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Non-Tech : Union Pacific -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Fredman who wrote (19)	9/18/1998 4:40:00 PM
From: All Mtn Ski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45

Union Pacific <UNP.N> says coal delivery improving NEW YORK, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Union Pacific Corp., the largest U.S. railroad, said it was spending millions of dollars to unravel railcar congestion on its system that led to a serious coal shortage last summer at southern power plants. "What we have going is the biggest capacity and maintenance project in American railroad history," UP Chairman Dick Davidson said late Wednesday at the Western Coal Transportation Association's annual meeting in Denver. The problems on UP's system stem from its 1996 merger with rival Southern Pacific, a move that boosted UP's system to 36,000 miles of track and nearly 153,000 freight cars. Integrating the two railroads' vast networks did not go smoothly, with loaded cars sitting sidetracked for weeks for lack of engines or bottled into freight yards, unable to move out onto already congested main lines. "We are spending $400 million this year alone in the corridor linking Chicago and Salt Lake City. The spending by year 2000 will surpass $800 million," Davidson said. The Union Pacific Railroad project is concentrated in central Nebraska, which links the Powder River Basin, Wyo., coal mines with delivery routes to utilities in the Southwest and Midwest. The railroad is a unit of Union Pacific Corp. UP moves more than 130 million tons of coal a year across its 23-state network. Among the projects is construction of a third main line at a cost of $3.4 million per mile, between North Platte, Neb., and Gibbon, Neb. About 108 miles separate these two cities. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year. UP is also building double track between Missouri Valley and Denison, Iowa, which will alleviate some delivery constraints. In addition, the company has repurchased a 107-mile line in northeastern Kansas that it had sold in 1990 to RailTex Inc. <RTEX.O>. Davidson said this purchase will allow UP to run empty coal trains returning from the Midwest to Wyoming coal fields and provide an alternative route through a heavy traffic area. Also created was a new organization known as Network Design and Integration (NDI), which will act as a bridge between the Operating and Marketing Departments. This new group will decide which services UP will offer and then develop transportation plans to deliver those services. And railroad service is beginning to reflect these changes, Union Pacific said. "Deliveries to Texas utilities are strong, and UP loaded a record 95 coal trains in the last seven days at Colorado and Utah mines," UP said in its biweekly service report. This is a major improvement from last year when utilities in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana were down to only a few day's supply of coal. "During the height of the crisis, Englewood often humped less than 1,000 cars per day. Now, it's not out of the ordinary to hit 2,000 a day, and it's rare that any car in the yard has to await switching for more than just a couple of hours," Davidson said, referring to the Houston mainline. He also noted that train speeds between Houston and St. Louis are several miles per hour faster than they were last spring, improving on average by about 15 percent in the past six weeks. A total of 1,162 trains moved out of the Power River Basin, Utah and Colorado in August, Davidson said, which marked the highest tally of the year. In California, the congestion is expected to be completely alleviated in another week or so, helped in part by a new $130 million yard at Roseville, Calif. Union Pacific Corp.'s stock on Thursday was up 1/16 to 42-1/4 in composite New York Stock Exchange trading. ((--H McCulloch, New York Power Desk, +212-859-1628, fax+212-859-1758, newyork.newsroom@reuters.com)) (Reuters 06:57 PM ET 09/17/98) For the full text story, see infobeat.com