CSX Inherits Locomotives it Once Owned

CSX has inherited more than 100 GE C40-8 locomotives as part of its merger with regional carrier Pan Am Railways.

Trains magazine reported on its website that the acquisition represented a turnabout because CSX had begun striking the 4,000-horsepower six-axle units several years ago, selling most of its standard cab Dash-8s back to GE which in turn sold 24 of them to Pan Am.

It was thus a case of CSX acquiring Pan Am locomotives that CSX once owned and then sold. The units carried the 7400-7600 roster number series at both railroads.

The Trains report said it is unclear if CSX plans to keep the C40-8 units but at least one of them has recently been repainted into the CSX livery and given a new roster number.

That unit, No. 9280, was seen working a manifest freight in Tennessee on the former Clinchfield Railroad.

CSX purchased 147 C40-8 locomotives, which GE introduced in 1987.

The Trains report can be read at https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/csx-rekindles-its-relationship-with-venerable-dash-8-locomotives/

CSX Completes Merger with Pan Am Railways

CSX completed its takeover of Pan Am Railways on Wednesday.

The New England-based regional railroad became a fallen flag at 12:01 a.m., six weeks after the U.S. Surface Transportation approved the merger.

The merger extends CSX farther into New England. The deal involves merging six railway companies into CSX and grants trackage rights to other carriers on lines of four other railroads, including CSX, Providence & Worcester, Boston & Maine, and Pan Am Southern.

Norfolk Southern gains a new route to move intermodal and automobile trains from Voorheesville, New Yori, to Ayer, Massachusetts.

The Pittsburg & Shawmut Railroad, a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming that does business as the Berkshire & Eastern Railroad, will replace Springfield Terminal as the operator of Pan Am Southern.

Federal regulators established a five-year oversight period to monitor the effectiveness of the various conditions they imposed on the merger.

CSX-Pan Am Merger to Close June 1

CSX said Thursday it will take over Pan Am Railways on June 1.

The Class 1 carrier received approval last week from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to acquire Pan Am, which has a 1,200-mile route network in New England.

The merger will change the railroad scene in the region. Aside from CSX taking over Pan Am, Genesee & Wyoming subsidiary Berkshire & Eastern will operate the former Boston & Maine east of Ayer, Massachusetts.

That line, known as Pan Am Southern, will be owned 50-50 by CSX and Norfolk Southern.

CSX also gets Pan Am’s haulage rights to Saint John, New Brunswick, thus enabling it to compete with Canadian National and Canadian Pacific.

As part of the acquisition, CSX agreed to give Vermont Rail System trackage rights.

Amtrak will be allowed by CSX to operate trial intercity passenger service to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from New York City.

During STB hearings on the merger, CSX said it would spend more than $100 million on infrastructure improvements to Pan Am track.

The STB did not issue a condition that the 147-year old Hoosac Tunnel be kept open. The tunnel has been subject to cave-ins in recent years.

STB Approves CSX Acquisition of Pan Am

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board has unanimously approved a bid by CSX to acquire Pan Am Railways and its seven short line subsidiaries. The merger will become effective on May 14.

The STB did impose some conditions on the merger as well as approve six related transactions, one of which was approving trackage rights by Norfolk Southern over lines of CSX, Providence & Wooster, Boston & Maine, and Pan Am Southern.

The NS trackage rights will enable it to move intermodal and automotive traffic via a new route to reach Ayer, Massachusetts.

Berkshire & Eastern will become the operator of Pan Am Southern. B&E is a subsidiary of short line conglomerate Genesee & Wyoming.

Although the U.S. Department of Justice had raised some concerns about the CSX-Pan Am merger, the STB ruled that NS “will have both the ability and the incentive to prevent CSX from taking actions that would impair PAS [Pan Am Southern].”

Canadian Pacific had also expressed concern that the merger could potentially harm it by leading to the downgrading of Pan Am Southern routes that it uses.

However, the Board noted that CP reached a settlement agreement with CSX and NS that “provides assurances that the Merger Transaction and Related Transactions will not ultimately undermine the PAS routes as a competitive option”

The STB also determined that B&E will have independent rate-setting authority that will be sufficient enough to ensure that Pan Am Southern rates “are not set in an anticompetitive manner.”

Regulators also said CSX pledged an open gateway policy that will ensure that Pan Am Southern “remains a competitive option, as it will allow other carriers that connect with the PAR System to continue offering competitive interline rates.”

CSX agreed to “waive its right under the Board’s ‘Bottleneck Cases’ to quote only long-haul rates, even when interline routes are possible,” the Board wrote.

