Welcome to the Solutionary Rail Substack
A people-powered campaign to put American railroads in service of the public interest.
Rail: A Key Solution to Critical Challenges
Railroads are a solution hidden in plain sight, providing answers to some of our most pressing challenges, offering keys to a sustainable future. That is why we call this substack and the larger effort in which we are engaged Solutionary Rail. We will bring you articles and podcasts exploring the range of solutions offered by rail and how to realize them, featuring some of the best thinking and voices on these topics.
In the forefront is the most crucial issue facing humanity, the climate crisis. Railroads have a keystone role in addressing it. They are the fastest route to cut climate pollution from one of its major sources, transportation. Rail is already the most efficient mode to haul freight on land. Moving freight from trucks to rail reduces energy use by three to five times. Electrifying rail and running it on renewable energy is the quickest track to eliminate climate pollution in long-distance freight and passenger transportation. It allows higher speeds that make trains competitive with air travel in many corridors.
Reducing diesel pollution by shifting freight from trucks to rail, running rail on electricity, and electrifying trucks for the shorter hauls for which truck electrification is most feasible, saves the health and lives of people living along highways and tracks, and near warehouse districts and railyards. As well, this reduces particulate pollution from tire and brake wear, another significant health hazard. Moving from aviation to passenger rail slashes pollution close to airports. Since communities around all these tend to be lower-income, where many people of color live, railroads offer a key environmental justice solution.
Railroads are also key to unlocking rapid renewable energy growth, reducing power sector climate pollution. The greatest obstacle to swift expansion is a lack of long distance lines to transmit electricity from remote solar and wind resources to population centers where demand is concentrated. Transmission can be most quickly added along railroad right-of-ways under single ownerships and with traditional industrial uses, as opposed to multiple parcels where lines are often blocked by local opposition.
Beyond providing solutions to these key climate and environmental challenges, rail also meets other critical needs. Today, governments at all levels are straining to maintain roads and bridges. In the race between limited budgets and eroding infrastructure, the latter is winning hands down. The major source of road wear is trucks. The heavier they are, the worse the damage. Fees and fuel taxes cover only a portion. The more freight shifts to steel tracks, the longer roads will last. Trucks also worsen congestion. Getting trucks off the road will smooth traffic. Even more important, trucks are a major cause of highway accidents. Mode shifting can save many lives and prevent many injuries.
A new emphasis on rail can also bring new jobs and prosperity to rural communities and small cities suffering under depressed economic conditions and losing population to larger cities. Elimination and reduction of freight rail service has increased shipping expenses for farmers and enterprises in these areas, driving many out of business. Loss of passenger service has made access more difficult. Restoration of rail service can help revitalize these communities.
The Solutionary Rail Substack will delve deeply into all these solutions and how to achieve them, offering our own analysis and that of many key allies with whom we are in touch.
Restoring Rail in the Public Interest
Freight and passenger rail is thriving across the world. Electrified rail is widespread and growing, the dominant mode in many counties. But in many ways, the U.S. and Canada are an exception. North American railroad ownership is increasingly concentrated in a few corporations driven by short-term profit over long-term investment.
Railroads have deliberately discouraged traditional mixed freight service in favor of unit trains carrying containers and a few bulk commodities such as coal, oil and grain. They have shed passenger service, now run by Amtrak, a public corporation, and run operations in ways that prevent Amtrak from offering reliable, on-time service. They have eliminated much trackage, and shifted much else to short line railroads with their own investment challenges. A strategy that has spread through the industry, Precision Scheduled Railroading, has in fact caused bottlenecks in service while creating longer trains that are documented to be more dangerous.
And unlike railroads in most of the world, North American railroads have opposed electrification. Though electrification would provide undisputed long-term economic and efficiency benefits, North American railroads focused on shareholder payouts and stock buybacks have proven unwilling to make the upfront investments. Reliant on fossil fuel traffic, they have even joined climate denial organizations that seek to block climate action with disinformation.
That is why Solutionary Rail now focuses on the key theme: Rail in the Public Interest. We must revitalize the social contract under which North America railroads grew. Railroads were correctly seen as more than just another industry, but instead as a vital circulatory system linking the continent. So U.S. states and the federal government provided financial support and land grants to spur railroad expansion. In Canada railroads were initially a public enterprise. So vital were railroads to social and economic interests ranging from farmers to industry that when railroads abused their power through price gouging and other schemes in the late 19th century, they became the first industry to be regulated by the U.S. government.
Confronted by emerging highway and aviation options, railroads which were the dominant mode of transportation through the 19th and early 20th centuries began to decline in mid-century. They were in financial crisis by the 1970s with major lines facing bankruptcy. By 1980 private railroads were substantially deregulated and privatized in terms of pricing and common carrier service requirements. That resulted in the consolidation of North American railroads into 7 primary carriers, and management strategies that have increased profits by reducing service and long-term investments.
