(The following story by Bob Withers appeared on The Herald-Dispatch website on July 7.)
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — CSX Transportation has invited eight short-line railroads to bid on buying or leasing two major rail routes in West Virginia and Western Maryland, an action that would directly affect about 250 employees.
“These lines require more capital than we are willing to invest, and we hope short-line operators can make their economics operate better than we currently can,” said CSX spokesman Gary Sease in Jacksonville, Fla.
One of the routes runs generally east and west for 182 miles between Brooklyn Jct., near New Martinsville, W.Va., and Cumberland, Md., via Clarksburg and Grafton, W.Va. The other is a 116-mile north-south artery between Grafton and Cowen, W.Va.
If one of the short lines’ bids is accepted, CSX employees will be given the choice of relocating to other routes operated by that carrier or applying to the leasing company for work — in which case their seniority would start over and pay scales would be smaller.
The effect on jobs could spread to other areas traversed by CSX — including Huntington — in a trickle-down fashion because those who relocate could displace younger workers.
Most of the traffic on the routes is coal, and much of the terrain is mountainous, with steep grades and tight curves that increase track maintenance costs. Many of the trains in those territories require helper locomotives — which are operated by an additional crew — to shove from or near the rear, assisting the head-end power.
Sease noted that second main lines, branch lines, yard tracks and industrial tracks raise the total mileage to be sold or leased to 535.
CSX has set a goal of trimming 1,200 miles from the 23,000-mile, 23-state system this year, Sease said. Decisions are still being made.
Sease said the railroad has asked the eight short lines — which it did not identify — to submit their bids by July 20. A decision will be made within a few weeks afterward, and the company has reserved the right to reject all bids.
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board must approve any change in operating control, said Rudy Saint-Louis, an STB staff attorney.
“More than likely it would be approved, barring unforeseen circumstances,” he said.
The plan concerns some CSX employees, but they declined to comment on the record. Retirees were more open.
“The company should consider the predicament they’re putting these men in,” said F.S. Furbee of Point Pleasant, W.Va., a retired CSX engineer. “They shouldn’t be so concerned with making money that they refuse to consider the feelings of the people who have given them so many years of faithful service.”
Kyle F. Hall of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., who used to run into Huntington, agreed.
“I don’t think it could ever be a good deal for the employees,” he said. “Going to work for the other company shouldn’t be a choice they have to make. They would lose many of their fringe benefits, the security of a large corporation and much of their pay, particularly if the short line uses nonunion labor.”
Hall also said short lines tend to use older locomotives that are more prone to breakdown and less environmentally friendly.
“It’ll set railroading in that area back probably 20 years,” he said.
Union reaction was mixed.
Don Menefee, general chairman for the Northern Alliance of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a union that represents 50,000 active and retired engineers and conductors, said that if seasoned CSX employees in the area, many of whom are the fifth generation in their families to lug trains over the mountains, choose to relocate, short-line crews aren’t likely to have the skills required to control the competing forces that stress the equipment and track.
“That’s a unique operation,” he said. The territory is unforgiving. A mistake might be fatal.”
Frank Wilner, director of public relations for the United Transportation Union, which represents 65,000 railroad conductors, engineers, firemen, hostlers and yardmasters, wasn’t so pessimistic.
“Our primary objective has always been to keep freight on the rails and off the highways,” Wilner said. “If the alternative is seeing abandonment of these lines, we would not necessarily oppose such leases if we were convinced that the alternative would be abandonment and scrapping of the rails.”
Wilner said that, contrary to popular belief, the UTU holds more short-line labor contracts than all other unions combined.
“More than half of all short-line employees today work under union contracts,” he said.
Wilner said that while it’s true the short-line movement started with nonunion operators, those operators kept a tremendous amount of lines open, freight moving and people working.
“The old model — opposing every abandonment, every sale and every lease — just didn’t work,” Wilner said, adding that the principle applies especially to abandonments. “The company pulls the rails up, the freight goes to the highways and jobs are lost forever.”
CSX is in the process of turning over a 182-mile route between Richmond and Clifton Forge, Va., to the 16-mile Buckingham Branch Railroad of Dillwyn, Va. And, earlier this year, the company leased a 276-mile former Pennsylvania Railroad mainline between Crestline, Ohio, and Chicago to RailAmerica Inc.
“The fact that there are parallel routes or the lines’ economics made them good candidates,” Sease said. “We are looking at how to make our network more efficient and concentrate our resources on those lines that provide the best returns to us.”