PHL Hosts Tour for STB’s Primus
Written by Marybeth Luczak, Executive Editor
It looks and acts like a diesel-electric. But it’s not a diesel-electric. It’s the Progress Rail EMD® SD40JR Joule battery-electric, seen here operating in regular service on Pacific Harbor Line. (Photograph by Progress Rail, a Caterpillar Company)
Pacific Harbor Line (PHL) last month hosted a “fact-finding” tour at the San Pedro Bay port complex in California for Robert E. Primus, the new Surface Transportation Board (STB) Chair, according to the railroad’s parent company Anacostia Rail Holdings, which owns and manages six short lines operating in seven states.
PHL provides switching services to customers at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and dispatches all BNSF and Union Pacific trains within those ports. Serving nine on-dock terminals plus numerous commodity transload facilities, the railroad is said to handle some 30 intermodal trains daily and more than 35,000 annual rail carloads. It recently began operating a Progress Rail EMD® Joule SD40JR battery-electric locomotive in revenue service. No 50, according to Progress Rail Director of Electrical Systems Sidarta Beltramin, is performing well in day-to-day operations alongside traditional units, sometimes in multiple-unit lashups but mostly as a standalone.
Leading the June 17-18 tour was ARH Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Eric T. Jakubowski, who also chairs the STB’s Railroad-Shipper Transportation Advisory Council.
‘We were honored that Chairman Primus selected PHL for one of the first rail industry fact-finding tours in his new role,” Jakubowski said in the tour announcement on July 1. “His visit was one of several from high-level industry leaders in the past year. PHL’s role at the port complex that sustains the nation’s supply chain has made our railroad a place where industry leaders come to view and learn about rail service best practices.”
The purpose of the tour by Primus “was to develop a deeper understanding of operations at the largest U.S. ports complex, by container volume,” according to Anacostia Rail Holdings.
In addition to the June tour, leaders of the ports, labor, and regulatory interests met at PHL in March to discuss “how supply chain operations at North America’s largest combined port complex can further strengthen its support of safe, efficient and green rail transport.” And PHL in May 2023 showcased its new EMD® Joule at a graduation ceremony for its class of engineers, which was attended by Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose. The new unit runs alongside the railroad’s upgraded fleet of EPA Tier 3+ locomotives and a Tier 4 locomotive.
Anacostia Rail Holdings reported that PHL has been an American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association safety award winner in nine of the past 11 years. It recently received the 2023 President’s Award, which is presented to railroads that post the lowest reportable injury frequency rate per Federal Railroad Administration regulations as measured within industry per-hour categories. PHL had the best rate among Pacific Region railroads with 250,000–500,000 annual hours worked.
