Re: (rshsdepot) Phoenix may lose rail-passenger links

["Paul S. Luchter" <luckyshow_@_mindspring.com>]

What kind of real estate? Houses 4' 8½" wide?
- -----Original Message-----
From: James Dent <james.dent_@_itochu.com>
To: RSHS List <rshsdepot_@_lists.railfan.net>
Date: Thursday, May 03, 2001 10:02 AM
Subject: (rshsdepot) Phoenix may lose rail-passenger links


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>From the Arizona Republic...
>Includes mention of the depot in Hyder, AZ
>
>Return to a track-less desert?
>
>Mark Henle/The Arizona Republic
>
>Picture 1 (0502tracks):
>Lloyd Clark searches for date nails on the ties of the Union Pacific
>Railroad tracks west of Hyder.
>
>Mary Jo Pitzl
>The Arizona Republic
>May. 2, 2001
>
>It's been nearly five years since the last Amtrak passenger train pulled
out
>of town.
>
>Now the track's owner wants to pull up the rails, severing - possibly
>forever - any rail-passenger links with Phoenix.
>
>Union Pacific Railroad plans to abandon 76 miles of track west of the
>Phoenix metro area. The rusting track stretches across empty desert from
>just west of Palo Verde to the tiny town of Roll in southwestern Arizona.
>
>The railroad says the unused track and the land it runs on could be more
>profitable as real estate and it hopes to complete the abandonment by the
>end of the year.
>
>Rail advocates say that would be a step backward and are scrambling to
>interest state officials in buying the track. That would keep options open
>for a rail link between Phoenix and Los Angeles, they say.
>
>"Phoenix is limiting itself to automotive or air transportation," laments
>Lloyd Clark, a member of the Arizona Rail Passengers Association and a
>lifelong train buff.
>
>Rail provides an alternative way to travel, an option that will be
>increasingly important as air and road gridlock worsens, rail officials
say.
>
>"We're turning more and more to rail to solve some of our transportation
>problems," said Debbie Hare, an Amtrak spokesman.
>
>But the hopes for a hero, swooping in faster than a speeding bullet train,
>are slim.
>
>The Arizona Department of Transportation is interested, but won't go it
>alone. A partnership with Amtrak could be one way to cover the $25 million
>needed to restore the deteriorating track to service, says Joe Neblett,
>state rail planner at ADOT.
>
>But Amtrak officials, while interested in returning passenger service to
the
>nation's sixth-largest city, don't have any money to back it up.
>
>"We continue to discuss this issue with the state," Hare said. "Amtrak is
>not in a financial position to help this situation."
>
>Things could change, she said. If Congress approves a high-speed rail
>investment bill, and if the Los Angeles-to-Phoenix link were designated a
>high-speed rail corridor, it could get federal dollars, Hare said. But that
>link is not on the list of 11 potential high-speed corridors.
>
>The track west of Phoenix essentially has not been used since June 1996,
>when Amtrak's Sunset Limited made its last run from Tucson to Phoenix and
on
>to Los Angeles. Since then, Amtrak has served Phoenix by busing passengers
>to and from Tucson, where the Sunset Limited travels on the Union Pacific's
>mainline.
>
>This summer, a station is slated to open at Maricopa, the closest the
>mainline runs to the metro area. Amtrak may install a passenger stop at the
>station.
>
>Gov. Jane Hull's Vision 21 transportation task force has discussed the need
>to preserve rail corridors so the state has transportation alternatives,
but
>has not yet made specific recommendations.
>
>Rail advocates say the time to act is now, before the steel rail is pulled
>up for recycling and the wooden ties sold as scrap.
>
>Across the United States, transportation agencies are buying up rail
>corridors and either preserving them for future use or putting them to
>immediate work hauling passengers and freight. From the San Francisco-San
>Jose corridor in California, to Salt Lake City, to a 14-mile segment of
rail
>in Boise, Idaho, Union Pacific has sold track that then is used for local
>and regional service, railroad spokesman Mike Furtney said.
>
>"It's a full-time business back at UP (headquarters) in Omaha dealing with
>transit issues," Furtney said.
>
>Even in Arizona, there is some interest in using the railroad's track from
>Phoenix southeast to Picacho and down to Tucson for commuter rail, Furtney
>said.
>
>But west of town, the greatest interest comes from people with big dreams
>and shallow pockets.
>
>"I think it would be a crime if we let the UP abandon that section of
>railroad without the state doing something about it," said John Bivens, a
>transportation consultant and member of the Vision 21 task force. "You can
>never get back the right of way and the trackage."
>
>Clark, who last traveled the Phoenix branch a decade ago on a trip to San
>Diego, agrees the cost to build a new rail line would far outstrip the cost
>to preserve the track.
>
>On a scouting trip along the now-silent tracks, Clark points out the World
>War II military training camps that the rail line served.
>
>Gen. George Patton chose the area to prep soldiers for service in North
>Africa, carving out Camp Hyder and Camp Horn from scrubby patches of desert
>just north of the rail line. Troops packed out for desert training,
>expecting Palm Springs but getting creosote flats.
>
>"See that little hill to the right?" Clark asks, pointing to a spot framed
>by the Eagle Tail Mountains. "That's where they had the little amphitheater
>where Bob Hope and Bing Crosby performed."
>
>The track runs through some of the loneliest parts of Arizona. But its
value
>is in the major cities it connects, not the dusty stops, like Kofa, Saddle
>and Gillespie, Clark said.
>
>In Hyder, Kathy Hawthorne staffs a convenience store in what was once the
>Hyder depot. Twenty years ago, the stop provided lucrative business for her
>father-in-law's cafe, where he made $1,000 a day.
>
>"He'd feed the train crews," she said.
>
>The stretch of track is perhaps most famous in recent history for the
Amtrak
>derailment that happened just east of Hyder in 1995. Authorities have never
>pinpointed the cause of the wreck, which killed one person and injured 78
>others.
>
>The Union Pacific's Furtney says the move to abandon the track is driven by
>the property's long-term value as real estate, not by a desire to save on
>upkeep costs. The rail line was downgraded to "storage" status four years
>ago, and has seen little traffic.
>
>"There's no longer commercial viability in it," he said. "As part of this,
>they may come up with a rails-to-trails kind of thing."
>

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