COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC UTILITIES - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, December 20, 2005 10:20 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER, Chair COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN JACK KELLY COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN BRIAN J. O'NEILL BILL 050148 A Resolution authorizing City Council's Committee on Transportation and Public Utilities to hold public hearings to investigate the operations of CSX Transportation (CSXT) in and around the City of Philadephia and their impact on the public health, safety, and welfare of the residents of Philadelphia, and authorizing the issuance of subpoenas by the chair of the committee to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents to the full extent authorized under Section 2-401 of the Home Rule Charter. V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
Good morning. This is a continuation of a hearing by the Committee on Transportation and Public Utilities. We have a quorum present and we're going to proceed with today's hearing. The members present are myself, Councilman Michael Nutter, chair of the committee, Council President Verna, Councilman Jack Kelly, Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, and Councilman Darrell Clarke. This is a hearing pursuant to Resolution 050148, a resolution authorizing City Council's Committee on Transportation and Public Utilities to investigate the operations of CSX Transportation, CSXT, in and around the City of Philadelphia and their impact on the public health, safety, and welfare of the residents of the City of Philadelphia, and authorizing the issuance of subpoenas by the chair of the committee to compel the attendance of witnesses and production of documents under Section 2-401 of the Home Rule 3 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 Charter. We have a couple known witnesses. If anyone else is anticipating testifying, please make yourselves known to Julie Chapman, who's around somewhere. Does any member of the committee wish to make an opening statement? (No response.)
The first witness on the list is Mr. William Goetz, and Larry Koster. And Mr. Goetz, if you have any other individuals with you, you should bring them to the table at the same time. Please identify yourselves for the record.
My name is William G. M. Goetz. I'm an employee of CSX Transportation.
Mr. Goetz, you're much too modest to identify 4 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 yourself as just an employee of CSX. Could you give us your title and a general sense of your responsibilities?
I'd be happy to, sir. My title is resident vice president. My responsibilities include interfacing with governments and communities. My territory primarily is focused with the city of New York, the state of New Jersey, and effective two weeks ago it now includes the city of Philadelphia and the surrounding counties on either side.
And you have been detailed by CSX in addition to all of your other responsibilities specifically to now deal with the situation at hand that's the subject of this particular hearing and the subject of any number of either bills or resolutions related to the operations of CSX?
That is correct, sir. 5 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
So, for the record, at a previous hearing, there was a representative of the company who testified, in essence, that the company was trying to figure out who the appropriate individuals were to respond either to requests and subsequently to subpoenas duly issued by this committee with regard to these issues. At that time that representative indicated that the company was trying to figure out who the appropriate representatives were or who would speak on behalf of the company with some authority. Are you now that person?
On some of the issues, yes. And we are identifying other individuals who have specific expertise in other issues that have been brought before your committee. Today I have with me Mr. Larry Koster, who has the train operations responsibility in Philadelphia and a territory extending north and south of here. So hopefully 6 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 between myself and Mr. Koster we can speak to the train operations questions.
Based on your presence and new designation, should this committee take for the record that CSX at least at this point has made a determination that you are going to try to work more in the spirit of cooperation with this committee and with the Philadelphia City Council?
You can conclude that from CSX' behavior. And hopefully from my own behavior over time you will also reach the same conclusion.
Well, we'll give you some opportunities to have your behavior on display.
We'll 7 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 evaluate it from there. Of course, one of the main issues naturally revolves around the impact of CSX train operations and at times their conflict with the expanded use of what is now referred to as Schuylkill River Park, the investment that has been made whether in public or private funds, and the conflict between train operations and appropriate citizen access to Schuylkill River Park primarily either at Locust Street or Race Street. Can you lay out for us what steps or efforts CSX has taken thus far and what your work entails with regard to trying to resolve those issues?
Be happy to do that. I hope that you will give me the opportunity today to go into some detail about our train operations because really it all begins and ends with the trains. Those are the things that occupy certain parcels of property in the city of Philadelphia and other communities. The 8 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 moving and the standing of trains can be an annoyance to neighbors that we have trackside. So everything kind of begins and ends with the trains and so I would like to go through in some detail why we do what we do. I hope I'll have the opportunity to do that. Mr. Koster is going to assist me in that regard. And if I may, I brought some visuals that I think may help walk us through this particular discussion.
Whether it's yourself or Mr. Koster, can you lay out for us at least from your perspective why the particular conflict exists, how you would propose, whether short, medium, or longer term, to resolve it? And I guess one of the key questions here is with regard to pedestrian access, there seem to be at least two proposals to try to -- well, I'd say one proposal and one idea on how to try to resolve this particular issue. Of course, the legitimate proposal is that there would 9 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 be at grade crossing both at Race Street and Locust Street. The conversation seems to be that there's much less controversy from a CSX position standpoint with regard to Race Street. Is that correct?
So when we get to Locust Street, the proposal, of course, is for the same grade crossing at Locust Street as there would be at Race Street. The other idea, of course, is this overpass concept. The question is, is CSX immovable on the issue of at-grade crossing at Locust Street versus an overpass?
Sure. Before you answer that question, I think we've had the pleasure of what I now recall -- is that your counsel?
Yes, Mr. Ben Dunlap. 10 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
Benjamin C. Dunlap, Jr., of the law firm Nauman, Smith, Shissler & Hall in Harrisburg.
Mr. Chairman, to answer your question, CSX is involved in certain activities before the federal court here specifically dealing with the Locust Street access, the method, the design, how those issues would be addressed. I have just begun to become personally involved in that and I've participated with the City's counsel in those sessions. I can tell you that that is a work in progress. It is not a completed exercise, but it's one that we are certainly dealing with in a good faith effort to bring it to resolution.