A railroad network that operates in the public interest could realize tremendous benefits for climate, human health, public budgets and efficiency of movement. It could open up new economic development possibilities for many regions mired in near permanent depression. But the current system is not realizing these opportunities. For rail to fully serve the public interest, the public is going to have to become more involved. The social contract through which rail grew in North America must be restored.
Solutionary Rail to Reconnect America
The Solutionary Rail Substack and campaign are devoted to spurring the public engagement and alliance building that will rewrite rail’s social contract. Solutionary Rail is an effort of The Backbone Campaign. Our mission is to offer creative strategies and artful activism to manifest a world where life, community, nature, and our obligations to future generations are honored as sacred. In the early 2010s, that drew us into a struggle to stop our home region, the Pacific Northwest, also known as Cascadia, from becoming a corridor for export of fossil fuels from North America to the growing markets of Asia. This opposition to fossil fuel trains and infrastructure became known as “the thin green line,” and experienced substantial success.
Solutionary Rail grew out of one of our contributions to the effort. In the early 2010s we drew together a group of rail experts to map alternatives for railroads heavily dependent on fossil traffic. The group identified electrification, mode shifting and power transmission. The results were published in 2016 as a book, Solutionary Rail: A people-powered campaign to electrify America’s railroads and open corridors to a clean energy future. It detailed a specific proposal to BNSF Railway for a public-private partnership to electrify one of its main lines. But in our outreach to railroad management, we found the railroad unresponsive for the reasons outlined above. So we have broadened our approach to look at new public interest models for rail and new alliances to make it happen.
In the Solutionary Rail Substack we will explore the four models now on the table, illuminating their potentials and pitfalls:
Re-regulation – The federal government restores its regulatory system to mandate that railroads meet once again common carrier responsibilities and serve markets and customers they have abandoned at reasonable costs. It also requires pollution reductions leading to electrification.
Nationalization – Trackage and operations are unified under a single national agency or publicly owned corporation. This enables realization of public interest goals through investments driven by policy.
Vertical separation – Railroad operations and trackage are divided into different business units, or different businesses entirely. Tracks are open to all rail operators in an open access-toll road arrangement.
Steel Interstate – The federal government takes over trackage to create a Steel Interstate system. It operates as an open access-toll road system, allowing new players to offer services primary railroads have abandoned. Public agencies also offer services such as enhanced passenger connections.
Railroads have been a politically powerful industry from the start, and that is as true today as it has been. They are currently some of the most profitable corporations in North America, and will fight any change in the status quo. Creating the political will to transform railroads in ways that fully realize their public interest potentials of rail requires a broad coalition.
While the North American rail network spans the U.S., Canada and Mexico,, Solutionary Rail focuses on building the policy and alliances to restore rail’s public interest role in the U.S. That leads to another key theme of this substack and our campaign: Reconnect America. Railroads connect the U.S. While other modes of transportation have emerged, they still play a crucial role in linking this vast nation. By fully realizing the public interest potential of railroads, we can strengthen our connections, revitalizing regions that have been economically left behind and creating new pathways for renewable energy to reach metropolitan areas.
This effort will also reconnect America in another important way. Our nation is divided and polarized in ways it has not been since perhaps the Civil War. Rail links so many interests that creating an alliance to realize their public benefit potentials can reconnect us and help heal our divided land. Among those interests are farmers, shippers, rural and small communities, rail and other labor unions, environmental and climate campaigners, native tribes, the renewable energy industry, passenger and freight rail advocates, high speed rail promoters, public transportation agencies, and highway safety advocates. Solutionary Rail is already building alliances across these interests. The Solutionary Rail Substack will carry the voices of the many potential allies and explore how we can work together.
So please subscribe using the subscription button below. And pass this along to people, groups and lists know who might be interested, directly and through social media. Subscriptions are always free. But you can financially support us on a one-time or regular basis using the support button. Your support is vital to sustain this work, and we greatly appreciate anything you can do.
Working together for Rail in the Public Interest, we can Reconnect America and realize the full potential of rail to help address our many critical challenges. Join us today.
Join the Solutionary Rail team
Be part of this people-powered campaign to put American railroads in service of the public interest through rail electrification, shifting freight and people from roads to rail, and using rail corridors to transmit renewable energy. Participate in webinars, strategy sessions and skill sharing with community and technical experts by signing up at SolutionaryRail.org. Support this work with a tax-deductible donation here.
Keep up the great work!
Ditto! Supporting financially as I'm able...and sharing the news.