(The News Journal posted the following story by Beth Miller on its website on July 26.)
WILMINGTON, Del. — CSX Transportation has filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Transportation and the city of Wilmington, asking U.S. District Court to determine who has authority over four deteriorating bridges in Wilmington and near Newport that cross over its tracks.
Three of the bridges – crossing Newport Road, Sixth Street and Seventh Street – were closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic for safety reasons last year. The fourth, crossing Ninth Street, has a 3-ton limit.
The bridges, some of which are about 100 years old, have been a source of conflict between the railroad and state and local officials for 20 years, state Secretary of Transportation Nathan Hayward III said Friday.
Hayward wants CSX to replace the bridges, which inspectors have said are in “critical condition.” But CSX said the company does not own the bridges and repairs should be paid for with federal money. DelDOT estimates the cost of repairs for the four bridges at $4.5 million.
Hayward has summoned CSX to a July 31 public hearing in Dover, where a panel he appointed would decide the issue.
In its complaint filed in federal court in Wilmington on Thursday, the railroad company has asked the court to squelch what it called DelDOT’s “sham hearing.”
CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan said Friday that the company appealed to the court because “an unfair hearing with a preordained result is not the way to solve this problem.”
In the lawsuit, CSX said Delaware officials have gone beyond their authority.
“We have serious questions regarding ownership,” Sullivan said. “There are no legal documents of which we are aware that would point to our ownership, and the state has given us none.”
Hayward said that was “absolutely wrong,” that DelDOT provided CSX with a 450-document notebook of exhibits, including letters from the 1980s in which railroad attorneys acknowledge ownership of the bridges.
“There is at least a smoking pistol,” Hayward said. “We don’t think it’s appropriate for us to use Delaware taxpayer money … nor should we use our federal allotment, which is limited, on structures we don’t own.”
He posted signs last year at the closed bridges that pictured a collapsing bridge and said CSX was “dragging its feet” on making repairs.
Hayward has offered CSX two options: Pay for the entire estimated $4.5 million project and DelDOT will assume future responsibility for the bridges, or pay about 20 percent of the cost and retain ownership of the bridges.
“Despite repeated efforts to get them to fix these bridges, we still have no movement,” Hayward said. “We got no response.”
The hearing is a “last resort,” he said, an option granted to him by a Delaware law that also gives court-enforceable authority to the appointed panel that would rule on the matter. Hayward appointed University of Delaware civil engineering professor Michael Chajes, Wilmington attorney W. Harding Drane and DelDOT special counsel Mark McNulty to hear the case.
In a July 7 letter to CSX, Hayward said the bridge closings have caused increased response times for emergency personnel and inconvenience for motorists.
“It’s a terrible inconvenience,” said Anne Hample, who lives on Kiamensi Road near the closed Newport Road bridge. “It probably adds a mile [to some errands]. But in this day and age, with gas prices the way they are, a mile is a mile. … We really do miss it.”
Sullivan said there are more than 3,000 highway bridges that cross the company’s network of railroad tracks. Most disputes in the past, he said, have been resolved with federal money. CSX spends about $1 billion a year to maintain the rail system, he said.
“We work at every turn to be a good corporate citizen in the communities where we operate,” he said.
City Councilman Gerard Kelly, who represents the 7th District, where the three Wilmington bridges are located, said he is out of patience with the issue.
“The residents have put forth a good-faith effort, but CSX keeps dancing,” Kelly said. “While the dance continues, they don’t have to pay anything.”
Kelly said there might be other ways to prompt action.
“If there is no resolution within a month or two, we will work to shut down the railroad tracks at some point,” he said. “We can’t take it much longer. We’re almost at the point of being fed up.
“If it’s not resolved by September, there will be some action by the residents to make CSX hurt.”
A few years ago, the mayor of Darby, Pa., parked her personal vehicle across CSX tracks to get the railroad’s attention after several train derailments near the borough.
In 2001, at Wilmington Mayor James M. Baker’s insistence, CSX reimbursed city officials for repairs done to sidewalks and curbs beneath the railroad bridge at 14th and Scott streets.
Baker will not comment on the CSX complaint until after meeting with lawyers Monday, said John Rago, Baker’s communications director.