Western Railroad Discussion > An analysis of California traffic density-

After analyzing UP and BNSF 2005 freight traffic density data for California, here are some observations-

Busiest segment- BNSF from Daggett to Barstow- 170 MGT (millions of gross tons per mile per year) + UP trackage rights (t.r.) 43 MGT= 213 MGT. That's up from 86 MGT in 1980 and 117 in 1994. You won't see 200+ MGT anywhere else except between the Powder River Basin and Kansas City (UP)/Lincoln (BNSF)/Omaha (UP). No wonder they'll have a third track soon. BNSF shows this as having 108 trains per day (TPD). I haven't seen any UP TPD info since the Trains "Map of the Month" shortly after 9/11/2001. At that time, the busiest UP segment in California was Niland to Colton with 37 TPD.

Busiest UP segment- 97 MGT (shown as between Colton Xing and West Colton, but it's the segment between the junction of the Palmdale Cutoff (28 MGT) and the Sunset Route (69 MGT) and West Colton Yard- "Pepper Street". That's not a very long segment. The paired track thru Pomona is 95 MGT, although technically it's 2 lines, the Alhambra and LA Subdivisions. Then there's from Roseville to Sacramento- UP 82 MGT + BNSF t.r. 4 MGT= 86 MGT. For mountain grades with a 2% grade and considerable single track- there's nowhere like Tehachapi, with UP 26 MGT + BNSF t.r. 57 MGT (28 TPD)= 83 MGT. The UP-BNSF ratio is 1:2.2 tonnage wise, an even higher ratio trainwise. Other than Pepper Street, the busiest pure UP segment (note all these UP are ex-SP segments!) is the Sunset Route between Niland and Colton at 83 MGT. That's up from 45 MGT in 1980, 52 in 1993.

Back to BNSF- busiest mountain grade- it's the Needles Subdivision over Ash Hill at 170 MGT, 80 TPD. That's up from 53 MGT in 1980, 90 in 1994! Second busiest is Cajon Pass with 131 MGT (slightly more tonnage north of Victorville) + UP t.r. 35 MGT= 166 MGT. BNSF shows 90 TPD, which would mean more TPD than Ash Hill due to helper moves and perhaps shorter trains between LA and Barstow, before being classified and combined into longer trains. With 2.2% grades and that many trains, the third track is definitely needed!

Busiest crossing- Colton Xing has UP 118 MGT (83 Sunset Route and 35 t.r. on BNSF's Cajon Sub) + BNSF 102 MGT= 220 MGT- definitely a good spot for a grade-separated crossing! There is only slightly less traffic at the wye west of Barstow Yard, but it's hard to come up with a number because traffic goes around all three legs of the wye. Stockton Xing is 91 MGT (69 combined ex-SP and ex-WP from the north + 22 BNSF from the west, 34 TPD with Amtrak's San Joaquin passenger trains). How does Calwa compare? BNSF 52 MGT (40 TPD incl. Amtrak) + UP 26 MGT= 78 MGT. Marysville (Binney Jct.) shows 75 MGT (UP + BNSF) from the north, but 79 MGT (UP + BNSF) from the south. Anyone have an explanation?

And how does the Alameda Corridor "stack up"? 81 MGT (45 UP + 36 BNSF, with 17 BNSF TPD).

