BNSF tells regulators that UP aims to block interchange access to proposed Utah short line

WASHINGTON — BNSF Railway this week asked federal regulators to ensure that it can use its trackage rights over Union Pacific to interchange with a proposed new short line railway in Utah.

UP last month sought Surface Transportation Board permission to reinstitute common-carrier service over a 1.04-mile section of the abandoned Warner Branch. The connecting track would serve as a link between UP’s Shafter Subdivision and the Savage Tooele Railroad, which aims to revive the 6-mile Warner Branch, restore a quarter mile of ripped-up track, and build 5 miles of new track in the Lakeview Business Park, which is being built in Grantsville, southwest of Salt Lake City.

The STB is currently considering Savage’s plans as well as UP’s petition to reactivate the connecting track.

BNSF is crying foul.

“It appears that UP has structured its transaction with STR, including UP’s retention of ownership and intended common carrier operation of the Connecting Track, in an attempt to establish a one-mile physical barrier between the Shafter Subdivision and STR intended to prevent BNSF from interchanging with STR and accessing customers at the Lakeview Business Park,” BNSF said in a regulatory filing.

BNSF was granted trackage rights to operate over the Shafter Subdivision as well as the right to interchange with any new shortline connecting to the line as a condition of the STB’s 1996 approval of the UP-Southern Pacific merger.

“STR stated throughout its petition for exemption that it anticipates interchanging with both UP and BNSF at Burmester, Utah, along UP’s Shafter Subdivision,” BNSF said.

“BNSF believes that, regardless of the ownership or regulatory status of the Connecting Track, BNSF should have the right to interchange with STR once the new shortline begins operating, consistent with STR’s stated intent and UP’s obligation,” BNSF said.

BNSF alleges that the Savage Tooele matter fits a pattern: “UP’s position regarding BNSF access to interchange with STR is the latest attempt by UP to erode the essential competition-preserving bargain that it struck to obtain Board authority for the UP/SP merger in 1996. Over the last quarter-century, BNSF has repeatedly and successfully sought to enforce the rights of BNSF and its customers under the UP/SP merger conditions – all in the face of UP’s efforts to limit competition by restricting BNSF access.”