Testimonial:

The Letter From the General Chairman

When Jonathan B. Long, General Chairman of the American Rail System Federation wrote to Micheal DeWine, the Governor of Ohio, of his concerns about the erosion of rail safety under Norfolk Southern, he pointed the finger at “Precision Scheduled Railroading” as the culprit. Beginning in 2015, PSR is the cost cutting business model inflicted upon the US Rail Industry by Wall Investors and Hedge Funds. It’s the reason why 21% of Norfolk Southern’s Maintenance of Way employees, responsible for track safety, have been cut. It’s the reason hearings were held by the Surface Transportation Board on inconsistencies and unreliability among Class I freight railroads. The result of tt’s demands for more work, longer hours, less employees, longer trains, and higher speeds along tracks never designed for such stress, includes the rail disaster in East Palestine, Ohio.

After the wreck, which belched a plume of vinyl chloride into the skies above East Palestine that could be seen for miles, and evacuated the Appalachian town of 5,000, 40 NS Maintenance of Way went to work cleaning up the site. Chairman Long received reports that these workers were not provided with personal protective gear, such as respirators (needed for working around vinyl chloride gas), eye protection, protective clothing, rubber overboots or gloves. Days later NS workers were still experiencing the nausea and migraines that are associated with vinyl chloride exposure. His conclusion that these, and more examples, were all hallmarks of the PSR cost-cutting business model that NS had adopted, exulting profits over community, safety, and their own people. Nowhere is this more evident than the insulting compensation to East Palestine of 25,000$ or 5$ per person.

Norfolk Southern currently wants to purchase the last municipally owned railroad: Cincinnati Southern Rail.

Continued

NS’s lease, for which they pay 28 million a year, is up in 2024, and they want to purchase our rail road for 1.6 billion (the rail could be worth nearly twice that). While this might seem like a good deal, the money can only go toward rehabilitation or replacement of existing infrastructure (parks, streets, bridges, etc.) but not to build new infrastructure. Republican state senator Bill Blessings is the only state representative (as of February 21st) to have voiced opposition to the sale, concerned that it will not outproceed the city’s current revenue, forcing the city to make up the loss somewhere else in either cut services or higher taxes.

In order for the sale to happen it must be on the 2023 November ballot.

There has been some action: a bipartisan proposed senate bill (from Senators Vance (Republican) and Brown (Democrat) which “would strengthen notification and inspection requirements for trains carrying hazardous materials, increase fines for safety violations by rail carriers and authorize $27 million for research on safety improvements. But it would stop short of dictating major regulatory changes, leaving the matter to the Transportation Department.” This does not do enough to bring NS in line with the level of safety Cincinnati currently demands on its own railroad. If the sale goes through, we can expect the same sacrifice of safety, employees, and responsibility for the sake of their Wall Street owners. Our railyards go right along the I-75 corridor and a derailment, carrying similar chemicals would impact all the historically marginalized communities in Cincinnati’s African American and Appalachian neighborhoods. Not to mention University of Cincinnati, Ludlow, and Downtown. Given the concerns of the Chairman of the ARSF, as he wrote to Governor DeWine, asking for help, we cannot trust NS to be good owners of CSR. We, the public of Cincinnati, must remain its stewards. CSR runs through Cincinnati, Lexington and Chattanooga, all cities with DSA chapters. Will you stand with us in ending any sale of our municipal railway?