Former FRA Chief Urges High-Speed Push for Rail Plan

From The Journal of Commerce Online:

Former FRA Chief Urges High-Speed Push for Rail Plan | Journal of Commerce

Former FRA Chief Urges High-Speed Push for Rail Plan
By John D. Boyd | Jun 5, 2009 11:41AM GMT
The Journal of Commerce Online - News Story

Freight must figure in high-speed rail initiatives, Carmichael says

The United States should quickly begin building high-speed rail systems for both passenger and freight systems, says a former head of the Federal Railroad Administration.

Gilbert E. Carmichael, who was the FRA administrator under President George H.W. Bush and is now founding chairman of the University of Denver’s Intermodal Transportation Institute, said states should take advantage of President Obama’s offer of $14 billion in startup funds.

He said HSR can be a major advance over the biggest public works project of the 20th Century, building the Interstate Highway System. Carmichael said that built a huge transportation system for cars and trucks and linked them with airports.

But he dubbed that massive road system as “Interstate 1” and said Obama’s plan "is a logical and necessary next step forward” to a high-technology version, what Carmichael calls “Interstate 2.0.”

If done right, he said it can produce much higher average speeds for both Amtrak passenger service and intermodal container-hauling trains, drawing more freight and people off highways and saving large amounts of fuel. Carmichael said the system can also be electrified in coming decades for much greater fuel savings.

He made the remarks at the university’s National Transportation Infrastructure & Regulatory Policy Forum.

Carmichael called for Congress to approve large railroads’ request for a 25 percent tax credit applied to new capacity “to encourage them to upgrade and double- and triple-track their main lines to increase speeds and double (their) freight capacity.”

States, he said, should build or lease high-speed track on their highway rights of way “to run new, modern, intermodal freight and passenger trains. These high-speed tracks should be grade separated just as were the interstate highways” so that lanes are kept separate for different types of surface traffic.

He also said equipping those trains with up to date locator and safety technology can make the rail system safer, while taking significant amounts of traffic off roads “will cut highway fatalities at least 50 percent and drastically reduce the wear and tear and cost of maintaining the highways.”

Carmichael also thinks the administration is taking steps that can move the country toward rail electrification for freight systems as well as passenger lines. True high-speed trains that travel perhaps 200 mph need to be electrified, and to the extent they operate in freight rail corridors the power could be shared with freight trains on nearby tracks.

He earlier told Journal of Commerce that Obama’s plans to upgrade the energy grid and develop more alternative energy sources and greener transportation systems all fit with the HSR plans, and could help move the diesel-power freight railroads toward electric systems.

Some railroad officials have begun to explore the potential as well. For more on this, see: “Special Report: Electrifying Freight Rail”

Contact John Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.