Borough of West Chester, Pennsylvania West Chester Borough Council Advisory Ad-Hoc Committee to Reestablish Rail Service to West Chester COMMITTEE CORRESPONDENCE TO: Mayor Jordan Norley Michael Perrone, Borough Manager FROM: T. R. Hickey, Vice-Chair SUBJECT: West Chester Railroad State of Good Repair Program: Authorization for Federal Grant Application DATE: July 6, 2021 CC: Jo Ann P. Kelton, Chair The Rail Advisory Committee is preparing a federal grant application to stabilize the condition of the portion of the West Chester Rail Line that the Borough leases from SEPTA. The local match for the grant will come from the value of the in-kind services provided by volunteers from the West Chester Railroad Heritage Association (WCRHA), who have maintained the railroad right-of-way for the past quarter century on behalf of the Borough at no cost to the Borough. This grant will further those efforts, again at no expense to the Borough. The grant application must be filed on-line by the Borough no later than Monday, July 12th. The Borough Manager will need authorization to process this application. BACKGROUND In 1986, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) suspended regional rail service over 12.4 miles of its West Chester Rail Line due to deteriorated track conditions. This followed nearly a decade of deferred maintenance under the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). SEPTA assumed track maintenance in 1983 but could not divert sufficient resources to its track gang to keep the neglected track in operable condition. In July 1996, the Borough leased the westernmost 7.2 miles of the line in order to preserve the rail facilities for the eventual reestablishment of rail service. It concurrently partnered with WCRHA, a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization, to maintain the rail right-of-way on the Borough’s behalf and prevent it from becoming an overgrown eyesore. In return for these services, the Borough granted WCRHA, through a sublease with WCRHA’s affiliate, the for- profit privately-held 4 States Railway Services, Inc. of Yorklyn DE, doing business as the West Chester Railroad (WCRR), to operate tourist trains over the Borough’s leasehold. This arrangement has continued for 25 years at no significant expense to the Borough. Revision 1.186 WEST CHESTER BOROUGH COUNCIL ADVISORY AD-HOC COMMITTEE TO REESTABLISH RAIL SERVICE TO WEST CHESTER AUTHORIZATION FOR FEDERAL GRANT APPLICATION The volunteers’ efforts are hobbled, however, by the same backlog of maintenance that SEPTA inherited from Conrail and resulted in the 1986 suspension of passenger service. Complete reconstruction of the trackway is the only permanent solution, as SEPTA is currently doing with the easternmost three miles of the West Chester Line as far as Middletown Station (formerly Wawa) at US Route 1. But that would be prohibitive expensive—upwards of $184 million by PennDOT’s estimate—far exceeding available resources for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, track conditions continue to deteriorate faster that the volunteers can correct them. The 2.2-mile “gap” between Middletown and the end of the Borough’s leasehold at Glen Mills is no longer passible, isolating WCRR and West Chester from the National System of Railroads. Hanson Aggregates’ Glen Mills Quarry in the “gap” once shipped 20 to 40 railcars of stone daily (the equivalent of 50 to 100 truckloads) but had to cease shipments in November 2011 due to track conditions. PROPOSED TRACK PROGRAM The Rail Advisory Committee has assembled a moderate, less costly approach to improve track conditions by eschewing unaffordable replacement schemes and focusing instead on reversing the long-unaddressed, underlying impacts of Conrail’s deferred maintenance. The purpose of the West Chester Railroad State-of-Good-Repair Program (WC/SOGR) is to stabilize track conditions and restore vitally important drainage systems using existing rails, resulting in a more resilient physical plant that is easier and less costly to maintain. This is the same maintenance approach SEPTA employed until 1986 but abandoned as too costly and labor-intensive using its own track workers. But the calculus is different and significantly less costly for WCRR using track gangs consisting of WCRHA volunteers. Page 2 WEST CHESTER BOROUGH COUNCIL ADVISORY AD-HOC COMMITTEE TO REESTABLISH RAIL SERVICE TO WEST CHESTER AUTHORIZATION FOR FEDERAL GRANT APPLICATION WCRHA’s contribution to the upkeep of the Borough’s leasehold is easily overlooked but significant. Its volunteers logged nearly 26,000 hours of labor in 2020. According to the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2020 Median Pay for railroad workers is $30.87 per hour. Applying is rate to the WCRHA