About Norfolk Southern plans was off base

Commentary

Regarding the July 29 Forum article “Pittsburgh: Think Twice About Allowing More Rail Traffic to Roll Through the City”:

While the assumptions and logic behind this commentary by three Carnegie Mellon colleagues regarding rail emissions deserve a more detailed reply, I offer a few specific comments:

1. Norfolk Southern’s plans are about rerouting existing container traffic moving through the city in a more direct way, to reduce transit times and compete more effectively with trucks. This is a netenvironmental benefit.

2. It is incorrect that there is “no clear and direct benefit to the city.” The reroute will reduce the transit times for container traffic between Pittsburgh and the Midwest.

3.There is nothing about the plans that suggest an increase of hazardous materials shipments through the city, as they currently move in mixed freight trains that are not restricted by clearances as containertrains currently are.

4. Diesel locomotives continue to evolve in terms of both efficiency and emissions (thanks to, among others, Wabtec, which just happens to be based in Wilmerding). This helps to explain why there is no surviving electrification on any of the roughly 600 freight railroadsin the U.S.

5. Because of the need for overhead wires, were electrification justified through the North Side it would require raising road bridges by much morethan the proposed 3 feet.

6. Local regulation of railroads is pre-empted by federal regulation to avoid precisely the type of interference proposed here, which would cause distortion of traffic flows at the national level.

7. Thanks to national transportation policy, most alternative rail routes bypassing cities disappeared long ago.

8. Responding to the final, somewhat cynical question, “why some of the region’s most disadvantaged communities — that already suffer from unacceptably high levels of air pollution — should bear the cost of increased shipments that will yield them no direct benefit,” no problem here:Homestead will see fewer trainsand Shadyside more.

Most of the above points are covered in my undergraduate course on railroads, which includes the presentation of point/counterpoint views. I will therefore make it a point to reach out to my CMU colleagues to encourage their participation in the next class, in the interest of a future PG op-ed piece.

In the meantime, for those interested in reducing pollution caused by freight moving without “clear and direct benefit to the city,” easier targets are the parkways, where diesel trucks transiting the city idle in traffic due to, like the railroads, lack of alternative routes. HENRY POSNER III

Chairman Railroad Development Corp.

Green Tree