NS Trash Train Service - Trains News Digest for Friday, April 9, 2021

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On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 11:42 PM Herb wrote:

> Bruce
> I totally agree.
> Based on NS’s past decisions regarding shedding short (and marginally
> profitable) lines, it seems logical to surmise that this termination of
> service was decided by the corporate bean counters. How to dump a line?
> (pardon the pun)....by making the price so high the customer (in this case
> a regional entity/municipality) cannot absorb the increase.
> I cannot imagine this termination of service was initiated by Roanoke.
> Also of note.....the article only gave a historical perspective. Nothing
> was mentioned about “why”......the $64 question.
> Hopefully some old fashioned investigating reporting will be forthcoming
> soon.
>

For those who can get to it, the Roanoke Times has an article about the end
of the train at
https://roanoke.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/end-of-the-line-for-roanoke-valleys-trash-train/article_939ba6fa-931d-11eb-a722-535b52e136ba.html

The story is from the resource authority side with comments about how it is
getting rid of "its 27 old, corroded gondolas, each capable of carrying up
to 65 tons." Also mentioned is the ability to bypass the aging rotary
dumper, which has had major breakdowns over the past several years. The
move from rail to road has been under discussion for a number of years due
to "complaints about the reliability of the rail service and difficult
contract renewal talks." (see
https://roanoke.com/news/endorsed-permit-may-limit-landfill-truck-traffic-on-bradshaw-road/article_573421bb-6a22-5259-b5e6-d4f3aaf922e2.html).
The move to switch to trucks goes back to 2018 when a study group
recommended using trucks over the train due to cost and efficiency. (
https://roanoke.com/news/local/group-recommends-truck-transport-over-rail-for-roanoke-regions-trash/article_82f99d59-1a88-5135-950d-ad30ccc1d213.html).
In an editorial that preceded the study group effort, the Roanoke Times
pointed out

"It’s not entirely clear that the railroad even wants this contract.
Norfolk Southern sure hasn’t acted like it wants to keep the trash train
running. When the trash train — formally called the Waste Line Express —
went into operation in 1993, the railroad seemed to care. The company’s
chairman came to the Roanoke Valley to ride the route and praised the train
as “one more example of our continued commitment to the valley.”

At the time, that chairman was David Goode, who grew up in Vinton. And the
railroad had just opened a new office building in downtown Roanoke. Today,
of course, the railroad’s corporate presence in Roanoke is gone, and we’re
just another hub on the company’s operations map. The resource authority
has complained that the railroad has become hard to deal with — and
sometimes hasn’t supplied trains as scheduled.

When the authority started making plans to truck the trash, the railroad
didn’t exactly rush in with a new offer. Maybe that was a shrewd
negotiating tactic. Or, perhaps, the railroad simply didn’t want to be
bothered by some legacy agreement for a short-haul train. The resource
authority paid Norfolk Southern $2.3 million last year. By contrast, the
railroad’s operating revenues last year were $10.6 billion. If the trash
train stopped today, the railroad wouldn’t feel any pain in its bottom
line. Likewise, Wall Street sure isn’t likely to take note of the renewal
of the contract when it comes to evaluating the railroad’s stock price." (
https://roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-trash-train-talk/article_d96db946-a8a9-5e1b-9daa-5a38808ff9d3.html
)


In the April 2 story, one comment pretty much sums up the situation with
some speculation about Norfolk Southern and what could have been a solution
to keep using rails to move trash:

After 27 years, the rail equipment is worn out and in need of replacement.
When operations were originally designed, the high sided gondola and rotary
dumper was the go-to tool for any railroad that made most of its money
hauling coal to tidewater and using a rotary dumper to load coal into
ships. It was the entire operational mindset of the railroad management at
the time. Today, there are more containerized versions of trash haul by
rail that don't involve rotary dumping. In the age of 53 foot intermodal,
there are some 48 foot spine cars that could have been acquired for cheap
and fitted with trash containers built for that size railcar. Rail tends to
price itself out of markets nowadays, and they probably have been charging
enough to cover evolution of the trash hauling system but have been banking
the money for shareholders instead rather that evolving the rail-haul
product with better technology.


This isn't a new idea, it was brought up in 2017 when it came time to
negotiate a new contract with Norfolk Southern:

"North* became involved in the authority’s transportation question after a
chance meeting at the gym with Miles*, he said. Miles explained the
difficulties the authority had in getting to terms with the railroad to
continue hauling the trash, but by different type of cars, and past service
issues with the railroad.

By then the authority had been through a year or more of negotiations with
Norfolk Southern, to no end. Under the original 25-year contract with the
railroad, trash was hauled to the Smith Gap Landfill from the Tinker Creek
Transfer Station in Roanoke via gondola cars — like coal cars with lids.
Miles hoped to switch to cargo containers on flat cars, which would mean
the authority would no longer have to unload the trash onto a tipping floor
at the landfill and reload it into trucks to dump it into the landfill —
and save it $300,000 a year.

But the railroad’s offers were consistently too high, according to Miles,
so they turned to trucking and found it would be significantly cheaper.

The railroad’s “best and final offer” in April 2017 would have cost the
authority $22 million more than trucking over the next 10 years, Miles said.

On top of that, the railroad had become difficult to deal with and service
was sometimes unreliable. NS spokeswoman Susan Terpay had no comment for
this story."

*Hollins District Supervisor Phil North — a retired NS executive who once
worked in the division that oversaw the region’s trash train contract and
resource authority leader Dan Miles

(
https://roanoke.com/news/local/county-leader-with-railroad-connection-played-key-role-in-keeping-regional-trash-train-running/article_3bd6338a-56b7-5200-b212-13e79d00bfc2.html
)

For fans of trash trains, a trip to Ameilia County will be required.
Roanoke loses another piece of railroad operations and as speculated, now
has another reason to mothball the Virginian. The rebuilding of the bridge
lost in the derailment adds to the cost accounting to show that revenue on
the line isn't enough to cover the expense of maintenance. Maybe in a
blue-sky world, the line could be leased to a designated operator for
excursion and dinner train service.

Bruce in Blacksburg
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