(The following story by Jonathan D. Jones appeared on the News Leader website on June 2.)
STAUNTON, Va. — Two freight trains will be based here under a tentative agreement reached between CSX Corp. and Buckingham Branch Railroad.
The two companies filed a 20-year lease agreement last week for approval from the Surface Transportation Board, a subdivision of the federal Department of Transportation.
The filings outline much of Buckingham Branch’s plan to increase traffic and improve profitability on a 200-mile stretch of track from Richmond to Clifton Forge.
One of the key components for increasing freight traffic is running two freight trains daily out of Staunton, according to the filings. One train would run south in the morning to Clifton Forge. The other would run north in the evening to Orange. Both trains would be an increase over CSX’s current service to Staunton.
Bob Bryant, president of Buckingham Branch, declined to comment.
If Buckingham Branch were to run a few competitively priced, short lines out of the area, it might appeal to some local industry, said Dale Cobb director of Augusta County Community Development. But without seeing Buckingham Branch’s plans, he said it is hard to tell what kind of impact the freight service might have on the local economy.
“It certainly could give industry another outlet, and that’s always good,” Cobb said. “Only time will tell how it’s going to impact our area.”
The lease agreement still doesn’t clear up the question of whether or not excursion trains will be able to run on the line.
Sally Kammauff, president of Virginia Central Railroad, said the question still remains whether or not CSX will lower the liability threshold for her company’s steam trains to be able to run on the line, or whether or not an agreement with Amtrak could be reached to run them that way. In 1993, CSX set a $200 million liability price tag for the Virginia Central after allowing it to run a few test runs with a $20 million policy.
“We really don’t know how it might impact us,” Kammauff said. The Virginia Central briefly operated a steam train along the line in the mid-1990s. Since then, the vintage cars and engines have been idled in a Staunton train yard.
In order to maintain and run trains on the line, Buckingham Branch plans to hire 27 new employees, according to the lease. But how many of them could be based in Staunton is still unclear. The filings call for Buckingham to hire five engineers, five trainmen, eight maintenance of way workers and six signal men.
Thirty-two CSX employees would be displaced, but not fired, according to the lease agreement. CSX also would retain the right to send empty coal cars westbound on the line and in an emergency return full coal cars to the east.
Amtrak’s existing agreements to run The Cardinal along the track should not be affected, according to the filings.
The lease agreement made public through the Surface Transportation Board is not CSX’s and Buckingham Branch’s entire application. Some of it was redacted.
In supplementary documents filed with the lease, the company’s asked the Surface Transportation Board to finalize its decision by Nov. 8 of this year. The lease is to take effect Dec. 20 and calls for Buckingham Branch to pay CSX at least $140,000 yearly for use of the lines.