What mainline's tonnage has increased the most since 1980? Over this 25-year span, ex-Santa Fe's 3rd District from Fullerton to Riverside has increased 3.8 times since 1980, partly at the expense of the abandoned 2nd District thru Pasadena. ATSF/BNSF from Cadiz to Needles has gone up 3.3 times. The Alameda Corridor (L.A. to the harbor) is up 3 times the combined tonnage of the previous SP (2 lines), ATSF and UP. Keddie to Marysville (ex-WP Feather River Canyon) is up 2.8 times and Keddie to Nevada border is up 2.6 times (note parallel ex-SP Donner Pass is down 15%!). FRC and Donner combined is up 1.5 times. The ex-WP, now BNSF, north of Keddie to the Oregon border is up 2.5 times. The ex-WP Marysville to Sacramento is up 2.2 times (1.9 times when combined with ex-SP Marysville-Roseville). Up 1.8 times (80%) is Cajon Pass, the Sunset Route from Yuma to Colton, and the ex-SP from Sacramento to Stockton (the parallel ex-WP is down 25%). Tehachapi is up 1.4 times (ATSF/BNSF doubled, SP/UP down 20%). Bay Area tonnage has not grown like the Southern California area. Intermodal traffic is up, but manufacturing and perishables have declined. Only 2 of SP + WP's 4 routes to/from the east are now in use, and tonnage is up less than 10%. BNSF traffic is up 1.4 times and now moves over 2 routes (ex-ATSF and now ex-SP via Davis). That leaves UP via Las Vegas and ex-SP via Dunsmuir, both up 1.2 times, and the ex-SP Palmdale Cutoff (West Colton-Palmdale) up 1.1 times (10%).

Secondary main lines have not fared very well in the past 25 years! The ex-ATSF 4th District-San Diego Sub tonnage from Orange to Oceanside is down 40%, the ex-SP Coast Line is down 27% between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo and the ex-SP Saugus Line (Burbank-Palmdale) is down 10%. These lines are now out of service, abandoned, or sold to a shortline- ex-SP Modoc (Alturas-Wendel), West Valley Line (Davis-Tehama), West Side Line (Fresno-Tracy), Mococo Line (Tracy-Martinez), Tracy Line (Tracy-Niles), Siskiyou Line (Black Butte to Oregon border), and Northwestern Pacific (Schellville to Eureka); ex-WP Oakland Sub (Niles to Oakland) and ex-ATSF Cadiz Sub (Cadiz to Arizona border), 2nd District-Pasadena Sub, and Harbor Sub (L.A. to Watson). Then there's the ex-SP El Centro Sub, Niland to Calexico, now up to 5MGT from 1.0MGT. Help me on this one. The perishables are down (sugar beets are gone from the rails), but feed grain is up. Does that account for a five-fold increase, or is the 1980 tonnage figure too low?

mapboy

Mapboy - great info! Thanks for digging this up and doing the comparisons. It is good to see that the railroads have gained so much traffic overall.

While adding additional main tracks is critical, and underway, the other component is terminal expansion. BNSF seems to really be the leader in this category. This includes the Oakland Gateway (all new), the new ramp east of Stockton; continued expansions at San Bernardino and Hobart, and the planned new ramp at Shafter. They are also doing everything they can to get the ICTF South off the ground, making the terminal as green as possible; we'll see if they succeed and can get the adjoining residential areas to go along. That will add capacity of up to another (+/-)1 million lifts per year if they can pull it off, freeing up Hobart to focus almost exclusively on IMC, truckload and ltl intermodal. Also, they are focused on a new ramp at either the SCLA in Victorville or around Barstow, again adding tremendous capacity. BNSF has done less for carload freight, and seems to have reached capacity in that category, at least in the Barstow/Southern California area. An expansion at Barstow may be the most important component of that. Their San Diego drop may be largely attributed to the loss of bulk shipments out of San Diego. With talk of a possible rail line into Otay Mesa to add to carload freight, both siding and logistics-park style, plus expansion of the Toyota facility east of TJ, the Surf Line should see more freight in the future, unless the SDIV line becomes viable, or the NIMBY's in San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Del Mar stop expansion of the Surf Line, or can at least limit it to no more freights along the coast. But BNSF looks to be in pretty good shape, IF they can get that ICTF South.

UP is a different story. They have made some good moves in the past, with added intermodal capacity at Oakland and Lathrop, but are out of room in the LA Basin. Their chances for land purchases in the Inland Empire are pretty much dead. Any conversion of Mira Loma into an intermodal ramp would bring such an uproar from residents to the south and northeast that it is very unlikely to happen. So they need to move either to Beaumont/Banning or Victorville/Barstow. While that will work for the expanding desert distribution centers, it will likely leave them short of capacity in the Basin itself. Their big problem is carload freight in the LA Basin, and they will need to move to a more costly network of boutique terminals since they cannot expand West Colton.

