Railroads have a storied history of trying to discourage passenger service in order to clear the tracks for profitable freight, and so perhaps Minnesotans can be forgiven for any suspicions about this winter's chronic delays on the Northstar line. "Freight interference" has prevented commuter trains from operating reliably between Minneapolis and the northwest suburbs to the point that the fledgling Northstar service seems in jeopardy.
Unsure about railroad motives, state House Transportation Finance Committee Chairman Frank Hornstein called a legislative hearing last week to look into the delays and was left unconvinced that cold weather has been totally to blame. If delays continue as the weather improves, Hornstein says he won't hesitate to investigate further. That's the proper course.
It's not just the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), on whose tracks Northstar runs, that's causing problems for transit, but a small freight railroad, the Twin Cities & Western, which, despite Hennepin County's ownership of the tracks in question, seems to be standing in the way of another big project — the proposed Southwest light-rail line. Added together, the metro region is getting a strong message about freight's priority over people.
It's hardly a new problem, or a local one. The American Public Transportation Association has followed many freight-commuter conflicts over the years from California to Virginia. Solutions require recognition by the railroads that freight and passengers should peacefully coexist in the public interest — as they once did. Both sides of the rail market are on the upswing, after all.
As for the reliability problems affecting Northstar (and Amtrak's Chicago-Seattle Empire Builder), BNSF's three-part explanation is admirably straightforward:
• Extreme cold can cause a freight train's air-pressurized brake system to fail. If brakes fail on just one car, the whole train stops and delays cascade throughout the system.
• The best way to prevent brake failure is to run more trains with fewer cars. In the frigid Fargo-Staples-Minneapolis corridor, trains are often shortened from 7,500 feet to 4,000, effectively doubling the number of trains.
• That puts extraordinary strain on a corridor that's already experiencing a surge in freight traffic — more farm commodities, more cargo containers, more oil from North Dakota's Bakken fields. Since Northstar began running in 2009, freight traffic on the corridor has increased by roughly 50 percent, from an average of 30 trains every 18 hours to 45.