Steam & Excursion > CSX Being anti-steam

I'm just curious; I have heard that it is not Michael Ward who is against steam operation, but rather some attorney at CSX who has told the Board of Directors that it is a bad policy and that it creates heavy liability for the corporation. I wonder why an attorney can have so much power over a board and the head of a major railroad?

Because society has turned into a sioux (sue) society.

Probably because CSX has an ear the ground, as to all the others,
and in addition to knowing what has occurred as far as mishaps
and lawsuits relating to steam, excursions, and steam excursions.

Also, CSX has had to cough up a LOT of money over vairous big
accidents where they just happened to be the host railroad.

Why would you think that it's only one person that wouldn't want to do it?

The default position of most ANY person in ANY business is not to take on tasks that make your job harder than it already is.

Hosting a steam excursion is like holding a party in the middle of the production floor of an active factory.

You just need to pay attention to CSX's marketing and PR strategy. They are positioning themselves as an environmentally friendly railroad, and that message is incompatible with steam locomotives. Their corporate culture is also made up of mainly non railroaders who do not see the appeal of steam power and heritage units. They may feel that they want to forge their own path with regards to PR instead of copying what others are doing.

The railfan community itself may also be a factor. Perhaps some of their people lurk on internet forums, see how some fans absolutely crucify the Union Pacific Railroad every chance they get and think that they in no way shape or form want to get dragged into such a mess. So maybe TO itself plays a role. Nobody should be naive enough to believe that the page after page after page of UP bashing just stays here in a vacuum and is never seen by anyone outside of fandom.

Rick Rowlands
Hubbard, OH
Youngstown Steel Heritage

And for today's chuckle, their "Stay Off the Tracks" wrapped NASCAR entry, crashed!

Out

steam draws people to the tracks to possible get hurt and same with the excursion trains, possible liabilities too, unless amtrak runs the excursion.

I agree Rick. The UP saga and its continuing negativity is a downer. If I owned a railroad, I wouldn't want so much negative press from issues, or unhappy folks. One can seldom discuss the UP Steam program without conversations going south. Online, or in person. Hopefully things will improve, and us folks on the sidelines will enjoy the 844, 3985, and the 4014 running. Plus their historic diesels.

If CSX doesn't run something there is no chance of an accident. There are tourist lines, and other steam programs for folks to see and ride.

However I'd still like to see CSX allow a run or two a year. As long as it's an experienced group. In the same way BNSF allows some special trips.

Al Seever
Phoenix, AZ

Club Car...

I speculate that the tragic Amtrak wreck at the Big Bayou Canot(?) bridge (that was struck by an errant barge/ tow boat) has more to do with CSX's reluctance to take on "unnecessary" risks.

However, the recent practice of handling carloads of explosive 'fracked' crude oils is a demonstrably greater risk than passenger/ excursions realistically pose.
Moving this highly explosive cargo is very risky and rails in the common carrier business have no legal recourse but to handle trains that are presented at interchange.

Apparently the recent blevvies in West Virginia all occurred using the new, "stronger " tank bodies . Wreck kinetic energy apparently can rupture these stronger shells.

So, yes, the risks to CSX are greater in the current explosive cargo trains than from perceivable risks of operating excursions.

If I was at the top of CSX, I'd be very concerned about developing ways to manage these extremely explosive-cargo trains.
The reality is that if nothing is done to make the cargo more reluctant to explode, there will be MANY more of these bleve- like tragedies.
And CSX's exposure to the probability that they (wrecks) will occur on CSX tracks is proportional to the numbers of these crude-oil trains that they must handle.

By contrast, the operation of excursions is WAY more safe than the actual risks of Bakken Crude trains.
However, the fears of the Legal Department make them blind to realistic concerns of safely operated passenger specials.
Also, passenger specials are an anathema to operating department folks.....missteps on their part are common and there's a lot of eyes on the "specials"..
Embarrassing mishandling of specials gets careers truncated. Further, Boards of Directors of corps. tend to be narrow-minded about things that MIGHT affect future increased earnings.

The real Bakken Risks are about to get greater attention, from the public, the legislators and the corporate Boards. Imagined risks from 'excursions' are less real than from day-to-day operations.
In today's Bakken-world, something's gotta give.

Oh, well...

Wes C.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/15 16:19 by wcamp1472.

Yes Rick! This is the INTERNET for pete's sake, everyone sees everything. How sad that so many people have to act so poorly in public. I know for fact that officers and employees of railroads and railroad companies read this and other forums. Whatever happened to the ideas of 'being constructive and not destructive or 'that if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all??'

"The railfan community itself may also be a factor. Perhaps some of their people lurk on internet forums, see how some fans absolutely crucify the Union Pacific Railroad every chance they get and think that they in no way shape or form want to get dragged into such a mess. So maybe TO itself plays a role. Nobody should be naive enough to believe that the page after page after page of UP bashing just stays here in a vacuum and is never seen by anyone outside of fandom."

[rayg]

Wes,

I had a thought regarding the latest oil train derailment in WV. When I saw the photos of the burned out train, I was struck by a couple of things. The fire was largely contained to the cars themselves, the cars did not rupture in any significant way, and there was not a huge leak of oil to the environment. I personally think the new car design minimized the impact of this incident.

