Today's Signs of the Times

I may turn this into a regular series. I did a "Signs of the Times" post over the weekend describing some of the empty stores and other signs of a weak economy around here. Here's an item from the Wall Street Journal:

NEW CASTLE, Ind. -- Folks here figured the mile-long stretch of a hundred-plus yellow rail cars, which divides this small town like a graffiti-covered wall, would leave soon after it arrived.

That was a year ago.

"They stayed and they stayed and they stayed," says Bruce Atkinson, a local resident. "Then more moved in."

Tens of thousands of boxcars are sitting idle all over the country, parked indefinitely by railroads whose freight volumes have plummeted along with the economy. And residents of the communities stuck with these newly immobile objects, like the people of New Castle, are hopping mad about it.

Before February 2008, boxcars were a fleeting sight in this hamlet of 17,500 people 50 miles east of Indianapolis. For decades, no more than one or two trains a day traveled down the sleepy short-haul line that cuts through town.

Then rail cars -- 20-foot-tall yellow behemoths covered with the sort of spray-painted artwork once associated with New York City subway cars -- started rolling in by the dozens and grinding to a halt.

Now an elementary-school playground sits only feet from a line of rail cars covered with curse words. Someone with a paintball gun opened fire on one of the cars but missed, pelting a house instead. The looming cars have been blamed for casting shadows over homes that sit as close as 10 feet from the tracks. One woman says the lack of sunlight has turned her backyard into a mud pit. ...

The railroads simply don't have enough space in their yards to store all the idled cars. So they look for convenient, out-of-the-way places to park them -- usually dormant tracks and rail sidings that are rarely used.

In December, residents in southern New Jersey were confused by the sight of a two-mile-long line of rail cars resting on a largely unused rail line in Cape May County. Some of the cars were parked only a few feet from houses. Rumors began spreading that the cars were tankers filled with hazardous materials. The mayors of two local townships assured the public that the cars were empty and posed no danger.

In December, Union Pacific Corp. parked a three-mile-long string of cars in the small town of Thornton, Colo. After staring at the idled cars for a month or so, local residents revolted. The railroad eventually agreed to move the cars to a less-populated area.

Dennis Duffy, Union Pacific's executive vice president of operations, says that in a healthy economy, the railroad might have 5,000 to 8,000 cars in storage. At the moment, it has 48,000 idle cars, he says, forcing it to come up with unconventional solutions." It has parked them on 60 sidings around the country.

Few places, if any, have been forced to endure this spectacle for as long as New Castle, a town of 10 square miles surrounded by sprawling farmland.

A couple of other observations. When traveling to Northern California in January we passed the docks in Benecia where new cars are offloaded from ships. The parking areas were overflowing with inventory.

And last night we visited Downtown Disney. I posted an item previously on the stores that have gone out of that shopping/dining area right outside the main gates to Disneyland and California Adventure, but it's a little stunning to see it in person. Three stores that seemed to be pretty popular are sitting vacant, and a fourth will soon close. You don't expect to see that on a Disney property.