Well, I 11 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 appreciate your response. I'm not sure that there was a dead set answer in the response, but I have a pretty good idea of what you just said. We can move from that. I'm sure we'll come back to it. Can you explain to us what steps have been taken -- and you may have touched on this previously, but I'd like to also get some perspective from your terminal manager. I mean, why are the trains parked for extensive periods of time at Locust Street with whatever may be in them? So that's one. And two, why can't whatever it is that you do that causes them to be parked in that location, why can't those trains do what they do or crews change or whatever other actions are taking place, why can't they happen within the confines of a yard facility as opposed to for extensive hours that interfere with public access?
That's a very legitimate question. And if I may, if may, I would like to stand and use some 12 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 visuals to take you through this. This discussion might require, say, to 4 minutes. Would that be acceptable in 5 order to provide a thorough explanation? 6
That's 14 already been demonstrated, Mr. Goetz. 15 You can move on. 16
Just by way of 17 further introduction, I'm a career 18 railroader. I have 28 years in railroad 19 service. Mr. Koster has 24 years. And 20 so this is something that Larry and I both have been doing for quite some time. Almost all of my railroad career has been concentrated here in the northeast, so the Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York City area has been my home for 13 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 almost my entire career. What I'd like to do -- and you asked me specifically what have you been doing, you know, since CSX was last before you. And Larry and I have begun working through first of all to explain why precisely we do everything we do. You had asked, Mr. Chairman, why a specific train has to sit here. And I asked a more fundamental question: Why is that train even there to begin with? Why does that train move through here and not through someplace else? And Larry and I spent hours with his staff and in his yard office going through each train movement that we move through Philadelphia and also that our competing railroads move through Philadelphia to get a better understanding as to exactly why we are doing what we're doing. And, also, we've begun to look at where we might have opportunities to change things. I think one of your specific 14 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 questions is can anything be changed. And we are going to give a good faith look into in terms of seeing if we can do things that would soften our impact on the community. There are members of the community here. I can tell you something you already know, that they're very agitated and they get angry. They're angry that their access to a recreational facility is blocked at times. They're angry by having a heavy industrial presence like a railroad in their community. When they get angry, they write e-mails. And those e-mails come to me and I read every single one of them. And so I do understand the frustration that they have, and I am sensitive to the fact that we need to try to work to find things that may soften our presence on the community. I have quite a bit of experience doing this. My territory includes the south Bronx, includes residential neighborhoods in Queens. It 15 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 includes neighborhoods in north New Jersey where we have 5, 6, million 4 dollar homes. And so I'm very used to 5 having the railroad impact citizens of 6 all different varieties of income on the 7 income strata. My experience has been that the answer is never all or nothing. It's always something. It's something in the middle and that everyone begins with I want all, I want nothing, and those never are the solutions. It's always something in the middle and that's where we're beginning to look. It is not possible for CSX to vacate all of our tracks in Philadelphia. The main line tracks we have, we need them. The yard facilities that we have, we need them. The employees that we have in Philadelphia, we need them and we want to keep them. But we're looking at ways that we can do things differently to try to soften that impact. Let me begin by giving you a schematic. Now, I'll caution you when 16 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 you see the schematic I did myself you will quickly learn I did not major in graphic arts in college because they're pretty homemade, but we're going to work off this particular grid, which is a railroader's view of Philadelphia, which is not how you would normally look at Philadelphia. Can you see it? Better?
This is not how you would look at Philadelphia, but it's how a railroader would look at Philadelphia. We have lines that come in from the south and west here and lines here that go up here to Reading and Harrisburg, up here to New Jersey and New York. This line --
I'm sorry. Members of the audience, can you see or do you want to move to get a better angle?
We have lines here that go down to South Philadelphia where we have a small freight yard and some 17 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 terminals that serve the port and we have a line here that goes to New Jersey. This is a little abstract so I'm going to put some landmarks on it for you. What I've drawn in here in blue is the Schuylkill River. And this will make it a little bit easier to tell exactly where these tracks are. Generally, the public does not know where these are. Many of them are deep within Fairmount Park actually or in industrial areas, but there are places where the railroad is very apparent and that's why we're here. Let's start here. If you came down the Schuylkill River, the first railroad bridge you'd cross be would be just south of the Falls Bridge near East Falls. There's a series of big stone bridges there and that carries CSX' track up to New Jersey and New York. That's a main line bridge and that is a freight track that goes all up through North Philadelphia and northeast Philadelphia and up through Bucks County and 18 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 ultimately up to New Jersey. This is all in Fairmount Park here and there's a railroad track through this. It's very hard to see it because it's heavily wooded there. And then here there's a fork and one route goes this way and the other route goes this way. Now, the angles in this diagram are very important because these are not highways. They're railroad tracks. And so you can only move a train, you know, progressively in the angle of the movement. So here, for example, you can make a right-hand turn. You can't make a left-hand turn because track switches only connect in one direction. So here it's possible for a train to make a progressive left-hand turn. This is the Columbia Bridge, the concrete bridge I think that was mentioned in previous testimony. So this is the Columbia Bridge and this is where the crew changes are conducted right along here. And this is busy railroad. My son is a rower and 19 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 when I'm watching him, I'll watch trains going over that Columbia Bridge all afternoon. The railroad tracks progress over here. They're now on the east side of Fairmount Park again in pretty dense woods. You'd have to look pretty carefully to see them. They're back up there off the Kelly Drive. Around here just by Girard Avenue, there's a railroad junction and a track here comes around and then connects down into South Jersey. If you continue on this, you go through a series of tunnels and ultimately wind up in Center City. And this is the track and this is Schuylkill River Park. And these are across here are residential streets in Center City. And, of course, this area here is where we have citizen complaints because we have occupied residences very close to railroad tracks. When you follow that down, you come into a yard here and this is where our yard office is. This is where 20 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 railroad employees, meaning train conductors and engineers, go to work. Their crew reporting location is here by union agreement. The importance of it will become apparent in a minute. Over on the west side over by Penn, there's a whole series of railroad junctions. There's also a lot of other tracks in here that have to do with Amtrak that I haven't drawn in here. As you're driving down the Schuylkill Expressway, you probably see this whole maze of railroad tracks. Interspersed within that is this set of railroad junctions here. This track here is actually the Northeast Corridor which carries passenger trains down to Washington. This is a connection track and then this is CSX' main line freight track that goes to Baltimore, Washington, all the way down to Florida, basically the rest of North America. This is a drawbridge here over the Schuylkill. So we cross the Schuylkill here on a 21 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 drawbridge, here, here, and here.
