(The following story by Ben Zion Hershberg appeared on the Courier Journal website on June 15, 2010.)
A decision last month by CSX Transportation to stop operating trains from Bedford to New Albany has drawn mixed reviews, with some residents who live near the line pleased with their newfound peace and quiet but community leaders concerned about the impact on business.
“It’s less noise around here,” Charles Cain, who lives at Beeler and 15th Streets next to the CSX line through New Albany, said Tuesday. Trains used to run through the neighborhood four to six times a day, he said, shaking windows and blowing whistles at all hours.
But Dan Terrell, the mayor of Mitchell in Lawrence County, said he’s worried that the loss of rail service will hamper economic development. Based on surveys, rail service was an important factor in 25 percent of the location decisions for industries in the region, he said.
“We’re trying to buy the line from Bedford to Mitchell” to start a short-line service to factories in the region, Terrell said. The 10-mile north-south line would connect to an east-west line that still operates through Mitchell, he said.
CSX won permission from the National Surface Transportation Board to discontinue service on the 62-mile Bedford-to-New Albany line as of May 7, following a March 5 hearing in Salem. The only active shipper on the line — L. Thorn Co., a Floyd County manufacturer of bricks, stone and concrete masonry — hadn’t used it at all in 2009, according to board documents.
The railroad said it expected only three freight carloads on the line this year and would lose at least $310,000.
In its decision allowing CSX to discontinue operations, the board acknowledged the economic development concerns but pointed out that CSX isn’t abandoning the line and removing the tracks. If business develops, rail service could resume.
Terrell said he believes manufacturers would use the line if pricing was competitive but that CSX set prices high enough to discourage users. He believes CSX doesn’t want the line because it’s such a small part of its network.
A small railroad operator could set costs below those of CSX, Terrell said.
A CSX spokesman didn’t respond Monday to questions about the discontinuation of service or whether the company plans to sell part of the line.
But Terrell said negotiations with CSX are under way with a potential price in the $100,000 range for the Mitchell-to-Bedford stretch. Potential shippers, including a General Motors plant, have expressed interest, he said.
Carl Malysz, New Albany’s director of community development, said Mayor Doug England is concerned about the loss of rail service at Hausfeldt Lane in New Albany. The railroad can still reach industries in the New Albany Industrial Park from the south, Malysz said, but materials can’t come to them from further north and they can’t ship in that direction.
City officials are talking with a railroad expert to develop a plan toward buying part of the line so that some freight trains and small commuter trains could use it, Malysz said. The preliminary thinking is there would be value in commuter rail service from Indiana University Southeast to downtown–and perhaps, if agreements can be worked out, to use the K&I Bridge into downtown Louisville, he said.
But the concepts are preliminary and would depend on federal grants, Malysz said.
Cain, meantime, said he’d be willing to give up the quiet he’s gained for the chance to have commuter line through New Albany.
“I’d love it,” he said.