(The following story by Andy Thompson appeared on The Evening Tribune website on February 20.)
HORNELL, N.Y. — Perhaps the P in WNY&P should stand for Phoenix.
Like the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes, a long-neglected railroad line from Hornell to Meadville, Pa., will soon see regular traffic.
Norfolk Southern Railway Company officials Wednesday filed documents with the federal Surface Transportation Board detailing its intent to purchase trackage rights from Southern Tier Extension operator Western New York & Pennsylvania.
The result will likely be regular coal trains – operated by Norfolk Southern – on the WNY&P, with payments from NS for the privilege.
While NS won’t say why it wants trackage rights – there is a 20-day waiting period to find if labor unions involved have any disagreements with the plan – the Meadville to Hornell route will shave 65 miles from a current traffic pattern that has coal from the Monongahela fields traveling north, west, then east to Buffalo through the congested CP Drawbridge down to Attica, over Portage Bridge and then Hornell to reach power plants in the northeast. The new route would have coal move from Pittsburgh to Youngstown, Ohio, and then to Meadville to the NS connection in Hornell. It will also provide a secure backup route for NS should the aging bridge over the Genesee River at Portage deteriorate.
William Burt, WNY&P president, said the arrangement will mean steady income for the fledgling WNY&P as it develops its own business along the route.
“Basically this is a pretty big step that they’ve taken,” Burt said Thursday. NS will use its own power and crews for their trains, he said, in an arrangement that is similar to the trackage rights agreement Canadian Pacific has with NS from Buffalo to Binghamton. CP inherited those rights from its purchase of Delaware & Hudson, which gained use of the route as part of the 1976 creation of Conrail.
WNY&P and line owner Southern Tier Rail Authority has spent millions in the past three years upgrading the line that Conrail once gave up for dead. WNY&P owns outright the portion of the line from Corry, Pa., to Meadville, while Southern Tier Rail Authority holds title to the rest through a sale-leaseback agreement with NS. That in turn has been subleased to WNY&P as part of what will be a 30-year arrangement.
Burt said once the labor notification period runs its course, area residents should see NS trains on the line beginning as early as March 9.
“We don’t know of any labor issues, and we’re not expecting any,” Burt said. “If everything goes well in that 20 days, then they would be free to exercise their trackage rights.”
The agreement will provide a steady source of income as WNY&P expands its operations in the Southern Tier, Burt said.
“Our business continues to grow, and is at an all time high. It is about 60 percent of where we expected it to be after a three- to four-year time period,” Burt said.
The WNY&P now moves about 2,200 cars a year locally, a dramatic increase from its first year of operation three years ago, when it moved 125 cars.
“That is quite a growth factor,” Burt said.
Interest in the WNY&P has been strongest at its western end, so the firm’s focus has been on working to secure business in the Wellsville and Hornell area. Burt said there are potential customers in Allegany County that may start using the railroad, but he declined to be more specific.