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Last month, Union Pacific Railroad issued two letters to the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) that included comments on the authority’s Draft Environmental Impact Report-Environmental Impact Statement (DEIR-EIS) for the Fresno-to-Bakersfield and Merced-to-Fresno segments of the proposed statewide high-speed rail system.

The Class I has a good working relationship with CHSRA and has ongoing discussions with authority officials regarding the project, according to UP spokesperson Aaron Hunt. However, the railroad raised several issues regarding the Central Valley environmental reports that UP officials say must be resolved before the authority can launch construction.

Some of those issues are listed below, along with verbatim comments included in the letters.

• Failure to accurately and consistently address Union Pacific’s property rights. “Union Pacific has already stated no part of the high-speed rail system should be located on UP’s property. The DEIR contains incomplete and contradictory information about property issues touching on UP’s rights. The DEIR makes statements about not encroaching on UP’s property, but its drawings show unmistakable encroachments in the Fresno station area.”

• Failure to acknowledge acquisitions for eminent domain purposes. “Union Pacific will not surrender or convey any property that could be used to support freight railroad operations. … Even if there were no encroachments, the proposed alignment would materially impact Union Pacific’s right of way and operations. Yet the DEIR fails to recognize or evaluate any potential impacts, temporary or permanent, on Union Pacific’s operations. … These are substantial issues, but they are not new — Union Pacific raised them in previous comments. Any constraints on freight-rail capacity and expansion opportunities impact state and federal public policies, and Union Pacific’s commercial interests. For the DEIR to summarily conclude that the proposed high-speed rail project would have no effect on freight-rail operations shows that the authority has not sufficiently investigated, analyzed and addressed these issues.”

• Failure to address construction encroachments and adjacency impacts. “During construction of the high-speed rail line, impacts on adjacent freight-rail operations could be significant. … There is no specific analysis of impacts on freight rail during construction itself.”

• Failure to evaluate safety risks and mitigation. “Along part of the Fresno-to-Bakersfield alignment, the high-speed corridor will be immediately adjacent to Union Pacific’s right of way. The DEIR does not clearly identify the proposed separation between track centerlines or between track centerlines and right-of-way lines. The authority proposes placing no safety barriers of any kind along the high-speed rail right of way where adjacent freight racks are more than 102 feet away. Where freight tracks are closer, the DEIR merely offers that some type of barrier ‘may’ be required.”

• The authority’s plans for grade-separated crossings may not preclude future grade separation of adjacent UP tracks. “The authority’s plans call for multiple grade-separated road crossings. Where these grade separations are constructed near Union Pacific’s right of way, they may prevent future grade separation of crossings on Union Pacific’s lines.”

• Failure to ensure sufficient area for required freight operational activities. “In areas of proximity between Union Pacific right of way and the high-speed rail alignment, sufficient space must be maintained for such operational and maintenance activities.”

— Angela Cotey