A daring proposal to scale back the variety of main freight railroads may open the door for a dramatic enlargement of rail passenger service in fast-growing Atlanta.
Proponents see the merger of Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) and Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) to create the primary transcontinental railroad as a once-in-a-generation alternative to leverage native help and remodel the Atlanta metroplex passenger rail community.
A shift of hundreds of commuters from highway to rail would probably additionally enhance fluidity for trucking logistics within the metropolis, a crossroads of business within the Deep South.
The rail merger is at present being evaluated by the Floor Transportation Board, which isn’t anticipated to rule on the $85-billion consolidation till 2027.
The tie-up has attracted its share of detractors who declare the monopolistic results of shrinking the variety of U.S. Class I carriers will elevate charges and degrade service for shippers. However different stakeholders see a major probability to extract priceless concessions. Canadian Nationwide (NYSE: CNI) not too long ago did simply that in an entry settlement that may increase its operations to the Mexican border whereas giving UP-NS entry to a route across the congested hub of Chicago.
It’s exactly that ‘belt line’ bypass an embryonic coalition desires to convey to Atlanta, which might release a whole lot of miles of monitor for passenger trains and assist skinny out the town’s legendary site visitors jam.
Just like the I-285 interstate, the concept first envisioned a decade in the past by Mark Hitchcock of Jacobs Engineering would divert freight trains that at present run by the guts of Atlanta onto current monitor operated by NS and CSX (NASDAQ: CSX) in a U-shape route across the metropolis. If 80% of freight trains have been diverted, it will open up capability for 14 commuter rail traces, Hitchcock stated in an interview with the native Saporta Report.
The merger course of may assist set up an working settlement between NS and CSX, and kickstart building of about 12 miles of latest monitor in Atlanta’s southeastern area wanted to finish the bypass, stated Hitchcock, a member of the nonprofit Atlanta Design Roundtable backing the mission.
Shifting hundreds of commuters from highway to rail will enhance the fluidity for freight logistics in and round Atlanta, a enterprise crossroads of the South. Hitchcock admits it’s no small carry, and in contrast growth on the identical magnitude of constructing Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Worldwide Airport, with a price ticket of as a lot as $6 billion. However that’s a cut price in comparison with the $90 billion price ticket a Georgia State Home committee final week estimated the state would want to spend on roads by 2050 to maintain up with rising truck quantity and freeway repairs.
“We’re going to double the quantity of freight between now and 2050,” Hitchcock stated. “I don’t assume we are able to construct our method out of it. Proper now, if there’s no change, 86% of all freight might be going by truck.”
Mayor Andre Dickens has expressed curiosity within the bypass, and related the nonprofit with a regional fee for additional discussions. Presumably, political help may very well be cultivated after Union Pacific in its merger functions stated it plans to maneuver greater than 500 administration jobs from NS headquarters in Atlanta to its personal base in Omaha.
“This can be a 50-year imaginative and prescient,” Hitchcock stated, and in contrast it to the Georgia Highway Enchancment Plan (GRIP) launched in 1989 that’s 72% p.c full. “Management must come from the state.”
Stakeholders have till Sept. 4 to signal on to the merger analysis course of with the STB.
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