Rail Officials Can’t Agree on Electric Bill : Pollution: Agencies planning commuter network and executives of existing freight railroads clash over who should pay the $5-billion bill for diesel conversion.

After meeting with smog regulators and federal officials, agencies planning the region’s commuter rail network and executives of the existing freight railroads still remain at odds over who should pick up the $5-billion tab for converting diesel rail operations to electric power.

The issue is of particular concern to Orange County transportation officials, who worry that present and future rail commuters will be stuck with the bill, instead of the freight railroads, which argue that they can’t afford even a proportionate share.

“Nothing was resolved,” said Dana W. Reed, a Costa Mesa attorney who represented both the Orange County Transportation Authority and the Southern California Regional Rail Authority at a meeting this past week in Los Angeles.

“But everyone put their position on the table. Basically, the problem is that (some people) are still talking about charging (rail) commuters more than their fair share of the cost” via their electric bills with higher utility rates or higher-than-necessary ticket prices.

Although rail operations account for only about 3% of Southern California’s air pollution problem, officials of the South Coast Air Quality Management District say that electrifying the region’s railway operations is an important element of the overall war against smog. More efficient rail operations would reduce the number of diesel-powered trucks that currently carry 75% of the region’s freight and help clog the freeways and contribute far more to the pollution problem, they contend.

Electrifying the railway system is more urgent than ever, they insist, because commuter rail service is about to expand at a dramatic rate with creation of the so-called Metrolink system, due to begin service on some routes in less than three months.

Under current air pollution rules, commuter and freight rail operators are supposed to electrify 17% of Southern California’s rail lines by the year 2000, and 90% by the year 2010. By next year, the Southern California Assn. of Governments hopes to have a plan in place to achieve those goals.

Southern California Edison Co. wants transportation officials to electrify one of the rail lines immediately to demonstrate that some cost estimates have been exaggerated. But Reed and others fear that once Edison converts one line all commuter rail lines would be forced to follow suit in order to keep each rail line’s equipment compatible and interchangeable.

“The die will be cast,” Reed said. “What you have here is a big, multibillion-dollar corporation flexing its considerable political muscle, and the stakes are very high.”

AQMD Chairman Henry W. Wedaa of Yorba Linda, who also attended the session, said he would go along with Edison as long as Edison was willing to pay for the demonstration project. But he remains a strong advocate of postponing a final decision to electrify the entire rail system until research into recent advances in fuel cell technology is completed.

Fuel cells, which rely on chemical reactions to generate electric power, would eliminate the need for electrical transmission lines strung over railroad tracks.

At this past week’s meeting, Wedaa suggested that the AQMD may effectively force a resolution of the cost-sharing standoff by simply assigning pollution limits to each type of rail service, and then let the freight and commuter service providers figure out how best to comply.

Commuter trains contribute about 8% of the rail-related related smog; freight trains account for the remaining 92%.

Deepak Nanda, Edison’s manager of advanced mass transportation, said the question of who would ultimately pay for a conventional electrification project remains unresolved. He said Edison officials didn’t attend the most recent electrification meeting because they were in Washington. Also, he said, other meeting participants were already familiar with Edison’s position. Fuel cell technology, Nanda added, simply isn’t proven yet.

Federal Railroad Administrator Gil Carmichael strongly endorsed electrification during the session. The FRA is already funding electrification of the eastern rail corridor between Boston and Washington. He described how a large number of electric trains could be used to replace high-polluting diesel trucks that now use freeways. And he argued that no new work should be done, such as signal purchases or overpass reconstruction, without making sure that it’s compatible with electric trains.

Former Orange County supervisor Bruce Nestande, now a private consultant who chaired the meeting and oversaw studies that resulted in the $4-billion to $5-billion cost estimates for electrification, said it’s important to realize that freeways were designed to handle only 25% of the freight now being transported on them.

“The pollution issue aside, there’s a great opportunity here to get trucks off the freeways,” Nestande said, “and establish eight or 10 freight distribution points around the rail system.”

Meanwhile, Dick Cogswell, a staff engineer and aide to Carmichael, warned that the regions’ ambitious commuter rail plans may be too much for the existing rail yard system to handle. He said there’s simply not enough trackage in the yards to handle all of the train movements that are projected.

The result, Cogswell said, will be major train delays around Los Angeles’ main Union Station affecting inbound and outbound service to and from locations such as Orange and Riverside counties.

Cogswell said in an interview Thursday that railroads should not have to bear the major financial burden of electrification. He noted that inland waterways, highways, airports--even the development of aircraft technology--have been heavily subsidized by taxpayers.