Flooding, rising seas, and storm surge threaten to erode the track bed and knock out the signals that direct train traffic, while the poles that provide electricity for the trains will be at risk of collapse. In other words, the NEC will face “continual inundation.”
“If one of the segments of track shuts down, it will shut down this segment of the NEC,” warned members of Amtrak’s planning staff. “There is not an alternate route that can be used as a detour.”
This is the conclusion of a three-volume, multi-year climate study undertaken with first Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and then Stantec Inc. The report was completed in April 2017 but was kept from the public’s eye until November this year, according to Bloomberg.
Bloomberg was able to obtain a heavily redacted version of the report through a public records request. Titled “Amtrak NEC Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment,” the report focuses on one 10-mile stretch of the 457 miles of NEC track that runs very close to water.
Wilmington, Delaware focus of report
Wilmington, Delaware is home to the West Yard Substation, which powers this section of rail, as well as the Wilmington maintenance yard, one of the few in the country that can repair electric locomotives. Amtrak’s Consolidated National Operations Center, which monitors and controls traffic along the Northeast Corridor is separated from the rest of the yard by a slim, cobblestone path.
The authors of the report chose Delaware because of its low elevation, its proximity to the two rivers, and its concentration of critical facilities. Both the Delaware River and the Christina River are flowing close by the operations center and it has become very common to see roads and low areas already inundated with standing water, even when it is not raining.
However, Amtrak’s Delaware operations are not the only place where climate change has become a threat. Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, provided Bloomberg with data showing where “chronic inundation” was likely to appear in the future. “Chronic inundation” is defined as flooding an average of at least twice a month.
The report argued it would be better to erect temporary flood barriers before a storm, rather than going to the extreme of elevating or moving the tracks. They estimated the walls would require 12 to 30 days to put up and would cost $24 million per mile of track.
Perhaps more importantly, the study recommends that the same focus should be applied to other regions along the NEC with Amtrak working alongside local and federal government entities to prepare for the risks described. However, Amtrak. founded 47 years ago in 1971 as a quasi-public corporation to operate many U.S. passenger rail services, receives a combination of state and federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit organization.
Downplaying climate change
The United States has the largest rail network within any single country at 140,000 miles of Class 1 tracks. With the exception of key passenger corridors along the eastern seaboard and in the upper Midwest, it is used primarily for hauling freight. Now that climate change is upon us, the vulnerability of our railroad infrastructure is at risk.
locomotive (l) and the Acela Express meet at Baltimore.
With changes in temperature, the vulnerability of tracks to temperature increases and the accompanying issue of track expansion, which under current operating policies can lead to train delays, and in the most extreme cases can lead to derailments.
Some potentially serious changes in the climate have been identified, including the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as high-temperature waves, droughts, floods, and storm tides. Analysis of the potential effects of climate change and variability on railroad systems must also differentiate between their potential effects on railroad infrastructure and on railroad system operations.
Railroad infrastructure includes all physical capital infrastructure elements for both freight and passengers. Railroad operations include all recurring activities related to the movements of goods and people. So, while this information needs to be included in assessing the risk to long-term climate change, what happens when it is ignored?
Amtrak has gone to the extreme of down-playing climate change – much like our federal government has done. They even scrubbed the phrase entirely from its most recent five-year strategic plan.
“We don’t see any fundamental risks to the integrity of the corridor,” Stephen Gardner, Amtrak executive vice president and chief commercial officer, said in an interview in November.
Christina Leeds, an Amtrak spokeswoman, said in an email: “Elevation or relocation of the infrastructure is likely to be expensive, disruptive, or impractical, and given the current levels of federal and state funding for Amtrak and the Northeast Corridor, well beyond our means.”
She added that the company already faces “$40 billion worth of pressing—largely still unfunded—basic state-of-good-repair risks.”
But ignoring a report that could have grave consequences to the railroad industry and the transportation infrastructure of the states it passes through is dangerous. Sarah Feinberg, former administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, which has oversight of Amtrak, says it does no good talking climate change with Congress. “There are enough problems in the Northeast Corridor that you do not need to lead with climate change,” she says.
