“For half a century, federal law has required freight rail companies to give Amtrak passenger rail service preference on their tracks—yet noncompliance with this important law has been uneven at best,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.
The federal Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern, claiming that the company’s trains are a leading cause of long delays for Amtrak passengers traveling between New York City and New Orleans.
“Americans should not experience travel delays because rail carriers break the law,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Our action today alleges that Norfolk Southern violates federal law by failing to give the legally required preference to Amtrak passenger trains over freight trains.”
Although federal law requires Norfolk Southern’s freight trains to cede rights-of-way to Amtrak, the Justice Department says that the rail company “regularly fails to do so, leading to widespread delays that harm and inconvenience train passengers, negatively affect Amtrak’s financial performance, and impede passenger rail transportation.”
A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern said that the company has tried to work with Amtrak in the past and is committed to ensuring that its operations comply with the law.
“Over the past several months with Amtrak, we have focused on the on-time performance of the Crescent passenger train,” spokesman Tom Crosson said in a statement. “We hope to resolve these concerns and continue to make progress together.”
But the Justice Department’s complaint provides recent examples of Norfolk Southern being accorded priority over Amtrak. Earlier this year, for instance, an Amtrak train leaving New Orleans was delayed for about an hour after Norfolk Southern’s dispatchers ordered it to travel behind a much slower-moving freight train.
“In many cases, Norfolk Southern runs freight trains along the Crescent Route that, due to track limitations, are so long they cannot move to the side for passenger trains to pass them,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.
Pete Buttigieg, the head of the U.S. Department of Transportation, has since indicated that legal action is necessary to correct widespread “non-compliance” from Norfolk Southern and other large rail companies.
“For half a century, federal law has required freight rail companies to give Amtrak passenger rail service preference on their tracks—yet noncompliance with this important law has been uneven at best,” Buttigieg said in a statement.
Speaking to another publication, Trains, Buttigieg said that rail companies’ practices make it more difficult for Amtrak to improve its performance and attract more consumers.
“Ridership would be higher if passengers knew they’d be able to get where they’re going on time, without having to worry about being blocked by freight rail. Ideally this would be fixed by freight railroads doing the right thing on their own,” Buttigieg told Trains. “But short of that—and I’ve talked with the railroad CEOs myself about why they need to do that—STB, DOJ, and our own work as a department will all work in parallel to get results.”
Sources
Buttigieg: Justice Department lawsuit necessary to get freight trains out of Amtrak’s way
Lawsuit says Norfolk Southern’s freight trains cause chronic delays for Amtrak
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