WASHINGTON — Norfolk Southern has asked federal regulators to suspend review of the Canadian Pacific Kansas City and CSX Transportation proposal to create a new through route linking the Southeast and Mexico via Myrtlewood, Ala.
Earlier this month CPKC and CSX filed separate applications seeking Surface Transportation Board approval to acquire and operate Genesee & Wyoming short line Meridian & Bigbee.
Meridian & Bigbee’s 168-mile route is the missing link between the CPKC system at Meridian, Miss., and the CSX network at Burkeville, Ala., just west of Montgomery, Ala. The Meridian & Bigbee, or MNBR, owns the 50.4-mile route west of Myrtlewood and leases from CSX the 107 miles between Myrtlewood and Burkville. MNBR operates the 10 miles between Burkeville and Montgomery via overhead trackage rights on CSX.
CPKC subsidiary Kansas City Southern will acquire the 50.4-mile segment of the MNBR between Meridian and Myrtlewood, which it’s calling the Western Line. MNBR will continue to provide local service on the route after the transaction.
In a separate transaction, CSX will resume operations on its line between Myrtlewood and Burkville, Ala. — dubbed the Eastern Line — which has been leased to MNBR since 2003. As part of that transaction, MNBR will cease operations on the Eastern Line.
CPKC and CSX said the transactions will enable them to make the investments necessary to create a Class I railroad freight corridor that will expand shipping options for intermodal, automotive, and forest products moving between the Southeast and Texas and Mexico.
Between the KCS hub at Shreveport, La., and Meridian the CPKC-CSX interline service would rely on the Meridian Speedway, the KCS-NS joint venture that dates to 2006, and would compete head-to-head with existing NS-CPKC interline moves in the corridor.
NS, in a filing with the STB yesterday, said the CPKC and CSX applications should be considered as what they truly are: A single deal with potentially wide-ranging impacts.
“The Board should order consolidation of these proceedings and a resubmittal of an application that covers what is patently a unified Transaction,” NS said. “The Board’s order for consolidation should set the current proceedings in abeyance until such time as a revised, unified, application is submitted by the Applicants. Finally, the Board should clarify that the revised, unified, application to be submitted by the Applicants includes regulatorily-required data and analysis that covers the entirety of the impacted rail network, specifically including the Meridian Speedway and the Meridian gateway.”
NS said that the separate applications don’t consider the potential impact new CSX-CPKC interline trains would have on current Meridian Speedway operations, the Meridian gateway, Amtrak’s Crescent service, or proposed new Amtrak service. NS currently runs about 17 trains per day through Meridian.
“There is no discussion … whether the additional premium run-through train anticipated by CPKC to move off the Meridian Speedway and onto the Western Line would fit into the constrained sidings of the Meridian gateway and be in compliance with the same type of length limitation that it recently imposed on operations over the Meridian Speedway,” NS said.
CPKC now limits Meridian Speedway trains to 8,500 feet. The move affects just one train: The daily eastbound domestic intermodal train that CPKC receives from Union Pacific at Shreveport and delivers to NS at Meridian. The train was typically 11,000 feet long before CPKC mandated that trains fit into the Meridian Speedway’s passing sidings.
The single-track, 302-mile Speedway route between Shreveport and the connection with NS at Meridian has 21 passing sidings, most of which are around 8,500 feet long. Only three of the Speedway’s passing sidings can handle an 11,000-foot train.
“CPKC claims that ‘No commuter or passenger service moves on the Western Line’ … but does not address the fact that the through train service accesses the Meridian-Myrtlewood route through the Meridian gateway and that Amtrak operates through that very gateway, together with CPKC and Norfolk Southern,” NS said. “Further, CPKC omits the fact that, as a condition of STB approval for the acquisition of Kansas City Southern, the Board ordered CPKC to ‘honor CP’s commitments made under the settlement agreement with Amtrak, including CP’s agreement to support certain planned expansions of Amtrak passenger service.’ One portion of that settlement sets a goal of ‘introducing Amtrak service between Dallas, Texas and Meridian, Mississippi….’ The new operations anticipated by the current CPKC/CSXT/G&W transaction implicate the feasibility of that new Amtrak service, operations over the Meridian Speedway, and the fluidity of traffic through all portions of the Meridian gateway (including that of Norfolk Southern). However, the Applicants’ current bifurcated Western Line and Eastern Line approach does not address any such operational impacts.”
