Railroaders' Nostalgia > Mad Dog Chronicle # 185 Reroute of Amtrak 11/14

The Story of the reroute of Amtrak trains 11/14 from the West Valley to the East Valley via Sacramento

During all of the discussions of the recent bridge fire at the approach trestle to the American River Bridge on the UP Martinez Sub the subject of the former routing of 11/14 on the West Valley came up several times. Here is the story about how these trains moved over to the East Valley and began to serve Sacramento, CA back in 1982.

For easy reference, I have scanned the Martinez Sub timetable pages from both SP TT #21 and #22. You will note that on TT #21 there is time shown for 11/14 at Davis but not at Sacramento.
Three months later on TT #22 time is shown at both Davis and at Sacramento for 11/14.

The impetus for the reroute of Amtrak 11/14 was also an Adrianna Gianturco/Caltrans initiative to which Amtrak, always playing politics, responded to. The negotiations with the SP covering this reroute had started before the Medflyer arbitration case. Ultimately, it took another National Arbitration Panel action to resolve this reroute. This one took longer. At one point, Amtrak made a settlement offer to the SP. They would provide most of the funds required to construct a second main line as a bypass track around Roseville. SP should have jumped at this offer. But the SP wanted to hold out for all of the money required to construct this bypass. I think that Amtrak offered two million, but the cost of construction was 2.5 million. (the figures could have been 3 million and 3.5 million)

In any case, Krebs refused to compromise on this point. The arbitration proceeded. The SP got creamed once again. SP was ordered to agree to the reroute and the arbitration panel gave the SP nothing at all. As a result of the NAP decision in this case, Amtrak trains 11 and 14 now were shifted off of the West Valley line of the Sacramento Division, no longer running through Corning and Williams between Tehema and Davis as they always had during SP operation of the Cascade and the Shasta Daylight. Instead, they now operated on the Sacramento Divisions East Valley line between Tehema, Roseville, Sacramento and Davis. This routing was to continue until after the Union Pacific acquisition of the SP. Once a connection between the East Valley line and the former WP at Binney Jct was constructed, the preferred route for 11/14 bypassed Roseville. The train now usually operates between Binney Jct and Hagan via the Old WP, rejoining the Martinez Subdivision just before the Sacramento passenger station.

And the bypass track at Roseville?? That was finally constructed in conjunction with the UP rebuilding of the yard complex at Roseville nineteen years after it should have been built.


National Arbitration Panel

Now a brief word about the National Arbitration Panel, the arbitration mechanism under all railroad contracts with Amtrak up until the UP?Amtrak contract of 2000. This was a permanent three member, standing arbitration panel. One member chosen by Amtrak, one member chosen by the AAR to represent all of the Amtrak host carriers and a third member chosen by the first two members. As long as I was involved, it appeared to me that this panel was rather obviously tilted in favor of Amtrak. Partly as a result of this, the SP took very few cases to arbitration. I actually know of only two NAP cases involving the SP for which there were published decisions. There had been a case between SP and Amtrak involving the initiation of Dallas/Houston service in the very early 1970s. However, neither side liked the panels proposed decision. Amtrak asked to withdraw the case from the NAP and the SP agreed. As a result, the NAP's proposed decision was never published.

Amtrak passenger service between Dallas and Houston was only started as the result of a negotiated agreement between the SP and Amtrak. That negotiation occurred in August of 1988. The service began soon after that and lasted until the Amtrak reductions that came during the mid 1990s during the time Tom Downs was the Amtrak President. I will cover this in more detail in a future MDC

I wrote this once before in a MDC about Jim Larson, Amtrak's Vice President of Contracts. Larson would not go to a arbitration proceeding unless he had a very high probability of winning.

mdo

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1982, Mike.

WAF Wrote:
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> 1982, Mike.


Um, yes 1982, not enough coffee yet. I fixed the original. Like I said, a work in progress.

MDC # 185 is now complete. Questions, anyone?

mdo Wrote:
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> MDC # 185 is now complete. Questions, anyone?

At the time this transfer took place, how many freight movements operated on the West Valley and East Valley lines? It was my impression that the East Valley line had significantly more freight traffic. Was freight interference on the East Valley line routing much of an issue?

Also, within a few years of the shift, the maximum authorized speed on the West Valley went from 70 to 40. Were there any significant savings in not having to maintain the West Valley line for Amtrak's 70 MPH operation?

Thanks -

- gb -

What impact did the switch of 11 and 14 to the East Valley line have on the SP's ultimate leasing of the West Valley line to California Northern to run what essentially is a local branch-line rather than through main-line operation? I believe that the West Valley traditionally had some hot pig trains between the Bay Area and Portland as well as through manifests. They now all run (to the degree that they still exist) via the East Valley. Did taking Amtrak off the West Valley affect the level of maintenance, as it was no longer necessary to keep the line at passenger speeds (70 or 79 mph)? If so, did that affect using it for what we would now call intermodal trains, with the result that that traffic also declined? Was losing Amtrak the beginning of the decline of the line, or was it bound to go downhill anyway--because of the recession, the loss of traffic, or other things? Did SP think about that aspect when it fought to prevent the change? I'm sure there are additional questions here that I haven't yet thought about.

West Valley through freights had the LABRF and a couple of MUG trains to Oregon. Coming south was the BROAT or EUOAY or both.

