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Justice Dept. accuses Norfolk Southern of illegally delaying AMTRAK trains

A private rail company is illegally holding up Amtrak trains on a line that runs from New York to New Orleans, according to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday in federal court in D.C., the first of its kind in 55 years.

Norfolk Southern controls all but about 240 miles of the 1,377-mile line, called the Crescent Route, and is in charge of dispatching both freight and passenger trains. Federal law requires the company to give Amtrak trains preference. But according to the lawsuit, Norfolk Southern has instead held up passengers, sometimes for hours, to allow its longer and slower-moving freight trains to pass. Only about 24 percent of Amtrak trains on the route arrive on time, according to the lawsuit and Amtrak’s own audits.

Delays cost Amtrak millions of dollars; along with reducing ridership, they cause problems with crew and train car allocation. A 2019 audit found that only about 46 percent of long-distance Amtrak trains arrive on time and that freight railroads were responsible for about 60 percent of the delays. Most of the track owned by Amtrak is on the Northeast Corridor, where performance is much better.

In a statement, Norfolk Southern spokesman Tom Crosson said the company is “committed to complying with the law, working together, and honoring our commitments,” adding that delays have been reduced in recent months.

The Crescent runs twice daily, once north toward New York and once south toward New Orleans. The train passes through Maryland, D.C. and Virginia; it’s south of Alexandria that Norfolk Southern takes over the rails. About 272,000 passengers traveled on the Crescent Route in 2023, according to Amtrak, about average for a long-distance train.

When Amtrak was created in 1970, railroad companies were no longer required to provide passenger service around the United States. But in exchange, they had to contract with Amtrak and give its passenger trains priority on their rail lines. Amtrak has repeatedly accused the rail companies of flouting that law, saying violations lead to roughly 15,000 hours of delays per year.

Most of the delays occur south of Atlanta, the Justice Department said, where trains are running on a single track and Northern Southern chooses freight maintenance over passenger speed. The company, a Virginia corporation headquartered in Atlanta, runs freight trains that are too long to pull over and let Amtrak trains pass.

In January, an Amtrak train was forced to follow behind a slow-moving Norfolk Southern freight train for several miles just outside New Orleans, causing a nearly hour-long delay, the lawsuit said. In February, a Crescent train was delayed for 80 minutes outside Atlanta because a freight train was blocking access to the station platform, according to the suit. One delay last year was nearly two hours, with passengers waiting for a freight train to be refueled in Mississippi.

Amtrak customers have been “subjected to unacceptable, unnecessary, and unlawful delays,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement, calling compliance with the 1973 law giving passenger trains priority “uneven at best.”

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by Anonymousreply 7August 1, 2024 4:32 AM

There needs to be jail time for members on the board or the owner of the company.

by Anonymousreply 1August 1, 2024 3:12 AM

It's such a shame we haven't invested more in rail.

by Anonymousreply 2August 1, 2024 3:13 AM

I've always wanted to take that line from NO to NY. I don't know much about train travel, but can you get off at DC, for example, spend the night there and continue the next day (or two days) on to NY without buying a new ticket?

by Anonymousreply 3August 1, 2024 3:40 AM

Private rail companies have been doing this for years.

I've been on a train many times between Chicago and Western PA where we sat in the middle of Indiana or western OH for 4 to 6 hours to let freight traffic go through.

There isn't much decent timely rail travel in the US outside of the Philly/DC/NYC/Boston corridor. It's the only piece left primarily dedicated to commuter travel. The other part shares lines with freight traffic.

by Anonymousreply 4August 1, 2024 3:47 AM

Why is this a Department of Justice suit, shouldn't the Department of Transportation be bringing it?

by Anonymousreply 5August 1, 2024 3:54 AM

R5 no. The department of transportation does not prosecute crimes. The justice department does.

by Anonymousreply 6August 1, 2024 4:04 AM

No R3. You would need to break up your trip into segments when purchasing the tickets.

by Anonymousreply 7August 1, 2024 4:32 AM
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