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Monday, December 19, 2022 KANSAS CITY STAR
Today's eEdition BY ERIC ADLER, KEVIN HARDY, AND MIKE HENDRICKS UPDATED DECEMBER 12, 2022 3:59 PM
‘This will kill people’: Small town fights $31B merger of KC Southern, Canadian Pacific
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article268887372.html#storylink=cpy
CAMANCHE, IOWA In this small town on the upper Mississippi River, where railroad tracks slice the length of the community, and freight horns seem as common as bird song, residents fear that life is about to get more dangerous. David Maze, who has lived happily and safely in Camanche since birth, is worried that the trains that roll not far from his clapboard house could one day kill him, maybe his neighbors, and cause his town of 4,300 residents to suffer. His concern is the concern of many here: If a proposed $31 billion merger between two powerful rail companies — Kansas City Southern and Canadian Pacific Railway — receives federal approval in early 2023, the number of so-called “monster” freight trains rumbling through the town each day will triple. Instead of five to 10 trains per day, the merger is expected to bring an average of 21, perhaps more, many of them heavier and at massive lengths. Camanche is not alone. Cities and small towns stretching from Houston to Chicago are similarly afraid of how a merger will affect daily life. But the fight — and its possible consequences — is perhaps sharpest here, where the town along the tracks is only a mile long and train lengths are expected to grow to two, even three miles long. Every time they run, they create a rolling wall that cuts the town in two, blocking all seven of Camanche’s street crossings from the north side of town to the south, where Maze lives. What if Maze, who has epilepsy, has a grand mal seizure, or someone has a heart attack, or stroke, or is hurt and bleeding from an accident? What if there is a derailment, a spill of oil or toxic chemicals, that could leave some residents trapped between the tracks and the Mississippi River?
Problem is the police are on the north side of the tracks. So is the main firehouse. Schools, hospitals and ambulances also are on that side, with no bridges or tunnels for access. When the trains block crossings, sometimes for up to two hours, a quarter of the town is left vulnerable. “To go from here to any hospital by way of ambulance simply can’t be done because of the trains going through,” said Maze, 74. “To say that would be a danger would be an understatement.”
For Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, the benefits of a merger are straight forward. The merger would join 7,300 miles of Kansas City Southern’s tracks with 15,000 miles of Canadian Pacific’s to create a single north-south rail corridor that would bisect the center of the country — stretching 22,000 miles from deep into Mexico to Canada. Canadian Pacific, in an email to The Star, said it sees the merger as “a once-in-a-lifetime combination” that will increase rail competition, open new markets to shippers and create 1,000 new jobs systemwide, including the transfer of 200 jobs to Kansas City when Canadian Pacific relocates its U.S. headquarters from Minneapolis. The railroad further asserts that the merger will help the environment by taking as many as 60,000 trucks off the roads each year. In terms of potential harm, it cites the draft summary from the federal government’s own Surface Transportation Board environmental impact analysis that in August concluded, “apart from train noise, which could result in adverse impacts at some locations, the potential adverse impacts of the Proposed Acquisition would be negligible, minor, and/or temporary.” Comanche sees itself in a fight that, while perhaps unwinnable, remains righteous. Rural town against major railroads. Powerless homeowners against a powerful industry. Tiny town and Main Street versus Wall Street and monied corporate interests who, as Camanche residents see it, likely see a tiny hamlet in upper Iowa as little more than a pesky inconvenience. In August, some 80 residents packed a Camanche City Council hearing on the merger. More than a dozen people spoke up to decry it. No one spoke for it. Dave Schutte, the city’s fire chief for 16 years, urged city leaders to fight approval by the Surface Transportation Board. “Nothing scares me more than the fact that the trains are going to be twice as long and three times as frequent,” Schutte said. “I worry about those over 400 residences on the other side of the tracks.”
Paul Varner, a city council member and mayor pro-tem, is a retired EMT and firefighter. He stood by the tracks recently, where that morning, a two-mile long train pulling tank cars rumbled by.
