CSXT lists reasons it opposes more New York State passenger trains

Visioning Sessions CSX Transportation officials told the Albany Times-Union editorial board June 23 that adding passenger trains traveling 110 mph to CSX tracks would cut the amount of freight traffic the railroad could handle.

"Each 110 mph Amtrak
train displaces six freight trains," said Maurice O’Connell, resident vice
president for CSX in Selkirk, N.Y., who said the findings are based on computer
models. The disruption also could throw schedules off and affect deliveries to
such time-sensitive customers as United Parcel Service, he said. CSXT carries
UPS truck trailers on intermodal trains.

Then there’s the issue of
signals. Crossing gates, for example, are calibrated for trains traveling at
speeds up to 79 mph, the current top limit for passenger trains west of
Schenectady on the CSX-owned tracks. Freight trains typically travel at no more
than 50 mph, while intermodal trains move at 60 mph. O’Connell said the line
between Schenectady and Buffalo has 210 grade crossings.

State and federal officials
have sought to introduce 110-mph passenger service on the Empire Corridor
across upstate New York, but CSXT, citing safety issues, has said it would only
permit passenger train speeds up to 90 mph, and that only after publicly funded
improvements are made to tracks and signals.

While Amtrak trains hit 110
mph on some stretches of CSXT track between Poughkeepsie and the Capital Region
on the Hudson River’s east side, that’s because freight traffic only moves at
night on that route. Most freight trains use a separate route from Hoffmans,
N.Y., west of Schenectady, south to New York City that runs along the west side
of the Hudson River.

CSXT handled 850,000
carloads of freight in New York State last year, said Robert Sullivan, the
railroad’s director of corporate communications.

"Our goal is to get as
much on the rails as possible," he added, saying that projections are for
60 to 70 percent growth in freight traffic in the next 10 years.

CSXT has insisted that the
state’s high-speed rail program include a dedicated, secure corridor separated
by at least 30 feet from the nearest freight track, to protect CSXT workers and
hazardous cargoes the railroad says its required to accept for shipment under
its status as a common carrier.

But Sullivan said CSXT is
working together with New York State and other agencies on the high-speed rail
effort.

An environmental impact
study on introducing high-speed rail in the Schenectady-Buffalo corridor is
under way. CSXT officials said they expect it will take two years to complete.