Sen. Brown Sends More Letters to Class 1s Over Repair Plans for Five Bridges

Courtesy of James Pilcher at WKRC

CINCINNATI, Ohio – Senator Sherrod Brown sent additional letters to Norfolk Southern and CSX asking for proposed plans to fix five crumbling rail bridges in Ohio.

After investigations into dilapidated train bridges in Ohio, both of its senators sent letters to Norfolk Southern and CSX. The letters ask both Class 1s for “tailored action plans” with respect to how they intend to address and repair said bridges. Inspections show some of the bridges are over one-hundred years old with consistently-falling debris that is “threatening passing traffic.”

Senator Sherrod Brown, who sent letters to Class 1 CEOs earlier this year, told CBS Austin, that he is still waiting on a response on those earlier letters. The letters Sen. Brown sent last Wednesday were prompted by a recent investigation into “five rail bridges in the county” that were discovered “to be in poor or critical condition.” The discovery comes from an investigation conducted by Greg Wilkens’ Engineering office in Butler County. According to CBS Austin, Wilkens’ office is not responsible for these inspections, but he “performs them anyway as a public service . . . The railroads actually own those bridges and are responsible for their upkeep.” Despite this, Wilkens performs the inspections and sends the reports over to the railroads who own those bridges. 

The FRA has a database of said bridge conditions but it is not easily accessible by the public, “because such bridges are technically private property” and any request by an agency for said information is a “process that can sometimes take months.” However, both senators from Ohio have commented that they’d like to make information like reports of bridge conditions more transparent in the future. 

In response to Senator Brown’s letters, Norfolk Southern declined to comment and referred to a a previous response sent via letter last month. At the time of reporting, CSX had not responded.