This is what I think happened. The first or second car in the derailment got punctured and leaked oil. A spark generated from the derailing cars ignited that oil and caught the first car on fire. The trailing cars piled up accordion fashion behind the burning car, but did not immediately ignite. As the first car burned the second car warmed up to the point where the safety valve popped off, spewing oil from the valve which became in essence a burner jet. This then repeated itself in succession down the line of cars.

So if that is what happened, what could could have minimized the fire? One idea could be stronger tanks that have higher pressure ratings, giving more time for first responders to arrive and cool down the cars. Maybe fire departments need to start thinking regionally and have strategically placed aerial spray planes available with an hour or two response time. Getting water or foam on the cars in short order may have cut the fire short.

It may well be that the derailment in WV was in fact the best possible scenario for this type accident. Damage was extremely localized, only 75,000 gallons of oil had to be cleaned up, and the rest of the car's contents burned itself up.

Sorry to derail the thread....

Rick Rowlands
Hubbard, OH
Youngstown Steel Heritage



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/15 17:24 by RickRowlands.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Also, passenger specials are an anathema to
> operating department folks.....missteps on their
> part are common and there's a lot of eyes on the
> "specials"..
> Embarrassing mishandling of specials gets careers
> truncated. Further, Boards of Directors of corps.
> tend to be narrow-minded about things that MIGHT
> affect future increased earnings.
>
> The real Bakken Risks are about to get greater
> attention, from the public, the legislators and
> the corporate Boards. Imagined risks from
> 'excursions' are less real than from day-to-day
> operations.
> In today's Bakken-world, something's gotta give.
>
> Oh, well...
>
> Wes C.

Are you not aware of the New River Train excursions that run on CSX between Huntington and Hinton, WV for four days every October? They are not steam excursions, but they are among the longest passenger trains operated in North America. Tickets are already on sale for the 2015 trips.

Rule G...

Thanks for the reminder.

Many years ago. (1971-'72?), John Killoran and others arranged for the very first New River diesel excursions.
Bill Benson had started the Steam Excursions (Reading class T1, #2102, 4-8-4) up the Greenbrier Sub --- to Marlinton, Cass, & Durbin wye.

Bill leased two of the D&H Alco PAs for the New River train. C&O engineer, Ed Hall, who also ran the steam trips was the engineer.
Those were the First, modern-day, privately operated New River excursions. I've forgotten the PA's engine numbers, maybe Doyle's unit is one that was leased by Benson.

It's obviously a credit to the present operators that CSX continues to invite them back and continues to operate the trains.
The trips they ran with steam are memorable, too.
It also illustrates my point about excursions are NOT inherently unsafe or risky.

ClubCar...do you know the name of the CSX attorney who is so against steam running on their railroad?

It should be noted that the New River trains are now Amtrak operated excursions. CSX just gives them the track to run it on (which already sees regularly schedule Amtrak trains). It also doesn't hurt that the old C&O mainline doesn't see nearly as much traffic as it used to and has no intermodal traffic, so it's a great place for an excursion.

I think another big reason CSX is anti-steam is simply ignorance. Most of the top officials with the company have never been around steam and know nothing about how it works. I once talked with a former CSX track foreman who genuinely thought the rods of steam locomotives would beat up the track, which is why he reckoned they had crews walk the tracks all the time back in the day. This was someone who I would consider great at his job, but I also understood that he's never been around steam so how would he know better.

I wonder how many other misconceptions are out there among high ranking officials that keep steam off the mainlines?

No one has really bashed UP just one employee and whoever keeps him in power. We all wish them best to turn the steam program around and are thrilled that it even exists at that level. Bash UP overall? No way.

I have no idea what may rattle around inside the CSX offices, but for better or worse, lawyers hold a great deal of power and most executives won't cross the corporate legal department. Our society has become so insanely litigious and the judgements so insanely huge that corporate legal basically gets the final say on most decisions. Any private enterprise has to weigh the potential rewards of anything it wants to do against the risk. Steam excursion? Not profitable, not directly related to keeping profitable business, and with all those people around things could go very wrong very fast. If I were an attorney, I'd tell potential clients to turn it down as well.

Then again, I used to work for a VP who - in a moment of frustration at being told he basically couldn't do anything - turned to the corporate legal representation in the room and said, "You're here to advise me of risk. I'm here to run the business." Wanted to turn around and high-five him right there.

Want more steam? Support reigning in the out of control lawsuits.

RickRowlands Wrote:
----------------------------------------------------
>
> So if that is what happened, what could could have
> minimized the fire? One idea could be stronger
> tanks that have higher pressure ratings, giving
> more time for first responders to arrive and cool
> down the cars. Maybe fire departments need to
> start thinking regionally and have strategically
> placed aerial spray planes available with an hour
> or two response time. Getting water or foam on
> the cars in short order may have cut the fire
> short.
What could have minimized the accident? I can't talk about this particular train, but the ones I have run are over 100 cars weighing over 16,000 tons. That is a lot of oil, a lot of momentum force, and difficult to control, even with the best power available. My thought to minimize damage would be to run shorter trains, less oil to involve in a potential derailment/leak/fire, easier for the engineer to control, less momentum if something jumps the track.

Posted from iPhone

Keystone1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ClubCar...do you know the name of the CSX attorney
> who is so against steam running on their railroad?

I do Not Know any attorneys with CSX; this was told to me by an engineer friend who I'm sure heard this from someone in authority as it kind of makes sense.

CSX as a corporation has big takeover threats/offers I believe that have Jacksonville's attention and focus now.