(The following article by Don Phillips appeared in the Washington Post.)
WASHINGTON — A sometimes testy meeting of CSX Transportation, Amtrak and Virginia officials on Tuesday produced a tentative agreement to help ensure that the next major snowstorm does not shut down passenger, commuter and freight railroad service in the Mid-Atlantic region, participants said yesterday.
Before that meeting, at Amtrak headquarters in Union Station, Amtrak President David L. Gunn called the CSX officials into his office for a meeting that apparently went beyond testy. Gunn also had what was described as a more positive phone conversation yesterday with Michael J. Ward, chairman of CSX Transportation’s parent company, CSX Corp.
While CSX continued to insist that the shutdown of its Washington-Richmond corridor after the snowstorm was necessary, company officials agreed they could do better, and the state agreed that snowplows, police departments and fire departments will give priority to clearing a path to CSX tracks for maintenance forces and to help with rescue efforts if trains are stranded.
Passenger and commuter rail authorities, particularly Virginia Railway Express, have been openly upset that CSX not only shut down its tracks between Washington and Richmond — which halted Amtrak service south of Washington and VRE’s Fredericksburg, Va., line — but also refused to allow VRE’s Manassas-line trains to use relatively clear CSX tracks into Washington.
Norfolk Southern Railway Co. kept all its lines in the area open throughout the storm and offered to run normal VRE service over its tracks from Manassas to a junction with CSX just south of the Alexandria station. But the trains could not operate because CSX, citing safety concerns, refused to allow them to go beyond that junction into Washington over its tracks.
Virginia transportation officials called the meeting in an effort to cool tempers and to work on ways to keep the railroad open in the future.
But the meeting did not start on a positive note. Sources said CSX officials would not answer several questions, including why their line from Alexandria to Union Station remained closed for three days during and after the storm. That stretch of the railroad was largely in good shape, with modern, state-financed switch heaters working as intended to prevent freezing, VRE has said.
CSX officials also avoided a question from VRE that has come up repeatedly: why they don’t give local CSX officials the authority to make decisions about operations rather than having them come from CSX headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla.
“We need to start thinking how CSX can make local decisions based on localized conditions,” said VRE’s chief operations officer, Pete Sklannik Jr. “They’ve got to get away from the Jacksonville ivory tower.”
In the Tuesday meeting, officials said the state of Virginia offered to give priority to plowing snow from roads that cross CSX tracks so that maintenance workers and train crews can access the line, and to offer the services of police and firefighters in emergencies, such as stranded passenger trains. CSX agreed to put together teams to meet with local officials to plan for snowstorms, and to discuss ways to keep track switches from freezing.
“We want to know what we can do next time to allow 2,000 feet of CSX track to be used to at least get Manassas-line trains into Alexandria so our passengers can transfer to Metro,” Sklannik said.
CSX spokesman Dan Murphy said that the freight railroad had agreed to “work to see how we can do better” and that the state had offered to provide assistance and give priority to getting CSX workers to the railroad, which runs through many rural areas with few main roads. He characterized the meeting as “positive.”
Amtrak spokesman Clifford Black said the conversation between Gunn and Ward resulted in further progress toward a solution. “They’re talking and they’re working together on operational issues,” Black said. “They agreed we both can do better with our communication and operations.”
Murphy acknowledged that the Tuesday meeting with Gunn involved “a direct and frank discussion,” but that the Gunn-Ward conversation yesterday was a “very constructive discussion that will lead to better communication, planning and execution.”
Sources on both sides pointed out that Gunn and Ward are lifelong railroaders with decades of experience in the rough-and-tumble world of operations, with Ivy League educations and extensive background in finance.