“We’re certainly not opposed to (Canadian Pacific) making a profit,” he said. But any guarantees the railroad provides that crossings won’t regularly be blocked simply can’t be trusted, he said. “Being a firefighter and an EMT, I’ve had all seven of these crossings blocked, we’re doing CPR on a guy in the back of the ambulance, and we can’t get across the tracks to get him to the hospital,” Varner said. “So that does happen. Whether they claim it does or not is beside the point. It’s happened because I’ve experienced it.” WHY THE MERGER? After decades of railroad consolidation, the proposed linking of Canadian Pacific to Kansas City Southern — a force in Kansas City with an ancestry dating to 1887 — is being viewed as what is likely the last major merger to occur among the seven Class 1 or major freight lines that run through the United States. Kansas City Southern is the smallest of all the big railroads. Should the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, the economic regulator of American railroads, approve the merger, the U.S. would be left with six major carriers: Union Pacific and BNSF in the West; CSX and Norfolk Southern in the East; Canadian National and the the newly named merged company, CPKC — Canadian Pacific Kansas City — running north and south. The benefits to the merged railroad are obvious: more profits, more customers, a bigger corporate footprint and more freight over what will be 22,000 miles of combined track. KUnder a new name, CPKC would be the first and only railroad to run a direct line between Canada and Mexico — bisecting and hauling freight through the heart of the country, including Kansas City, the second largest freight rail center in the United States.
Last year, Canadian Pacific Chief Executive Officer Keith Creel told The Star that the merger would mean more jobs and greater job security for Kansas City Southern employees. “You’re going to see a city that forever will be an integral piece of this network,” he said. But while a merger is likely to be a boon to the combined railroads, countless critics — ranging from tiny towns like Camanche, to powerful politicians, to other railroads — insist that the corporate coupling will deliver troubles. The list is long, including the near doubling to quadrupling of heavy rail traffic through more than 230 communities in eight states that include Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas.
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article268887372.html#storylink=cpy
Today's eEdition BY ERIC ADLER, KEVIN HARDY, AND MIKE HENDRICKS UPDATED DECEMBER 12, 2022 3:59 PM
‘This will kill people’: Small town fights $31B merger of KC Southern, Canadian Pacific
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article268887372.html#storylink=cpy
CAMANCHE, IOWA In this small town on the upper Mississippi River, where railroad tracks slice the length of the community, and freight horns seem as common as bird song, residents fear that life is about to get more dangerous. David Maze, who has lived happily and safely in Camanche since birth, is worried that the trains that roll not far from his clapboard house could one day kill him, maybe his neighbors, and cause his town of 4,300 residents to suffer. His concern is the concern of many here: If a proposed $31 billion merger between two powerful rail companies — Kansas City Southern and Canadian Pacific Railway — receives federal approval in early 2023, the number of so-called “monster” freight trains rumbling through the town each day will triple. Instead of five to 10 trains per day, the merger is expected to bring an average of 21, perhaps more, many of them heavier and at massive lengths. Camanche is not alone. Cities and small towns stretching from Houston to Chicago are similarly afraid of how a merger will affect daily life. But the fight — and its possible consequences — is perhaps sharpest here, where the town along the tracks is only a mile long and train lengths are expected to grow to two, even three miles long. Every time they run, they create a rolling wall that cuts the town in two, blocking all seven of Camanche’s street crossings from the north side of town to the south, where Maze lives. What if Maze, who has epilepsy, has a grand mal seizure, or someone has a heart attack, or stroke, or is hurt and bleeding from an accident? What if there is a derailment, a spill of oil or toxic chemicals, that could leave some residents trapped between the tracks and the Mississippi River?
Problem is the police are on the north side of the tracks. So is the main firehouse. Schools, hospitals and ambulances also are on that side, with no bridges or tunnels for access. When the trains block crossings, sometimes for up to two hours, a quarter of the town is left vulnerable. “To go from here to any hospital by way of ambulance simply can’t be done because of the trains going through,” said Maze, 74. “To say that would be a danger would be an understatement.”
For Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, the benefits of a merger are straight forward. The merger would join 7,300 miles of Kansas City Southern’s tracks with 15,000 miles of Canadian Pacific’s to create a single north-south rail corridor that would bisect the center of the country — stretching 22,000 miles from deep into Mexico to Canada. Canadian Pacific, in an email to The Star, said it sees the merger as “a once-in-a-lifetime combination” that will increase rail competition, open new markets to shippers and create 1,000 new jobs systemwide, including the transfer of 200 jobs to Kansas City when Canadian Pacific relocates its U.S. headquarters from Minneapolis. The railroad further asserts that the merger will help the environment by taking as many as 60,000 trucks off the roads each year. In terms of potential harm, it cites the draft summary from the federal government’s own Surface Transportation Board environmental impact analysis that in August concluded, “apart from train noise, which could result in adverse impacts at some locations, the potential adverse impacts of the Proposed Acquisition would be negligible, minor, and/or temporary.” Comanche sees itself in a fight that, while perhaps unwinnable, remains righteous. Rural town against major railroads. Powerless homeowners against a powerful industry. Tiny town and Main Street versus Wall Street and monied corporate interests who, as Camanche residents see it, likely see a tiny hamlet in upper Iowa as little more than a pesky inconvenience. In August, some 80 residents packed a Camanche City Council hearing on the merger. More than a dozen people spoke up to decry it. No one spoke for it. Dave Schutte, the city’s fire chief for 16 years, urged city leaders to fight approval by the Surface Transportation Board. “Nothing scares me more than the fact that the trains are going to be twice as long and three times as frequent,” Schutte said. “I worry about those over 400 residences on the other side of the tracks.”
Paul Varner, a city council member and mayor pro-tem, is a retired EMT and firefighter. He stood by the tracks recently, where that morning, a two-mile long train pulling tank cars rumbled by.
“We’re certainly not opposed to (Canadian Pacific) making a profit,” he said. But any guarantees the railroad provides that crossings won’t regularly be blocked simply can’t be trusted, he said. “Being a firefighter and an EMT, I’ve had all seven of these crossings blocked, we’re doing CPR on a guy in the back of the ambulance, and we can’t get across the tracks to get him to the hospital,” Varner said. “So that does happen. Whether they claim it does or not is beside the point. It’s happened because I’ve experienced it.” WHY THE MERGER? After decades of railroad consolidation, the proposed linking of Canadian Pacific to Kansas City Southern — a force in Kansas City with an ancestry dating to 1887 — is being viewed as what is likely the last major merger to occur among the seven Class 1 or major freight lines that run through the United States. Kansas City Southern is the smallest of all the big railroads. Should the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, the economic regulator of American railroads, approve the merger, the U.S. would be left with six major carriers: Union Pacific and BNSF in the West; CSX and Norfolk Southern in the East; Canadian National and the the newly named merged company, CPKC — Canadian Pacific Kansas City — running north and south. The benefits to the merged railroad are obvious: more profits, more customers, a bigger corporate footprint and more freight over what will be 22,000 miles of combined track. KUnder a new name, CPKC would be the first and only railroad to run a direct line between Canada and Mexico — bisecting and hauling freight through the heart of the country, including Kansas City, the second largest freight rail center in the United States.
Last year, Canadian Pacific Chief Executive Officer Keith Creel told The Star that the merger would mean more jobs and greater job security for Kansas City Southern employees. “You’re going to see a city that forever will be an integral piece of this network,” he said. But while a merger is likely to be a boon to the combined railroads, countless critics — ranging from tiny towns like Camanche, to powerful politicians, to other railroads — insist that the corporate coupling will deliver troubles. The list is long, including the near doubling to quadrupling of heavy rail traffic through more than 230 communities in eight states that include Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas.
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article268887372.html#storylink=cpy
As a reminder to all residents; Golf Carts MUST be registered through the city and CHILDREN are NOT authorized to drive golf carts WITH OR WITHOUT a parent. Drivers need to be 18 with a valid license. Citations will be given for any residents breaking this law.