Stopped in their tracks

RICHMOND — John Benck boarded an Amtrak train in downtown Richmond and almost instantly regretted it. Inching along, the locomotive took a half hour to travel eight miles north to the next station.

“I could have ridden my bike,” said Mr. Benck, a Richmond-area high school teacher traveling to New York. “It’s sort of pointless.”

Behind the slowdown is a rail yard little known to the public but a familiar headache to rail officials. Each day, more than 50 passenger and freight trains approach CSX Corp.’s busy Acca Yard, where workers repair locomotives and reroute blocks of freight cars. Many trains slow to a crawl. Others come to a complete standstill, waiting their turn to enter the property.

Acca Yard has helped turn Richmond into a rail choke point comparable to the traffic congestion in the Washington area. Last year, the yard ranked first in passenger slowdowns and was among the top five contributors to freight delays in the railroad’s north-south corridor, according to CSX.

The problem is not limited to the East. Across the nation, yards and tracks have become congested as the economy has improved, leading to record rail volumes this year. The federal agency that regulates railroads warns that the rail system, which carries more than 40 percent of the nation’s freight volume, is straining even before the upcoming peak shipping season.

Last month, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board asked CSX and other railroads to explain how they will cope with the expected surge in August, when holiday merchandise bound for store shelves will join a network already encumbered by a surge of coal, grain, steel and other products.

Acca Yard has no easy solution. It is in the middle of a heavily trafficked route shared by passenger and freight trains that needs upgrades, rail officials said. The yard, too, is behind the times; it is too small and too complicated to handle the extra traffic and workload, said Drew Galloway, senior director of Amtrak’s strategic planning department.

“It’s a busier yard than it ever was, and infrastructure changes were not made,” Mr. Galloway said. “So there is an awful lot of congestion for Amtrak and CSX.”

On average, 40 freight trains chugged through Richmond each day in the first half of 2004, compared with 38 a year ago.

But on busy days, the city could see as many as 65 trains. Many of CSX’s trains are also getting longer. This year, those hauling general merchandise are pulling an extra five to 10 cars — which can further slow down Acca and other yards.

When train traffic backs up, it causes a ripple effect of delays. CSX’s freight trains sometimes have to stop mid-track to relieve crews who have reached the federal maximum they are permitted to work — a 12-hour shift. Until a new crew takes over, the train sits.

As they approach Acca Yard, freight trains slow to speeds of 25 mph or lower. The 18 Amtrak trains that stop in Richmond each day can travel at 40 mph — but only if a slower freight train isn’t ahead, a common occurrence, Mr. Galloway said.

Even slower are the four daily passenger trains that stop in downtown Richmond at Main Street Station. These trains often travel under 25 mph as they navigate a complicated, weaving route through the yard.

Despite the clog, rail officials and freight customers say CSX’s problems are not as severe as those facing Union Pacific Corp. in the West and Midwest. With parts of its system bottlenecked, the nation’s largest railroad has been forced to reject some business, including an expedited Los Angeles-Chicago train for United Parcel Service.

“We certainly have seen some delays and some congestion on the CSX [rails], but it is not anywhere near the problem or the level of concern that we have out West,” said Norman Black, a UPS spokesman.

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