All in all, should be for interesting future out west!

Great stuff mapboy! Just to add to a couple of your comments (see below):

mapboy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> After analyzing UP and BNSF 2005 freight traffic
> density data for California, here are some
> observations-
>
> Busiest segment- BNSF from Daggett to Barstow- 170
> MGT (millions of gross tons per mile per year) +
> UP trackage rights (t.r.) 43 MGT= 213 MGT. That's
> up from 86 MGT in 1980 and 117 in 1994. You won't
> see 200+ MGT anywhere else except between the
> Powder River Basin and Kansas City (UP)/Lincoln
> (BNSF)/Omaha (UP). No wonder they'll have a third
> track soon. BNSF shows this as having 108 trains
> per day (TPD). I haven't seen any UP TPD info
> since the Trains "Map of the Month" shortly after
> 9/11/2001. At that time, the busiest UP segment
> in California was Niland to Colton with 37 TPD.

Actually Trains Mag put out a UP trains per day map in the July 2004 issue based off of late 2003 traffic. However, adjusting that map based off the fact that UP started routing pretty much all of the Chicago-LA intermodal traffic this way after 2003, the 43 MGT traffic between Barstow and Daggett from the UP should roughly translate to 20 (25 on some days) trains per day. FYI...this would put traffic levels between Vegas and Lynndyl at 25 (30 on some days) trains per day! The Barstow-Daggett section of the transcon will definitely need that triple track with all of the growth in intermodal expected by both the BNSF and the UP out of southern CA!

>
> Busiest UP segment- 97 MGT (shown as between
> Colton Xing and West Colton, but it's the segment
> between the junction of the Palmdale Cutoff (28
> MGT) and the Sunset Route (69 MGT) and West Colton
> Yard- "Pepper Street". That's not a very long
> segment. The paired track thru Pomona is 95 MGT,
> although technically it's 2 lines, the Alhambra
> and LA Subdivisions. Then there's from Roseville
> to Sacramento- UP 82 MGT + BNSF t.r. 4 MGT= 86
> MGT. For mountain grades with a 2% grade and
> considerable single track- there's nowhere like
> Tehachapi, with UP 26 MGT + BNSF t.r. 57 MGT (28
> TPD)= 83 MGT. The UP-BNSF ratio is 1:2.2 tonnage
> wise, an even higher ratio trainwise. Other than
> Pepper Street, the busiest pure UP segment (note
> all these UP are ex-SP segments!) is the Sunset
> Route between Niland and Colton at 83 MGT. That's
> up from 45 MGT in 1980, 52 in 1993.
>
> Back to BNSF- busiest mountain grade- it's the
> Needles Subdivision over Ash Hill at 170 MGT, 80
> TPD. That's up from 53 MGT in 1980, 90 in 1994!
> Second busiest is Cajon Pass with 131 MGT
> (slightly more tonnage north of Victorville) + UP
> t.r. 35 MGT= 166 MGT. BNSF shows 90 TPD, which
> would mean more TPD than Ash Hill due to helper
> moves and perhaps shorter trains between LA and
> Barstow, before being classified and combined into
> longer trains. With 2.2% grades and that many
> trains, the third track is definitely needed!
>
> Busiest crossing- Colton Xing has UP 118 MGT (83
> Sunset Route and 35 t.r. on BNSF's Cajon Sub) +
> BNSF 102 MGT= 220 MGT- definitely a good spot for
> a grade-separated crossing! There is only
> slightly less traffic at the wye west of Barstow
> Yard, but it's hard to come up with a number
> because traffic goes around all three legs of the
> wye. Stockton Xing is 91 MGT (69 combined ex-SP
> and ex-WP from the north + 22 BNSF from the west,
> 34 TPD with Amtrak's San Joaquin passenger
> trains). How does Calwa compare? BNSF 52 MGT (40
> TPD incl. Amtrak) + UP 26 MGT= 78 MGT. Marysville
> (Binney Jct.) shows 75 MGT (UP + BNSF) from the
> north, but 79 MGT (UP + BNSF) from the south.
> Anyone have an explanation?
>
> And how does the Alameda Corridor "stack up"? 81
> MGT (45 UP + 36 BNSF, with 17 BNSF TPD).
>
> What mainline's tonnage has increased the most
> since 1980? Over this 25-year span, ex-Santa Fe's
> 3rd District from Fullerton to Riverside has
> increased 3.8 times since 1980, partly at the
> expense of the abandoned 2nd District thru
> Pasadena. ATSF/BNSF from Cadiz to Needles has
> gone up 3.3 times. The Alameda Corridor (L.A. to
> the harbor) is up 3 times the combined tonnage of
> the previous SP (2 lines), ATSF and UP. Keddie to
> Marysville (ex-WP Feather River Canyon) is up 2.8
> times and Keddie to Nevada border is up 2.6 times
> (note parallel ex-SP Donner Pass is down 15%!).