So we're going back and forth over the Schuylkill River. Coming off this junction here, you come down, this is the 25th Street, which was also mentioned, and this provides a route down into South Philadelphia and the terminals. There's also a route here that goes down. There's a route here that goes down to the big refiners and customers in Delaware County. And there are customers along Amtrak that there are freight movements along here that we have to reach. So if you were designing this network operation, your challenge would be to move trains through here, to move trains in here, and to serve our Philadelphia customer base. And one of the things you might immediately draw a conclusion is, why are the tracks laid out there? Why on earth would you design this this way? And the answer is CSX 22 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 didn't design it this way. These tracks were built 150 years ago by companies that don't even exist anymore. They had a completely different business model. Let me just show you a little bit of history because they suddenly make sense. On this picture here, if you play Monopoly, you'll see three of the four railroads on a Monopoly board here. There's the Pennsylvania Railroad shown in red, B&O which is in blue, and the Reading Company, which was shown in green. And the railroad operations were different, you know, in the late 19th century. One of the things is these railroads were arch competitors. They were basically set up to support the port cities that they were headquartered in. So the Pennsylvania Railroad was as Philadelphia as a cheesesteak. It was basically an effort to create an inland transportation empire centered on Philadelphia. B&O was a carbon copy of that with Baltimore interests. So 23 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 Philadelphia and Baltimore were competing against each other to be the major East Coast port and the major commerce center, and so these railroads supported them. And they were arch competitors and they supported the cities that basically financed them and built them. And then the Pennsylvania Railroad did a pretty gutsy move. They built tracks into Baltimore and said not only are we going to support Philadelphia, but we're going to steal Baltimore from Baltimore's own railroad. And so the Baltimore interest, not to be undone, said if you want to play that way, we'll do the same thing to you. This railroad is built up here to raid into the Philadelphia market from the Baltimore interest. An analogy would be the Philadelphia Eagles building a sports stadium in Baltimore to draw fans away from the Baltimore sports teams. So this is how this was built. The tracks are are there. The city grew up around them. It's almost impossible to change 24 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 the tracks. So we have to use the tracks that we have and have a most efficient operation we can with those tracks. Now, the real network underwent a major transformation when Consolidated Railroad Corporation, which had been headquartered in Philadelphia and had run many of the train operations in Philadelphia, was reorganized and split between two freight carriers, one which was CSX. And at that time all the networks had to be redesigned, and one of the major issues that we had to wrestle with was where were the major freight hubs going to be. And a freight hub is much like what a hub airport would be. So a railroad will have a hub just like US Airways has its hub in Philadelphia. CSX had to make a decision about where it was going to have its hub operations, where the through trains would come, where the switching activities would be. And there were several candidates, and CSX made a specific decision that 25 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 Philadelphia was going to be a major hub for its rail operations. And you'll see that reflected in our train movements. What I'm showing you here is a CSX system map. All those red lines are CSX tracks.
CXS is the largest railroad east of the Mississippi River. What I've drawn in here in the colors are how we draw freight into Philadelphia from the whole eastern part of North America. And it's important to say that the freight is drawn in. It's drawn in by Philadelphia's and the northeast purchasing power. This area has 6 million residents. New York City has million residents. 18 Baltimore-Washington regional area has 19 about 7 or 8 million residents. They 20 have enormous purchasing power that draws goods and materials from the more rural parts of North America. And those goods ride our trains so that people can buy things. So let me just give you a Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 couple of examples. We originate a train deep down here in Florida. It's nothing but orange juice. It's Tropicana orange juice. There are no citrus groves in Philadelphia and aren't ever going to be any citrus groves in Philadelphia. And so we generate a whole train of orange juice in Bradenton, Florida, and it comes up along the East Coast and goes to a distribution center in New Jersey which feeds the entire northeast with Tropicana orange juice. So if you drank Tropicana orange juice, you were a CSX customer. Second thing is the deep south has something we don't have up here in the north. They have trees you can cut. And so there is an enormous industry in terms of plywood, dimensional lumber, paper, brown board, all those kinds of things made out of trees. And so we have a very strong business in terms of supplying the northeast area with building products. So if your house was built in the last century, chances are those wood products 27 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 came up from the south, you know, into this area to make the walls and structure of your home. We also have traffic that comes in from the west and that comes in over this route here. It goes down through Maryland and then ultimately comes up from the south in the south end of Philadelphia. And then we have traffic that follows the red route over the top and comes down. And that seems kind of circuitous, but it's something we don't have any choice about because these are double-stacked trains. They're very high and this is the route that we have where the bridges are high enough to clear. So, for example, international containers coming from Asia, if you look at the label in your clothing and it says it was sewn in southeast Asia or something, it probably came in through a West Coast port and came across on a double-stacked train. So those movements come this way. Out of New England and New York 28 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 City, we have municipal solid waste. And so New York City is one contributing factor. Also, we have shipments that come out of these very, very populated areas in New England and New York City and that's moving south because the landfills are in the south. So that's moving through Philadelphia coming this way. So all of these commercial movements and train movements are all coming into Philadelphia. And they need to either move through or be sorted or changed. And it's very, very much like Philadelphia Airport where you might have a through flight coming over from Europe and then you need to get passengers to Reading, Atlantic City, some to Philadelphia itself, some to Harrisburg. We do with railroad trains exactly what US Air does with Philadelphia Airport. Now, one thing I want to share with you is that a delayed or standing train is self-penalizing. And I know 29 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 that the citizens here feel that they are put upon when we don't have a train moving. And that is one of several factors that encourage a railroad to keep the train moving at all times. Let me give you just a couple other things. Besides the community annoyance, which I think you're well aware of, there's three other factors involved. Number one is the locomotive itself.
