(The Associated Press circulated the following on March 4, 2009.)
NEW CASTLE, Ind. — A wall of unused railroad cars nearly 2 miles long divides this eastern Indiana city, and the head of the company responsible for the cars doesn’t foresee them moving until the economy recovers.
The boxcars, used to haul automobiles, have been parked on a siding owned by the Connersville & New Castle Railroad for about a year as the automotive industry experiences slumping sales.
“It’s like our Great Wall of China, except it’s a great wall of railroad cars,” Mayor Jim Small said. “We’ve lost so many industries, so many jobs and now this is just the icing on the cake.”
The city of 17,500 people lost its biggest employer in 2003 when a Chrysler plant closed.
Residents who must view the boxcars out their windows consider them an eyesore.
“I used to be able to look across the street and see the kids playing at the elementary school. Now, this is all I see,” said Rebecca Collier, 45. “I don’t even open my curtains.”
“It’s like the Berlin Wall,” said Lesley Reece, who has lived in her New Castle home for 46 years. “Every day when I go out to get my paper, I get madder and madder.”
Small sympathizes, but said he has little power to get the freight cars moved.
The mayor complained to federal railroad officials that the train cars provided places where children might get hurt and blocked the view at intersections even though the cars have been pulled apart for openings at street crossing. But a federal inspector disagreed.
Then, Small ended the city’s courtesy of mowing and trimming grass along the track.
“If they’d have let the grass get too tall, we’d have cited them,” he said. “We’d have harassed them until maybe they would rethink keeping the cars there.”
But railroad officials just started doing their own mowing.
Now, the city has warned the railroad it can expect legal action if anyone is injured on or around the cars.
Spencer Wendelin, president of Transmark Associates, a Corydon company that manages the New Castle line and other small railroads, said the side routes most available for storage are usually near industrial areas such as that in the city about 40 miles east of Indianapolis.
The New Castle tracks — running north-south a few blocks from Main Street — formerly were used for a loading area by auto-parts supplier Visteon Corp. before it closed its local plant.
Some 450,000 empty boxcars are sitting idle nationally, according to the Association of American Railroads.
Wendelin sees economic recovery as the ultimate solution.
“The owners of the (rail) cars would much rather have them out there hauling automobiles,” he said. “Those cars represent the potential to help the automobile industry whenever they get back to making automobiles that people are buying.”
Wendelin said the railroads and warehouses that he manages, including the 28-mile C&NC, have shrunk from about 75 employees to a dozen. Transmark Associates has reduced its staff from 12 to eight.
In the meantime, people may have to get used to seeing the train cars sit idle.
“I’m sure people would rather look at trees and bushes and grass than they would railroad cars,” Wendelin said. “On the other hand, the railroad has been there a long time — 130 years — and it should not surprise anybody that it’s going to have railroad cars on it.”