(The following story by Urvaksh Karkaria appeared on The Times-Union website on July 1.)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CSX Corp. plans to idle up to 300 local jobs as it shunts the majority of its train dispatch operations outside the state.
The Jacksonville work will, over the next two years, be moved to existing offices in Baltimore; Nashville; Huntington, W. Va.; Cincinnati; Florence, S.C.; and Atlanta.
Once the transfer of work is completed in August 2009, the Jacksonville operation will employ about 54 train dispatchers.
Jacksonville-based CSX has four dispatch centers, located in the Midwest and East Coast, responsible for routing trains along its tracks. Most dispatchers have been concentrated in Jacksonville since 1988, when the company established a centralized operating facility that oversees the entire network.
The relocation will improve the productivity and efficiency of train dispatching operations, CSX spokesman Gary Sease said Friday.
“We’re taking these dispatching functions out of headquarters,” Sease said, “and putting them into field offices, closer to where the train operations occur.”
The realignment will result in more effective and efficient decision-making, improved system reliability and improved train performance, CSX said in a notice to train dispatchers.
While train dispatchers – who, on average, make nearly $35 an hour, or almost $73,000 annually – will be mostly affected by the relocation of work, about 25 local signalmen would also see their jobs moved. Signalmen, among other things, maintain the dispatching equipment and respond to problems with railroad crossing signals and gates. About 10 percent of the affected workers are in management.
Workers will be offered jobs in the new locations, Sease said.