CSXT bridge project in Ohio to go ahead

Written by jrood

CSX Transportation has put on hold two bridge projects in Medina County, Ohio, while details are worked out between the railroad company and county officials, according to the Medina County Gazette. A third project - replacing the 103-year-old bridge at Mud Lake Road in Westfield Township - is scheduled to begin early next year. The rebuilt bridge will allow double-stacked containers on rail cars to pass under it.

CSXT’s National Gateway
is an $842-million project that seeks to create a more efficient rail route
between mid-Atlantic ports with Midwest markets by 2015. About half of the
project involves the construction of four terminals, which would be funded by
CSXT. 
The other portion of the project, which will be paid for mainly with
government grants, will make way for double-stacked containers on train cars
through three rail corridors.
 The goal is to ease railway congestion by
stacking containers.

Rusty Orben, director of
public affairs in Ohio for CSXT, said there are 61 locations throughout six
states in the project area that would obstruct the double-stack cars. Sixteen
of those are in Ohio and three are in Medina County: the bridges at Mud Lake
Road, River Corners Road in Homer Township and Pawnee Road on the border of
Homer and Harrisville townships.

CSXT has a deadline of
Dec. 1 to submit the bridge projects to the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Orben said the company postponed the Pawnee and River Corners projects because
they likely would not have received full support from the communities and
county commissioners in time.

The projects would have
involved rebuilding the bridge at River Corners and demolishing the Pawnee Road
bridge over the tracks and vacating the road with a detour at Simcox Road. He
said the townships had concerns about the plans.

"We wanted to make sure
everybody was comfortable. It felt like we were forcing a decision at this
time, so we’re going to take a step back," he said.

He said CSXT hopes grants
will become available to advance the projects next year.

In the meantime,
commissioners are drafting a letter to support the Mud Lake Road bridge
project. However, Commissioner Steve Hambley said they would not address the
issue of ownership of the bridge in the letter.

CSXT has requested the
county own the new bridge after it’s built, but the county is wary of the
responsibility. If it accepts ownership, it would have to maintain the bridge
and replace it in the future.

"There appears to be very
little reason for us to assume that liability long term," Hambley said.

County Highway Engineer
Mike Salay said taking care of and eventually replacing the bridge could become
expensive. He said the county took ownership of a bridge at Friendsville Road
in Westfield Township more than 20 years ago.

"The day is going to come
when that bridge is going to need replaced and that will be the most expensive
bridge Medina County has taken on," he said.

Orben said the ownership
issue has taken a back seat to moving the project forward.

"Obviously our preference
is to turn over ownership of the new structures to the local authorities," he
said. "We still want to do that for Mud Lake. At this time to move the project
forward we’re going to retain ownership, but we’d like to continue that
discussion later."

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