Figure 5‐16
Proposed Union Pacific Railroad Switchyard
Source: Pinal County Economic Development, http://www.pinalcountyaz.gov.
According to Pinal County, the project is in the proposal stage and has not received any
of the required approvals to proceed any further. The status the project is considered
long‐term and has been set aside by UP for the immediate future.
The 950‐acre site would involve the separation and classification of boxcars that had
been loaded on to trains at the port of Long Beach in California along with the assembly
of the trains to move the railcars containing materials and products to their intended
destination. In addition, the new railroad yard would improve railroad operational
efficiency by optimizing railcar logistics. Tucson and Flagstaff are major railroad centers
of operation with Phoenix situated in between. Currently, after unloading materials,
empty railcars are moved from Phoenix back to Tucson and then sent on to other
locations from there. Operations at the new railroad yard would reduce the number of
empty railcars travelling between the Arizona locations.
Activities at the classification / switching yard would include the unloading and reloading
of hazardous cargo, which could result in incidents if accidents were to occur. Although
these events are highly unlikely to occur, incidents could include fires, explosions or
similar events that can occur when dealing with hazardous cargo. In the event hazardous
cargo incidents were to occur, it would have the potential to impact helicopter
operations flying from SBAH and Picacho Peak Stagefield, depending on the size and
extent of the incident. Impacts could include smoke plumes or hazardous material
emissions in the air. Pilots would have to avoid flying over or near the hazardous cargo
incident location until there was no longer any potential impacts to safe flight operations.
This could impact AZARNG training times and hinder completion of operations necessary
5-94
Compatibility Assessment