A single locomotive is about a million and a half dollars. If it's not moving, it's unproductive. If you have two or three of them, you have a significant amount of very expensive assets that are not being used productively. Perhaps even more serious is the crew itself. Railroad crews are probably our most valuable asset. It takes a long time to train a railroad crew. It is difficult to develop good crew people. It is very, very difficult. It is among the highest paying union work available, but it is also one of the hardest work. And the 30 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 demands put upon those men and women are very exacting. And so our crews are an extremely important resource. We just can't go out and hire railroad crews. They have to be trained. They have to pass an enormous battery of drug tests. There's a large number of tests and procedures before anyone gets behind a position of influence on a train. And so our crews are an incredibly valuable resource to us. Finally, the fuel; if an engine isn't moving but still consuming fuel, that's a cost for us as well. So the railroad has an enormous incentive to move trains. We are not in the warehousing business. We only get paid when we actually deliver something. And if something's sitting, we are not fulfilling actually what we sold our customers. So let me begin here. I'm going to go through train by train almost how we move trains through and into Philadelphia. First of all, I told you 31 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 that we bring merchandise and materials up from the deep south and from the west. And those trains follow this route here on the orange and they go -- come up this way over this route by Penn, over this bridge, down 25th Street, and then down to South Philadelphia where the train is taken apart. We have a small yard there and so that is our hub operation there. We'll take the whole train apart and sort it. And then we also have a mirror operation that goes to the north and that's the green.
That's down in South Philadelphia. That's just behind the new Eagles stadium, just behind there. If you go down 95, it's just on the other side. You'll see a maze of railroad tracks back there. That's where we are. Oh, thank you. It's right here, all this stuff in here. 32 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 Now, these trains run in pairs because if you go north, you have to go south because you have to get your locomotives and crews back where they came from. So the trains coming from the south, 405 and 406, they go down to a place called Florence, South Carolina, where the train is switched and fans out in the deep south. And 370 and 337 go into western Maryland and then head out west. They are the western trains. Each one of these -- this is a pair of trains northbound and southbound and east and westbound. Then going up this way, there are two trains, Q300, 301. Those are merchandise trains going up to Newark, New Jersey. We have 190 and 191. Those are double-stacked trains going to Chicago by way of New Jersey. And then we also have competing railroad operations here, Norfolk Southern and Canadian Pacific. They also have movements through here because they have facilities in South Philadelphia too. 33 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 And so I'm probably going to get into my competitors' train routes, but they have their own trains that run along this green route. So far there's no trains in Center City yet. We haven't gotten to that yet. All these movements here are moving on tracks that don't require us to move through the area adjacent to Schuylkill River Park. You can see there's quite a few trains on this grid. Now, once we get the freight down to South Philadelphia, you've got to get to the customers. And so, again, the Philadelphia area services quite a large -- this is a hub for a very -- it's almost the entire Delaware Valley is centered in the city of Philadelphia. So you can kind of consider these as the big jumbo jets coming from way far away and they come into the hub, and now we need to have the feeder trains, which is what's on this next page.
Mr. Goetz, 34 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 before you get to that diagram, I don't know how many more you have, but -- and this is tremendously informative, but we are going to need you to get to Locust Street and the standing and the parking.
These are all the local movements. So once the train is broken down, we have movements up into this yard here, the side yard. Wilmington is a satellite of Philadelphia so we will move traffic back to Wilmington from here. And then all of southern New Jersey is serviced off of Philadelphia. This is a very significant hub. It's basically the center of our railroad network for the entire Delaware Valley. Now, there are some trains where the whole train is purchased by one customer. And these trains don't run 35 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 every day, but they do run. And these trains operate up here. They change crews here. And these trains will operate -- you'll see these trains operating through Center City and adjacent to Schuylkill River Park. These are almost exclusively unit trains of coal that go to generating stations in South Jersey where they have coal-fired power plants. So the train will come through here, will change crews, will go up here, reverse direction, and then come down this way. And so these trains will run maybe two to four times a month. And the reason that they go this way is because they change crews and this is our crew change location. So they take this track because of that crew change. Norfolk Southern also services those and they come a different way. They come down this way. These are all Norfolk Southern train movements. Their main line comes down this way through Lower Merion 36 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 Township, Gladwyne. You'll see the tracks up there adjacent to the Schuylkill River. They need to get to customers down here along Amtrak and also refiners and power plants this way. So they will have train movements on both of those lines. You will see Norfolk Southern trains coming through here because this is the only way they can get to customers located on this line. So that's another instance where we have movements through Center City. And then finally we have a series of trains -- and Larry and I have spent quite a bit of time looking at these specific trains. These are the trains that generally move through Philadelphia. And the composition of the train is not switched in Philadelphia, but there may be whole blocks of cars, series of cars that are switched between trains here. And the difference is whether the train needs to stop here and change crews or not. And there are some 37 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 that do and there are some that don't. The trains that don't change crews are these up here. Q172, which is probably the hottest train through Philadelphia, that's a through train from Florida up to New Jersey. It carries packaged freight. It's very, very time sensitive, and so that sails right through here. 409, 410, 439, K295, they all move through here and they are staffed with Baltimore labor. Is that correct?