I guess it's not to surprising given the growth in international intermodal business that the FRC would see the growth vs Donner. Interesting nonetheless.

> FRC and Donner combined is up 1.5 times. The
> ex-WP, now BNSF, north of Keddie to the Oregon
> border is up 2.5 times. The ex-WP Marysville to
> Sacramento is up 2.2 times (1.9 times when
> combined with ex-SP Marysville-Roseville). Up 1.8
> times (80%) is Cajon Pass, the Sunset Route from
> Yuma to Colton, and the ex-SP from Sacramento to
> Stockton (the parallel ex-WP is down 25%).
> Tehachapi is up 1.4 times (ATSF/BNSF doubled,
> SP/UP down 20%). Bay Area tonnage has not grown
> like the Southern California area. Intermodal
> traffic is up, but manufacturing and perishables
> have declined. Only 2 of SP + WP's 4 routes
> to/from the east are now in use, and tonnage is up
> less than 10%. BNSF traffic is up 1.4 times and
> now moves over 2 routes (ex-ATSF and now ex-SP via
> Davis). That leaves UP via Las Vegas and ex-SP
> via Dunsmuir, both up 1.2 times, and the ex-SP
> Palmdale Cutoff (West Colton-Palmdale) up 1.1
> times (10%).
>
> Secondary main lines have not fared very well in
> the past 25 years! The ex-ATSF 4th District-San
> Diego Sub tonnage from Orange to Oceanside is down
> 40%, the ex-SP Coast Line is down 27% between
> Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo and the ex-SP
> Saugus Line (Burbank-Palmdale) is down 10%. These
> lines are now out of service, abandoned, or sold
> to a shortline- ex-SP Modoc (Alturas-Wendel), West
> Valley Line (Davis-Tehama), West Side Line
> (Fresno-Tracy), Mococo Line (Tracy-Martinez),
> Tracy Line (Tracy-Niles), Siskiyou Line (Black
> Butte to Oregon border), and Northwestern Pacific
> (Schellville to Eureka); ex-WP Oakland Sub (Niles
> to Oakland) and ex-ATSF Cadiz Sub (Cadiz to
> Arizona border), 2nd District-Pasadena Sub, and
> Harbor Sub (L.A. to Watson). Then there's the
> ex-SP El Centro Sub, Niland to Calexico, now up to
> 5MGT from 1.0MGT. Help me on this one. The
> perishables are down (sugar beets are gone from
> the rails), but feed grain is up. Does that
> account for a five-fold increase, or is the 1980
> tonnage figure too low?
>
> mapboy

Great stuff once again mapboy!

Aaron

So where do you find the data?

timz Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So where do you find the data?

The State of California put out a 1980 traffic density map. 2005 data is from BNSF and UP sources.

mapboy

The Coast line is hopping now. I have not seen this much traffic for a while. Lots of freights north and south bound right after the am rush of Metrolink, and I hear a lot at night.