volunteers results in a monetized value for their work equivalent to over $803,000 annually. A scope of work and cost estimate for the WC/SOGR program is summarized in Attachment A. Fundamentally, this is an accelerated corrective maintenance program of the existing track, virtually eliminating the need for detailed administrative, engineering and design activities, which can inflate the cost of more extensive track replacement programs. The WC/SOGR program work would be accomplished over two years using WCRR/WCRHA traditional labor methods for rail and tie renewals, supplemented by contractors and mechanized equipment to rebuild slopes and drainage systems and line and surface track. WC/SOGR is no substitute for the more ambitious and costly total replacement scenarios envisioned by long-range plans to restore SEPTA regional rail service to West Chester, but that is a decade or more away from implementation. In the meanwhile, The accelerated corrective maintenance program proposed herein, coupled with the continued efforts of the WCRHA volunteers, will provide resilience and stability for the next 20 years. PROPOSED GRANT APPLICATION USDOT’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program (formerly known as BUILD and TIGER) is a competitive discretionary grant program providing $1 billion in annual funding for road, rail, transit, and port projects that promise to achieve national objectives. RAISE awards are merit-based, evaluated on criteria that include safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness, state-of-good-repair, innovation, and partnership. Priority is given to projects that can demonstrate improvements to racial equity, reduce impacts of climate change, and create good-paying jobs. RAISE can provide up to 80% of project costs in urban areas SUCH AS West Chester, where the Federal share of each project must be at least $5 million and no greater than $25 million, with a $100 million limit on totals that can be awarded to a single state. These requirements translate into a minimum acceptable project size of $6.25 million, with a $5 million Federal share and a $1.25 million non-Federal match. The total WC/SOGR program is estimated to cost $6,950,188. The Rail Advisory Committee is preparing an application for $5,560,150 in federal funds, matched with $1,390,038 in WCRHA in-kind contributions. There would be no expense to the Borough resulting from this grant. The grant application must be filed on-line by the Borough no later than 5:00 PM on Monday, July 12th. The Borough Manager will need authorization to process this application, including completing the act of submitting the application on-line through GRANTS.GOV. Page 3 WEST CHESTER BOROUGH COUNCIL ADVISORY AD-HOC COMMITTEE TO REESTABLISH RAIL SERVICE TO WEST CHESTER AUTHORIZATION FOR FEDERAL GRANT APPLICATION ATTACHMENT A WEST CHESTER RAILROAD STATE-OF-GOOD-REPAIR PROGRAM PRELIMINARY SCOPE AND BUDGET PROGRAM MANAGEMENT Augment West Chester Borough's engineering and technical capabilities to administer USDOT RAISE grant for the 18-month duration of construction. Develop environmental documentation (Categorical Exclusion) Condition assessment and detailed work program (1 senior and 2 junior engineers for 3 weeks) $ 85,000 Environmental Documentation (assume Categorical Exclusion class-of-action) $ 75,000 Engineering and technical program oversight (5% of construction budget without contintigency) $ 257,150 $ 417,150 RESTORE EXISTING TRACK TO FRA CLASS 2 (30 MPH) Upgrade 38,000 feet of track from FRA Class 1 to 2 condition, including restoration of drainage, laying new ballast, spot safety tie replacement, line and surfacing, using existing #100PS rail Ballast (400 TN / mile for a 1-inch lift = 2800 TN @ $50/TN) $ 140,000 Safety tie installation (400 ties/mile = 2800 ties @ $125/tie installed) $ 350,000 Surfacing (two passes is 76,000 pass-ft @ $4 / pass-ft) $ 304,000 Allowance for spot rail replacement (#100PS 4-hole 30-foot sticks with match welding) $ 90,000 Allowance for spot replacement of bolts and bars $ 25,000 Allowance for ditching and drainage restoration $ 150,000 Allowance for permitting requirements $ 50,000 Allowance for miscellaneous track upgrades/straight-railing turnouts $ 150,000 Allowance for restoring grade crossing signage/roadway markings $ 250,000 Allowance to repair/reactivate active grade crossing protection $ 725,000 $2,234,000 UPGRADE RESTORED TRACK TO FRA CLASS 3 (60 MPH) Upgrade 38,000 feet of restored track from FRA Class 2 to 3 condition, including restoration of drainage, laying new ballast, spot safety tie replacement, line and surfacing, using existing #100PS rail Allowance for additional ties, rail replacement, and line and surfacing due to tighter tolerances $ 224,000 RESTORE OUT-OF-SERVICE