So they are with Baltimore crews and generally don't have any work between Baltimore and New Jersey so they just move right on through here. These trains here, 173, 174, 650, 651, 438, and this series of trains, 206, 207, 276, and 277, they all change crews here and several of these trains also drop off or pick up Philadelphia freight. These tend to be express trains that will set off high-priority freight in Philadelphia and then either head on up to New York or 38 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 head down south. So you kind of consider this as kind of like a stop for a high-priority train so that Philadelphia has expedited freight service. It allows CSX to compete for the higher express end of the transportation market. Also, these trains here, 206, 207, 276, and 277, these are the municipal solid waste trains and citizens have taken note of this. And these trains switch blocks here in Philadelphia. Those are the trains that get quite a bit of public notice. The thing I want to leave with you is that the number of trains that are moving through here, it's probably about 50/50, 50 percent of the trains we can move on this route and 50 percent of the trains we can move on this route. And the driving factor is whether we're going to change the composition of the train and also what labor force we're going to use for the train, whether we're going to use Philadelphia labor or use a different 39 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 labor. That's all set by our union agreements as to which trains get which labor pool. So to answer your question, you asked what are we doing or what have we done, and Mr. Koster and I, we are investigating this particular set of trains right here. Quite frankly, these trains up here there's not a lot we can do. One thing, they're very high-priority trains. It's very difficult for us to do much with them without corrupting their schedule. But this series of trains here have a couple of characteristics. They are among the slower-moving trains that we have. They are on this line here. And because they carry municipal solid west, they are probably the least welcome trains in the community. So we've begun looking at what we can do to change the train plan for this, which would be not a complete exit of train activity from this line but I think something that wouldn't be 40 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 noticed. So, again, these things don't change overnight, but it is something we are investigating in an effort to have a softer effect on the community.
Why don't you stay right there. Councilman Clarke has a question. I have a couple.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to get some clarity on the trains, the Qs and Ks, 173, 174, 650, 651 you say are high priority in terms of what they carry, in terms of necessity, time sensitive. Could one of these -- what we've been talking about for some time is trains that are parked, trains that have to be changed in the yard in some cases at our intersections. Of those trains you're referencing there, which ones are the ones that are problematic to the community and the city as relates to blockage? 41 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
The trains that are most frequently cited by the community are these trains here: 206, 207, 276, and 277. Would you agree, Larry?
All of them or just the bottom? What are the trains that from time to time block Race Street, block Locust Street?
Well, all those trains in red are going to be in the vicinity of Schuylkill River Park at some time.
So all those trains at some point in time change crews or change trains?
Fifteen minutes to a half hour to change crews. 42 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
It's the engineer and conductor. It's the two human beings that operate the train.
Why would that take so long? Why would it take 12 hours?
It's a different activity. A crew change is one activity, but it's not the only activity that occurs there. Some of these trains, for example, this 651 train will have cars added, a whole block of cars added to it. These trains here, 276 will have cars taken off it and put onto 206 and cars from 207 will be put on 277. And that takes more than 15 minutes to a half an hour. That's a different activity than some of these others that all they do is 43 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 change crews. There's really two different things that happen here when trains stop. Sometimes they just stop, two people get off and two get on and off they go. Other times they change the composition of the train and that takes more time.
Where is that done? In the yard? All of that activity is in the yard?
What we have here is in the vicinity -- there's two other tracks that are down here that are just to the south of Schuylkill River Park and we pick up with these trains off those tracks. So at times you're going to see us moving back and forth across Locust Street, across Race Street.
All of that activity is not done in the yard is what you're saying?
This activity here is done -- like 173 and 174 go through here. 174 is going to make a setoff and 44 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 we will take it with another train.
It will set cars off. It will cut his train in pieces and take a piece back down to South Philadelphia. So he will come, trade crews, he will make a setoff, and at that time he may block the crossing while he's making that setoff until our yard crew comes out and gets the cars and takes them back to South Philadelphia. And then that train will proceed on north.
One last question. South of the yard are there parallel tracks? What's that? East of the yard? I don't know with this direction.
This is our main line track that heads west or south 45 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 towards Baltimore.
Are there parallel tracks that would allow a setoff there?
It parallels here to a point just past the Schuylkill River and goes back to a single track.
Would you have the ability to set off on that side of the yard as opposed to the other side of the yard?
If the train pulled up in here, we would -- our crews have to access it from this direction here because we can't make this. We make the cut here. That way this crew can come out here and go back out.
So that we're a little clearer, it's not just the K206, 207, 276, and 277. Isn't it really all those in red have some impact on either trash trains in the K series, 46 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 other trains that are there long that need these setoffs or breakups, so that entire series of trains all impact Schuylkill River Park in some way?
