THE TALE OF TWO ROADS A mile east of my home is a main line of the Burlington Northern Railroad. The track is heavily used. The primary cargo is coal that comes from two huge mines on the Wyoming/Montana border north of Sheridan, Wyoming. Although you wouldn’t notice it, there is a steep grade between the towns of Hickman and Firth that can slow a loaded coal train to a snail's pace. In April, because of the heavy usage and steep grade, they started building a double line between the two towns. By Thanksgiving, they were almost all done with the project, except for laying the tracks. In a two-mile stretch, they dug what I would describe as a canyon. It is at least as close as we get to a canyon in Nebraska. The cut was 75 feet deep and 300 feet wide. They moved enough dirt to have covered 320 acres with a solid pile of dirt 80-100 feet deep. Besides this, they removed all the black topsoil from the farms that the railroad crosses. Then, they leveled the fields (filling in all the washouts) and covered them with the black dirt, which will make even better fields than before. In two and a half months, they built two bridges that are 400 feet long, 40 feet wide and 90 feet high. In the last six weeks, they graded an additional mile and a half of track, then hauled and leveled 2 foot of crushed rock for the railroad bed, covering the entire three and a half miles. This provided a level road without the steep incline. Four miles west of my home is Highway 77. For years, they have been working to expand the highway from a two-lane to a four-lane road. They finally have all four lanes open, but are still working on exits. The last seven miles of road has taken over two years. Construction experts tell me that the total amount of work was similar to what the construction company for the railroad did in six months. What was the difference? For one, the state was the customer on Highway 77 while Burlington Northern, a private company, was the customer for the railroad. That of itself doesn’t answer the question. Railroads are highly regulated by the government. The main difference is that Burlington picked the best company in the country to get the job done right and in the shortest amount of time. Government contracts are supposed to be handed out competitively. I am sure a bevy of lawyers gave their stamp of approval to this deal. However, to paraphrase Hamlet, there is something rotten in the state of Nebraska when a few certain companies get almost all the contracts for road building, despite consistently being slower, more expensive, and poor in work quality. I guess it doesn’t matter, though. The owners contribute heavily to things like the university, where some even have a building named in their honor. Isn’t it nice to see what wise stewardship we get for paying the 8th highest taxes of any state in the United States? |