Goatboat Wrote:
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>>
> At the time this transfer took place, how many
> freight movements operated on the West Valley and
> East Valley lines? It was my impression that the
> East Valley line had significantly more freight
> traffic. Was freight interference on the East
> Valley line routing much of an issue?
>
Although the SP Sacramento Division Dispatchers tended to use the East Valley and the West Valley as an early version of paired track with Westbound manifest trains using the West Valley side to Davis and Eastbound manifest trains leaving Roseville using the East Valley line, there were many exceptions. LA - Portland intermodal traffic tended to stay on the East Valley in both directions and Bay Area - Portland intermodal traffic stayed on the West Valley as a general rule. However there were exceptions even for the intermodal traffic. Most of the time there was considerably more traffic on the East Valley side.

Freight interference on the East Valley as well as the Martinez Sub, as well as inteference with the yard operations at Roseville, was a big reason for SP's oposition to the reroute.


> Also, within a few years of the shift, the maximum
> authorized speed on the West Valley went from 70
> to 40. Were there any significant savings in not
> having to maintain the West Valley line for
> Amtrak's 70 MPH operation?

Yes, SP was able to stretch out tie renewal on the West Valley. But, on the other hand, more ties had to go in sooner on the East Valley side. In the end, SP probably saved some maintenance dollars as a result of the reroute. However I doubt that this was significant

mdo

BobB Wrote:
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> What impact did the switch of 11 and 14 to the
> East Valley line have on the SP's ultimate leasing
> of the West Valley line to California Northern to
> run what essentially is a local branch-line rather
> than through main-line operation? I believe that
> the West Valley traditionally had some hot pig
> trains between the Bay Area and Portland as well
> as through manifests. They now all run (to the
> degree that they still exist) via the East Valley.
> Did taking Amtrak off the West Valley affect the
> level of maintenance, as it was no longer
> necessary to keep the line at passenger speeds (70
> or 79 mph)? If so, did that affect using it for
> what we would now call intermodal trains, with the
> result that that traffic also declined? Was
> losing Amtrak the beginning of the decline of the
> line, or was it bound to go downhill
> anyway--because of the recession, the loss of
> traffic, or other things? Did SP think about that
> aspect when it fought to prevent the change? I'm
> sure there are additional questions here that I
> haven't yet thought about.

Some of your questions were answered in the posts above. Not having to deal with Amtrak made it much easier to lease the West Valley line to the California Northern.

The impact of speed reductions from 60 to 40 mph on the intermodal trains that remained on the West Valley did not add that much to their running time. By the time that we entered into the lease to the short line, the auto trafffic carried on the OABRT had all disappeared since all of SP's California auto assembly plants had closed. The intermodal traffic was not really that hot either.

The "decline of the line" was more than anything else, the result of the economic downturn ot the early 1980s and the modal shift of both local and through freight traffic to the highway. This decline in traffic ultimately led the SP to the decission that they could handle all the traffic on the East Valley line. I do not think that there was much thought given to this in 1981. It was the end of the first quarte of 1982 before the SP woke up to the longer range implications of the recession and the modal shift taking place.

The Short Line efforts came relatively late to the SP; not until 1992.

mdo

I rode Houston - Dallas one time and said never again. Somewhere south of Dallas the train slowed to about 10 mph as it eased its way through yards, industrial areas and just plain slow and we were on time.

MDO
The west valley line was a political Nemesis before I became involved as DE on the Sacto Div. The problem dated back to the construction of the Roseville Yard in 1950 which changed the traffic patterns to the north from the West valley to the East valley. In the very same year that the yard was under construction many miles of new 132HF rail was laid on this line much to the consternation of Chairman DJR. He never failed to make the comment on every trip about the stupidity of putting this resource in this line instead of the East Valley. I was informed early by the VPO to answer, if quizzed, that this line did not require any heavy maintenance and with minimum resources it could be maintained. This was a falsehood as the tie condition in 1965 was already starting to deteriorate and ballast was Keg Pit cinders that were decomposing. Any work done on this track including spotting in ties was scheduled when the chairman was not going to transverse it until the work had aged.
It was not until the arrival of the FRA that we were forced to drop the class of the Track from Class 5 (max passenger 80mph) to Class 4 (max passenger 60mph) that the passenger trains were effected.
When RDB became Ass't Supt he figured to use this track as a southbound main and the east valley as a northbound main until I convinced him the more tonnage he put down the West Valley the slower they would eventually go.
It was about this time we had to slow order Thomes Creek Bridge which I understand now is out of service.
The west valley line was never high on the maintenance list after 1950.
As MDO states there were othe considerations for the rerouting of 11/14 but it was not feasable by then to get the track speed back to 79mph.

Yep, the Thomes Bridge has one steel tube style bent dropped about a foot ont he west side, all the others look good. Track has been upgraded (tie replacements and fresh rock) on either side of the bridge. There is a photo of the dip in the TO archives someplace, looked exactly the saem last time I checked in January.

Seemed like the West Valley side complemented what's now called the I-5 Corridor, while the East Valley seemed like a natural for work in Roseville yard. Thinking about the new owners and the larger east-west mainline, the two Valley lines become reversed, traffic would 'flow' (pun intended) through the yard and then onto the West Valley, granted it doesn't work that way. There's just too much track and only one owner. The CNF does seem to be doing very well with existing and new traffic generators.