Not the same degree of impact. If I can just explain a little more because I actually had a hand in setting this up, for example, this 651 here, this is a train of empty cars. This is the Tropicana orange juice cars that are all empty going back to Florida. The train is very light so it has space in it. And CSX did not have enough business, trailer and container business from Philadelphia to the south to fill a whole train so we were faced with the decision to exit the market, basically cut off that service to Philadelphia, or to try to keep that service going even though we didn't have enough business to really warrant its own train. So what we do is we bring those containers and trailers up from Philadelphia and we put them on the back of the juice train 47 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 because it's light. And that enabled us to keep -- for Philadelphia customers to have a service to the south that otherwise they would lose. They'd have to take all their traffic to Baltimore or New York. So that was something that we specifically set up and that involves stopping and adding cars to the back of the Tropicana juice train. And that takes more than minutes to do that. 12 Whenever you change the composition of a 13 train, there's certain tests you have to 14 do. There's safety inspections, those 15 kinds of things that have to occur. And then you're correct, councilman, that these specific trash trains, there are instances we change the composition of the train so the train is there longer than it would be, for example, with Q438 we just have to change a crew. So they all have an impact but don't all have the same impact. So if you have an issue, you solve the biggest issue first. And when we looked at this, 48 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 we said which trains are having the biggest impact. We said these are because they're the ones that are there a longer period of time and also a series of trains because they carry municipal solid waste that generate particular issues with the community. If you can't solve everything at once, at least go after the ones that will have the biggest improvement.
So why can't you add track capacity in the east side then so the reconfiguration of the trains happen further south?
The river's right here. You're basically between a rock and a hard place. You have the river crossing here and then you've got the 49 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 community right up here.
Some of those trains, you mentioned that they're empty. Couldn't they be using the lines above there in blue and just not go through Center City?
If it only takes minutes, could you change a crew 12 someplace up there? 13
Not easily because 14 this is all elevated. This is way up 15 high. In fact, if you went to 30th Street Station and saw that track --
How about if you move it where it says CXS to south and west right in that area right there just further south?
Councilman, there may be, but we haven't found it yet, but we're going to look to see if there is a different place to do that. However, any change of the crew location would require 50 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 changing our union agreements. This is written into the union agreements as to where the crews report for duty. You've asked a very good question. It's one of the same questions we were talking about, is there a better place for us to change crews. And, again, whenever you're dealing with people in our business, that usually means that you're dealing with organized labor and so we don't do anything unilaterally. Everything needs to be worked through to the satisfaction of agreement.
Can you give us the full name or, I mean, is there a number or local? What's the full name of the two unions?
United Transportation Union and you have the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
United 51 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 Transportation, that's the name?
This is not my council district, but if you live in Philadelphia, you're pretty familiar with this issue. Even if you don't travel much to the area, it's gotten a lot of publicity in terms of what people see and what people smell, but my question is -- and we all know that. That's why we're all here today. In a perfect world where, for instance, Governor Rendell -- I'm hypothesizing -- came in and said to get rid of this issue, you find a place in the Philadelphia area where we can replicate what you do at Schuylkill River and the State of Pennsylvania will pay for it -- 52 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 I know that's a hypothetical, but I also don't think it's so far out there that it's not worth discussing. Have you ever thought about that?
This shouldn't cost CSX money. I understand that you are in the business. But from a governmental standpoint, it may be very important to the government that you be somewhere else and the government may be willing to pay for that. How deep have you looked at it?
We had several different -- you know, there are potentials. Railroad track is very expensive to build, very expensive to build. But it would stand to reason if you have a problem in a certain area, the first solution that would come to your mind is move it, move the problem 53 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 someplace else or move what's perceived to be the problem someplace else. So we have looked at that. That's one. Things we are exploring is is there a different place that we can do this. And, again, when you get into changes like where you're going to change crews, you get into things, you know, in terms of which labor pool you're going to use.
You mentioned the track's expensive and I'll agree to that. I mean, I think it's probably obvious. If expense -- and really the crux of my question is if expense were not an issue -- and I know in a business model that's very hard to even absorb expense not being an issue, but if it really weren't, if Pennsylvania or a combination of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia or other entities were willing to pick up the cost of this, how far have you gotten along with that exploration?
I'd say we're about 54 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 50 percent into the effort, sir. And let me tell you what we've done and let me tell you what we haven't done. We've looked at locations both inside the city and outside the city, within the state and outside the state in terms of how we could change, you know, our operations. We've looked at the engineering feasibility of things. For example, you know, one of the locations that I came up with was in this area here which is right in Fairmount Park. As it turns out, that turned out to be a very difficult thing to engineer because we didn't own the property. And that would mean taking additional park lands and that probably -- that would be a difficult thing to do. And we had done some preliminary engineering. Things we have not done is we have not done any activity with our unions yet and that's a very important component of this.
Are you saying you could find a perfect solution 55 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 absent discussions with the unions that would enable you to move, assuming expense is not an issue for you, move this operation and your unions could still stop it, that they could raise an issue --
Right. But, I mean, I would think that could be a solvable problem with all the parties involved.
I don't want to mislead you that these are all -- all these solutions have been, you know, worked through, but we do have some candidates and we are exploring it.
Yes, but I don't want to mislead you and think all you need is to come up with a bucket of money to solve this.
I think 56 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 it's helpful to everybody that you've identified the worst problems and they're in the bottom categories, the Ks, but I can also see if you take those out, while it's better, the problem is still quite significant even though it's not as bad. And I'm just trying to move this thing along.
