Cereal maker Kellogg Company has joined the effort to get Amtrak to modify its plans to take a track on its Keystone Corridor out of service for six weeks.
Kellogg said the loss of freight service by Norfolk Southern, which has trackage rights on the Keystone Corridor, would cause harm to its cereal manufacturing plant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Amtrak plans to take Track 1 out of service as part of a $167 million rehabilitation of the corridor, which links Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
In the past couple weeks two feed mills served by NS along the corridor have asked the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to intervene to ensure that shippers continue to receive rail service.
Amtrak has contended that there is no reasonable alternative to removing the track from service for several weeks.
Kellogg said in a filing with the STB last week that it will join the feed mills in their complaint. In the filing, Kellogg said it receives inbound loads from NS two to three times a week.
The two feed mills, Wenger and Esbenshade, said they would lose service to their plants in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, for the duration of the track closure. They asked the STB to enjoin Amtrak from closing the track and a directed service order to keep NS access to their facilities.
Amtrak has said it plans to reschedule its trains in the corridor and that all of them will use Track 2.
The passenger carrier has said it has talked with NS about their “mutual desire to reach an expeditious resolution of this matter.”
Tags: Amtrak, Amtrak Keystone Corridor, Kellogg Company, Norfolk Southern, U.S. Surface Transportation Board
akronrrclub.wordpress.com 
Leave a Reply