Red Line Chronicle - Chapter 7 - Project Goes Under the Knife

Photo by Michael Drummond

Like a thoroughbred that has run its last race and ended short of the finish line with two broken legs, the Red Line Regional Rail project is about to go into surgery with Norfolk Southern as the surgeon.  Whether the project makes it back to the track or is put out to pasture is what's at stake.

Red Line supporters don't seem ready to admit the project is on its last legs, but make no mistake this is going to be one expensive doctor's visit for taxpayers.

Norfolk Southern plans to embark on a computer modeling project that will take a year - possibly more. The possible duration depends on who you want to believe. Norfolk Southern says it could be multiple years while Mayor Woods said at the last Davidson town meeting that it might be up to a year.

Regardless of who's right, it will still be expensive. Here are some numbers one could presume are in the ballpark just to provide a frame of reference. The technology modeling work will require IT personnel. It would seem reasonable to expect these to be either internal to Norfolk Southern or external from a consulting company. Using pretty standard rates for specialized technologists, doing the modeling could run between $100/hr and $200/hr. At 1880 hrs/year that comes out to $188k - $376k for one technology worker for one year. (1880 hrs per year is 10 holidays and 3 weeks vacation.)

You can do the math from there, but do not be surprised if the cost of this study tops $1 million.

To accurately complete this study Norfolk Southerns will likely request information that the Red Line Task Force and its consultants do not have or at least have not made readily available to this point. Gathering this information will take time and add additional cost. Things like:

• Details on proposed schedules of commuter trains.
• Numbers of trains per day, both weekday and weekend.
• Specifics on expected new freight oriented development along the line.
• Sign-off on various assumptions like who has priority when there are scheduling conflicts, who does any construction work, who controls access, etc...(Hint: Norfolk Southern will be the beneficiary of all these assumptions.)

Once all the required information is gathered, then the modeling can begin. However, there are only a few possible outcomes.

Outcome #1: NS says everything the Red Line project has done is solid, and there are no additional costs. Probability: Almost nil. The series of letters previously sent by the company indicates they have serious issues with the project. It is hard to see that they will find everything to be fine once they see all the details, and run some models.

Outcome #2: NS says the impact to their capacity is not manageable and the project dies or goes back on the shelf. Probability: Significant. As Paul Morris from NCDOT stated in his comments to DavidsonNews.net, NS is looking at the O line (their name for the track) as a way to bypass long, slow, heavy trains off of their mainline in the future. There is single track proposed for much of the Red Line project - including the entire 1 mile stretch through the heart of Davidson. One could easily see NS saying the long, slow, heavy trains planned for the future of this line are incompatible with sharing a single track with fast moving commuter trains. Yes, they have shared track on other projects in other areas. That does not mean their future expectations for this section of track would allow the same here.

Outcome #3: NS says the impact to their capacity is manageable if the Red Line makes some significant changes or compensates NS for the lost capacity. Probability: High. Possibly not wanting to just say "No", Norfolk Southern could outline changes that need to be made to the plan to make it workable. These could include things like more sidings or longer stretches of double tracking to accommodate their longer trains and commuter trains being able to pass more easily. They could also cap the number of commuter trains at something lower than planned by the RLRR project - reducing its usefulness. Or, they could simply ask to be compensated more for the lost capacity. Any of these scenarios might dramatically increase the cost making any financing plan unworkable.

Ironically, one of the talking points the project's supporters have been using seems to be coming back to haunt them. In the numerous meetings over the past six months, the widening of the Panama Canal and the pending arrival of super cargo ships on the East Coast has often been used as a justification for this project. The story goes that these ships will increase the need for rail freight in this region and the Red Line corridor would play a part in addressing that need. It now seems that Norfolk Southern may be intending to use this line to accommodate these longer slower trains, possibly reducing the need to dramatically increase the speed capacity of their O-line.

This very expensive study may just tell them what they already know, that the Red Line Regional Rail project does not fit with the plans for their line.

It would have been nice if the leaders of the Red Line project had thought to figure that out first rather than last.