If I may, I can share some of my experiences in other communities. I've been through processes just like this, you know, in New Jersey and New York City. And the initial request is get all the trains out of here, I don't ever want to see, hear, smell, feel a train ever again. And that usually doesn't happen. It just doesn't. And then when we really get into looking and we say, well, you know, we understand you don't like trains, but there's a subset of trains you really don't like and that's what's really agitating you so let's look and see what we can do with that. And I have found that you don't 57 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 have to solve a hundred percent of the problem, you can solve maybe 40 or 50 percent of the problem, and by meeting in the middle both parties can move on.
See, the difference I see here -- and I appreciate what you're saying because I'm northeast Philly which borders Bucks and Montgomery Counties. Sometimes we have problems with trains parked overnight and sometimes trains with odors or what people perceive as odors. That category of things if you could deal with in the bottom solves that to find a way to move them through or divert them. This having all the access questions, the park -- not just access to the street but also into the park, that's the reason I'm going into sort of the nth degree hypothetical. I think there are different issues than commonly come up with people. They don't like noise or smells or whatever, but this goes way beyond that it seems because of the unique nature of the 58 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 crossings into the park and all that.
If it was simple, we would have solved this long ago because no one at CSX enjoys the agitation it's caused this city and no 7 one takes any pleasure in doing this. So if it was an easy thing to do, we would solve this. The other thing which I didn't touch on which I really should is that --
Mr. Goetz, before you go on, I just want to follow up on something Councilman O'Neill was saying. What I wanted to find out is this area right here, can you tell me what's in here and who owns it?
Larry, what is that down there? This is our operation up here.
My question is, can you put some of your operations, for instance, crew changes and whatnot, 59 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 south?
Our tracks are heading off this way here. We'd be looking for another location -- see, this is on a spur line.
This is going to South Philadelphia. This is the line going south, yeah.
Are there areas up here other than your present location where you could make those crew changes?
Actually, the place we want to look would not be here. You'd still have trains standing out here. Where you want to look is someplace along here.
So did we figure out what the area is? 60 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
This wouldn't buy you much here. You'd still have a train on this side of the river. What you want to look at is something on this side.
So that kind of really begs the question, I mean, the Q and the K trains all operate -- for this purpose operate on the red line; is that right?
The red line seems to go all the same places that the black line goes or is that blue?
I'm not color blind. I just couldn't see that far. So I guess the simple question is, what is the prospect of -- I know you probably don't like this word but abandoning the red line? Why couldn't you put everything on the purple line?
Well, for one thing, this track is not like a dormant track. There's a lot of trains on this. 61 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
I think the issue is not abandoning this but having train movements not dwell there.
It's the standing train as opposed to -- a moving train actually doesn't annoy too many people. The standing train does.
But there's still an issue. Even if you still have moving trains and we eliminate the standing trains, there's still the issue of access. CSX still doesn't agree with us we should have access on Locust Street entrance at grade.
We are trying very hard to resolve that, that access issue. And, believe me, we would like to put that issue behind us.
I'm saying even if we somehow came to some conclusion that we could have those 62 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 trains move and even a limited number of trains, CSX' position at least in court is still that you don't agree with our point we should have access at Race and Locust? That's still the issue?
We are still negotiating with the City to come to an equally acceptable solution for that, and we're going to continue to work with the various parties to come to an acceptable solution.
I'm going to continue on that track. The councilman poses the question, I mean, if you figured out after all of this analysis -- and thank you for the explanation. If you figured out how to virtually eliminate the standing, parking, however you characterize it, whether it's better scheduling or later at night activity, the non kind of active times, I mean, if the parking of trains by your own action and research and analysis was virtually eliminated, does 63 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 that create a circumstance for you where public access at grade is less of a concern?
I can't comment on that right now, but -- I really can't because that's really the issue of those -- but there is a stand-alone benefit. And eliminate, that's kind of an all as opposed to a some, but I would prefer to use the word "reduce" the instances where we have trains standing in Center City neighborhoods. I don't know whether we can eliminate that.
To tell you the truth, it's too early to promise anything except that we're going to try.
But, I mean, if you're not willing -- and I understand you can't do that here today -- willing to acknowledge that the origin to some degree of this issue has to do with access, then what's the point 64 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 of even having this discussion if we're not going to ultimately have access? And I understand you don't want to have trains sitting, it costs money, the community would prefer not to have those trains there, but if we still don't have the ability to have access to the park --
Well, CSX is very actively engaged with the City on the park access issue and so, I mean, that discussion -- it's just that's not happening in this forum. It's happening in a settlement discussion.
So if you come to some conclusion in limiting the standing trains, that enhances your ability to negotiate a reasonable agreement with the city?
Counsel, with all apologies, you're asking me to comment on a piece of pending litigation. I just can't comment publicly on that.
Well, that was the question I wanted to ask earlier, 65 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 to what degree you, the operational guys, interact with the legal side of this issue, because I'm a little concerned in. All due respect, I really appreciate the educational process here today of us kind of getting caught on this side, caught up in this issue. And the the underlying issue, which was the access issue for the community and Schuylkill River Park advocates, I'm not clear if you all are working together.
Absolultely. It is my responsibility to make sure that those two issues are together.
So when I ask the question about the involvement between the legal side of it and the operational side, then because you're that person, then you are obviously involved in both parts? 66 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
So what you're talking about, I think you were going to at some point propose possible changes as it related to K206 and --
We would like to continue to work with this body as we begin to through look through this. And I think you have come to exactly the same conclusions we did, that, first of all, we need to look at what we do with these and we also need to look at what we do with crew change points. And when Larry and I and Larry's folks went through this, that's pretty much where we came out, the same way. We didn't come up with something that took all the trains off these tracks. We can't do that. We need this capacity. We didn't come up with a solution that said that a train 67 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 would never stop here again, but we think that we may have some things, some leads, if you will, in terms of making an improvement.
