PHOENIX -- Several construction projects to increase Union Pacific's freight-moving capacity on the railroad's main line across southern Arizona and New Mexico are being temporarily sidetracked by the recession, The Houston Chronicle reports.
Plans to build a new yard in Pinal County in Arizona and a new rail facility in Santa Teresa, N.M., are on hold, and spokesman Tom Lange says installation of a second set of tracks across Arizona also has been postponed indefinitely.
Lange says there's no timetable but that Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific Corp. expects the projects to go forward again when the economy turns around.
Union Pacific reported in October that the global recession was reducing its rail traffic, down 15 percent in the third quarter from the corresponding period of 2008.
(The preceding Associated Press report by Paul Davenport was published December 4, 2009, by The Houston Chronicle.)
