobiles and trucks.”

Moran said the tax dollars spent on the freeway system were especially important in Kansas, which has the fourth-largest number of freeway miles to maintain in the U.S. Though the railroad bill could give the state a reason to cooperate with the national government, a current Kansas state law stands in the way of rail progress. Sections 9 and 10 of Article 11 of the Kansas Constitution limit transportation funding to highways and makes no reference to rail. However, it also says that “the state may expend funds received from the federal government for any public purpose.”

Kansas Rep. Tom Sloan said the Kansas Transportation Committee, of which Sloan is a member, was not against funding the state’s rails. Sloan said state legislators would look seriously into matching funds in Kansas if the national bill became law.

“In many cases, the rail traffic will save the public highways from significant wear and tear,” Sloan said.

Magliari said the expense to construct and maintain roads was much higher than that of rails. He said the railroads must capitalize on rail infrastructure to move people in a way that’s more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. But without state support, he said it would be difficult to make progress.

“If Congress passes Senate Bill 294 or something similar to it, states that have been holding back will have a lot less reason to hold back,” Magliari said.

With national approval and state action, conductor Kyle Dudley’s family tradition on the rails could continue unbroken. He said that, despite current problems Amtrak and passenger trains face, the conductor’s life is the one he loves.

“Hours get long, trips get long, but at the end of the day, it’s all worth it,” Dudley said.