But I ask the question again. If we come to some consensus to some degree in terms of limiting the number of standing trains and limiting the number of crew changes, does it enhance your ability, all of our ability to come to --
Again, respectfully, I just can't comment on that litigation and those settlement discussions at this point.
As we get further into this process, those two efforts, you know, they will impact, but these --
So why are 68 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 we going through this? I mean, what's the point? I don't understand.
We don't see this as just a park access issue. We see this also as an impact of our trains on the community issue. And so we are focusing on this because this has a series of benefits all by itself regardless of what happens in the settlement with Schuylkill River Park. Again, this is not a one issue. Philadelphia is not a one issue issue. There are multiple issues.
I understand that. My concern is that I think we've been extremely courteous. We've gone through an hour, hour and a half presentation, and I'm now hearing that you're not saying one way or another -- I'm hearing this could potentially not have anything to do with the ultimate goal of having access to the park.
I'd say it's premature to comment given that we have a 69 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 separate process in federal court.
Okay. It's clear you're not going to answer the question the way I want you to answer it. I'll have to accept that.
You can't give me the answer I want, so I'll just have to give up.
Well, I hope the day will come when we will be able to put all these issues at rest. And it's my mission to try to get all these issues resolved.
Yes. Who actually makes the decision about the parking? Is the Philadelphia CSX staff in control of the parking decisions here or are those decisions made in Baltimore or Jacksonville? Who makes the decisions as to the parking? 70 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
A very good question. Actually, it allows me to touch on a point which I didn't previously, which is that all the operations that I described to you are what happens when everything runs perfectly. And in the real world of daily operations, things happen which will interrupt and cause delays. I can just give you a couple of examples. These are all things that Larry and I deal with all the time. A woman is rushing to day care because she doesn't want to get fined if she picks up her son late. And she's running late and she runs around the crossing gates and a train hits the car. So we now have a car in four or five pieces, we have an injured person on our property, and so we have to stop. When you have an injured person and you've got car debris on your property, you're not going anywhere until that is settled. And that will cause trains to back up in all directions. 71 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 That doesn't have to happen in Philadelphia to have a Philadelphia impact. That could happen in suburban Washington, D.C., and have an impact on our operations. Just a couple of weeks ago we had trains backed up all through New Jersey because we had a house on fire in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and the fire hoses had to come across the tracks. And so we can't move any trains until the fire was put out and it interrupted our operation for several hours. And while that was happening, we had trains piling up back through the south and we had trains piled up all through New Jersey. And I got letters and calls from communities. They couldn't understand why there was a train behind their house standing when that had never happened before. Unfortunately, we've had a rash of trespassers and some apparent suicides. One of the things that's really dangerous is every teenager today 72 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 has an iPod. They have headphones. They walk along the railroad with the headphones. They can't hear the train. And a fatality involving a trespasser is a horrible thing. Again when that occurs, again, you can't move any trains until all those human issues are taken care of. So all those things can impact what happens with train movements through here. If our main line is blocked in Yardley, Pennsylvania, we're going to have trains backed up here, going to have trains backed up in Baltimore.
I don't think that happens as frequently as the people in Center City have to endure the parked trains, you know, with the accidents as you're talking about.
That's not the only cause, but it is something that impacts our operation.
Well, talk about the other causes and how you 73 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 could best resolve them. I don't see why -- if, in fact, of necessity they have to be parked there, why couldn't they be parked from midnight until, say, 5:00 a.m rather than during daytime hours when people want to use the park?
Well, again, train movements occur through the day and the night and they have to do with movements perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles away. And so when a particular train arrives in Philadelphia -- I get this question all the time. Why can't you only run -- usually why can't you run trains during the day and not at night? One thing, we need all hours of the 18 day to run trains. To leave a piece of 19 track empty, we just need that time 20 capacity. The other thing, the trains 21 connect with other trains that connect 22 with other trains that connect with other 23 trains. And customers do have 24 expectations. They pay us for this. And so they have expectations for this. 74 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05
Mr. Goetz, on that note, why don't we -- I think we might be finished for the moment with the charts and graphs. Why don't you take yourself back to the witness table. There are many other questions. With regard to the standing or parking of trains -- this is a continuation of the Council President's question -- I don't know when there was last a train that sat. I'm sure we can find out from either my colleagues or from some persons in the audience, but can you explain to the best of your knowledge or certainly Mr. Koster as terminal manager, I mean, the last train that sat down there for any extended period of time, why was that? And then I think we have a series of questions regarding train operations and the rest of the system.
I don't currently have that information with me that would tell me what the last train that sat in 75 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 that area was, sir.
Well, for any trains that you may know that have sat recently, is there any general reason? I mean, why do the trains sit here in Philly on a regular basis?
I don't think that we see them sit on a regular basis. I think that they are there at the same time that may impact the community. None of those trains in the red area are designed to sit in Philadelphia. They are all delayed for various reasons, which Mr. Goetz discussed briefly with you there, sometimes a crew issue or a track maintenance issue. In the wintertime, we have broken rails. In the summertime, we have rail just from the heat and cold on the steel rails that cause delay. And at that time we have to adjust the train schedule based on those issues at that time.
Well, given the -- I mean, Mr. Goetz has laid out 76 Transportation & Public Utilities 12-20-05 that, as we all know, time is money and empty cars and full cars and light cars and you can't have the track just kind of sitting there with no one moving on it. So, I mean, is it someone's job to make sure that the trains keep moving? I mean, if a train sat for an hour or two or in some instances apparently upwards of eight, nine, ten hours, is someone making a report to somebody as to why that's going on?