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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – You probably know that I’m a lover of trains.
I’ve taken two train trips already this year. In coach, from Chicago to New York… and in a sleeping compartment from Chicago to New Orleans.
Perhaps you’d heard in the news that the new train from Chicago to Milwaukee and St. Paul – the Borealis – was cancelled for a few days last month because the coaches had to be taken out of service over safety concerns. I know the reason why, and saw the issue first hand on my trip to New York.
It was snowing during my trip, and as the train went over the snow covered tracks a large amount of snow gets into the vestibules (the space between one car and the next). If you were walking between cars, the vestibules became an icy, slippery mess.
The coach attendants bring bags of rock salt onto the train, and before each station they shovel it onto the vestibule floor. It’s an effective way to melt the ice. But… at the end of the train’s run, the vestibule floor needs to be hosed off to get the rock salt residue out. That wasn’t happening for the Borealis train. At the end of the run in St. Paul, Amtrak doesn’t have a train servicing facility. The train cars just sit there overnight until the next day’s run to Chicago. And in Chicago, where trains are serviced, water can’t be used in the winter because it will freeze. So the melted rock salt just sits there, and eventually melts between the coaches. Over the course of the winter, the rock salt got between the cars and has corroded the wheels and couplers. Some of the passenger cars are damaged beyond repair.
This, obviously, is no way to run a railroad. The rock salt damage has impacted at least 50 coaches based in Chicago and in Oregon. Amtrak is towing some of them to their repair facility in Indiana to assess whether they can be rebuilt or if they’ll be scrapped. Older equipment has been pressed back into service. Some days busses take the place of trains. All of this is bad for business. And it it Wisconsin taxpayers who make up the difference if ticket sales don’t cover expenses.
I love trains. If only we could find people who were competent to run them.
Chris Conley
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