Tracking rail impacts

•The following is Part 1 of a series on the impacts of Montana Rail Link’s main line in Stillwater County

A lot has changed in the 3 ½ years since the Stillwater Protective Association held a public forum in Columbus to discuss potential impacts from increasing coal train traffic on the Montana Rail Link main line.
Potential impacts presented to the panel included traffic jams, emergency service delays, health concerns from coal dust or diesel fumes, and diminished property taxes.
Mayor Gary Woltermann as a panelist said Columbus police chiefs and fire chiefs had reported no emergency crews delayed by trains in the past 20 years.
Area crossings
MRL’s main line across Montana runs through the Stillwater County communities of Park City, Columbus and Reed Point.
According to Federal Railroad Administration statistics, the Pratten Street or Highway 78 at-grade crossing in Columbus can see up to 15 trains a day at an allowed speed of up to 45 mph and an average of 7,400 vehicles per day.
The Clark Street at-grade crossing in Park City can see up to 19 trains per day at an allowed speed of up to 60 mph and an average of 2,610 vehicles per day. The Division Street at-grade crossing in Reed Point can see up to 18 trains per day at an allowed speed of up to 50 mph and an average of 200 vehicles per day.
FRA reports that MRL train volume increased steadily from 3.6 million total train miles in 2010 to 4.8 million in 2014. The total number of accidents and incidents on the entire MRL system declined by 50 percent over a 10-year period, from a high of 77 in 2006 to 38 in 2014, according to the FRA.
The number of MRL train accidents in 2014 were 16, including 12 human-factor caused, one track-caused, six derailments and five collisions, according to the FRA.
Those train accidents included 157 cars carrying hazardous materials, of which 34 cars were damaged or derailed.
FRA figures available for 2015 are not complete, but through October there were two fatalities reported on the MRL system, including the Aug. 19 accident involving a pickup truck at the Bratten Fishing Access Site crossing just west of Reed Point, in Sweet Grass County.
Local police and fire
Local law enforcement and emergency personnel have kept abreast of plans by MRL to increase train traffic on their main line through Stillwater County.
“Based on my experience and interactions with MRL, I don’t have any concerns about the impact this might make to our community,” Stillwater County Sheriff Cliff Brophy said.
Brophy said he’s been involved with numerous trainings and planning events that deal with railroads, pipelines, hard facilities and highway transportation.
“All of these have risks and the potential for emergencies and disasters,” he said. “Rail companies and the other methods of transportation all have strict guidelines and requirements.”
Brophy said he’s participated in training events involving most of types of transportation.
“MRL has been very cooperative in assisting local responders, and they have been very generous in contributing to that training,” he said.
Communications between the sheriff’s office and MRL’s dispatch occur on a regular basis, Brophy said.
“The reasons can be incidents such as livestock on the railroad, fires near the tracks, hazardous situations near crossings – the list goes on,” he said. “MRL has always been fast in their response and thorough in keeping us updated.”
Brophy acknowledged the concerns that additional rail traffic might bring in the future.
“No doubt, any increase in rail traffic will be noticed,” he said. “However, it is a rare event that our responders have been prevented in responding to the scene of an incident because of the trains. Individual responders may have been delayed during a response, but public safety in general has not been compromised.”
Columbus Fire Chief Rich Cowger had a similar take on MRL.
“Honestly we have never really had any issues,” he said. “We used to get a lot more railroad right-of-way fires, but those actually seem to be less in the last five years.”
Cowger said MRL notifies fire personnel when track crews plan grinding work, and MRL crews provide some fire protection of their own.
“Occasionally we may have issues with trains blocking both crossing in Columbus,” Cowger said, “but it’s never happened that I can recall that would have made any significant issues on the incident.”
Columbus Police Chief Bill Pronovost said train traffic has affected emergency response, but only minimally.
“I have personally never had an incident in which there was a life or death situation that I have been held up,” he said. “Other officers have been delayed for a minimum amount of time while responding.”
Part 2 will look at how changes in the coal industry are affecting train traffic now and in the near future.

Rail history
Founded in October 1987 by Dennis Washington, Montana Rail Link is a Class 2 railroad that operates 937 miles of track from just east of Huntley to Sandpoint, Idaho, with several spur lines and connections to BNSF near Huntley, Laurel. Garrison and Sandpoint.
With a major rail yard in Laurel and repair shops in Laurel and Missoula, MRL employs about 1,000 people with an annual payroll with profit sharing of $82.5 million. MRL paid $8.4 million in state property taxes in 2015 and was the No. 4 taxpayer in Stillwater County, paying $291,600 on property in the county with a market value of $16.5 million.
“MRL has invested more than $1 billion in infrastructure since our formation in 1987,” MRL spokesman Jim Lewis said. “In the past few years, we have invested capital in capacity improvement projects including yard projects in Helena and Livingston and new sidings in Townsend and Austin, west of Helena.”
MRL was named the Regional Railroad of the Year by Railway Age in 2013 and Shortline Railroad of the Year by BNSF Railway in 2013. The company has received several national safety awards, including in 2012. MRL also promotes itself as an “environmentally friendly choice,” claiming to be “nearly four times more fuel efficient than trucks,” according to its website.