2) There exists enough unused railroad capacity to carry the long- distance freight that moves on I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis. If there were not some other considerations, all that freight would be on the railroads now.

Unfortunately efficiency isn’t the only consideration. Trucks provide convenience to shippers, and for distances of 300 miles or less they’re faster. To achieve efficiency, railroads gather together up to 150 boxes, either trailers with wheels or containers without wheels and capable of being shifted quickly among ships, railcars, and skeleton trailers. These are then assembled into a train and pulled from one terminal to another, where they are transloaded for delivery to the recipient. Assembling the trailers/ containers and then offloading them takes time, up to an hour or so at each end. So even though trains on modern railroads move safely at up to 70 mph for hundreds of miles, for 300-mile trips, from shipper to recipient the trip may take six hours or more by train but only five or so by truck.

In addition, here in St. Louis we lack enough high-capacity, high- speed container/trailer terminals, so loading and unloading trains is slower. There are several intermodal terminals in the area, the largest being the Union Pacific’s in Dupo. None has enough capacity for all the potential traffic. Furthermore, the unused railroad capacity is owned by the Norfolk Southern and Kansas City Southern railroads; these lines have not been brought up to 70-mph freight standards. Traffic on the third line parallel to I-70, owned by the Union Pacific, is near its capacity, and as Amtrak riders know, most of the traffic moves much more slowly: it’s mainly coal, which doesn’t need to move so fast.

So what we might do to move freight from I-70 to the rails is focus on long-distance truck traffic: between Indianapolis, for example, and Kansas City or beyond, or between Wichita and the St Louis area.  These are day’s-drive distances for a trucker, between 450 and 500 miles. If much of the I-70 truck traffic is between points more distant than these, it’s ripe for being carried on the rails.

Investing in high-speed container terminals and upgrading the railroads between St. Louis and Kansas City would be cheap compared to expanding I-70: $750 million or so for a complete makeover, and we could expect the railroads to pay half or more (if they expect to retain ownership). Further, this improvement could be done in stages, as increased traffic warrants. True, improving the railway east of St. Louis will be additional, but it would be to the advantage of Illinois and Indiana to subsidize this.

MODOT should begin its campaign for an expanded I-70 by identifying what fraction of the truck traffic in Missouri is local or medium-distance, and what fraction goes longer distances. Obviously if much of the expected increase in truck traffic comes from long-distance freight, we should demand that tax money be spent on improving the railways and their terminals first. That gives us more bang for our bucks.

James D Wilson,

Ladue