The merger will extend the CSX network in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts, while adding new routes to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Pan Am operates over a 1,200-mile network in New England and had an ownership stake in Pan Am Southern. The latter also is partly owned by NS.

CSX will acquire a 50 percent ownership share of Pan Am Southern as a result of the merger.

The STB said it would set a five-year oversight period over the merger during which it will monitor the “the effectiveness of the various conditions.”

Petitions for reconsideration of STB’s decision must be filed by May 4, 2022. Requests for stay must be filed by May 4, 2022.

The Board’s decision can be read at https://dcms-external.s3.amazonaws.com/DCMS_External_PROD/1649966599082/51144.pdf

CSX, Amtrak Reach Pact on Pan Am Merger

Amtrak and CSX reportedly have reached an agreement that will remove the passenger carrier’s opposition to the freight carrier’s plans to acquire Pan Am Railways.

Although the two railroads have reached agreements on several items, Railfan and Railroad reported on its website that Amtrak said there are still some sticking points.

On Jan. 3 Amtrak had said it would oppose the CSX-Pan Am merger unless it received some specific concessions that deal with existing and potential new intercity rail passenger service in New England.

In the latest development, Amtrak said CSX has accepted six of the conditions Amtrak is seeking.

These include a CSX promise to give priority to Amtrak trains when dispatching; a CSX agreement to cooperate with potential service expansions on the former Boston & Albany line between Worcester, Massachusetts, and Albany, New York; upgrading the current Downeaster route in Maine with positive train control and allowing expanded service; and allowing operation of the new Berkshire Flyer to Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

The Flyer would use the B&A route, which also hosts the Boston section of Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited, as part of its trek between Pittsfield and New York City on weekends.

A 1,000-foot siding will be constructed in Pittsfield.  Planning for the Berkshire Flyer has been underway for years but been stymied by lack of an agreement between Amtrak and CSX.

Trains magazine reported that the Flyer could operate as a special service pending construction of the Pittsfield siding.

The Trains report also said CSX agreed to ensure that Norfolk Southern intermodal and automotive trains using the B&A route would not interfere with proposed or existing Amtrak service.

NS trains now use Pan Am Southern tracks between Mechanicville, New York, and Ayer, Massachusetts, but would shift to the B&A after the merger is completed.

In recent weeks CSX has reached agreement with other railroad systems that had initially opposed or raised concerns about the merger.

However, two carriers, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation/Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and Canadian Pacific, still have concerns about the merger that have yet to be addressed.

STB CSX-Pan Am Merger Hearings to be Online

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board this week said that public hearings regarding CSX plans to acquire Pan Am Systems will be conducted online.

The hearings will be conducted via Zoom and will begin at 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 13. Additional time has been allotted on Jan. 14 to accommodate all speakers, the STB said in a news release.

CSX wants to acquire the 1,200-mile Pan Am system, thus extending the Class 1 carrier’s network into areas of Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

CP-KCS Deal to Close Today, STB Sets Hearing for CSX-Pan Merger

Canadian Pacific is expected to assume ownership of Kansas City Southern today (Dec. 14, 2021).

The $31 billion acquisition was approved by shareholders of both companies last year, but a merger of the two companies is pending review by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.

KCS will continue to operate as an independent company during the review period and be placed in a blind trust until the STB rules in what is expected to be the fourth quarter of 2022.

During this period, management of KCS is expected to remain the same.

In an unrelated development involving Class 1 railroad mergers, the STB has set hearing dates of Jan. 13-14, 2022, for the proposed merger of CSX and New England regional railroad Pan Am Railways.

The hearing will be held online on Jan. 13 with time reserved for the following day if needed.

Those wishing to address the Board must file a notice of intent to participate by Dec. 20.
The STB also said last week that it will not require an environmental and historic review in the CSX acquisition of Pan Am.

STB Sets Dates for Hearings on 3 Major Cases

Public hearings have been set by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board early next year on three key cases that are being watched carefully by railroad industry observers.

They include CSX plans to acquire New England regional railroad Pan Am Railways; Amtrak’s bid to gain authority to operate new intercity rail passenger service between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama; and a proposal to promulgate reciprocal switching regulations.

In a statement, STB Chairman Martin J. Oberman said each case “involves issues with the potential for significant impact, not only on the involved railroads, but on the shipping community, labor, rail passengers, consumers and the public at large,”

Hearings on the CSX-Pan Am merger have been set for Jan. 13 and 14, the Amtrak case will be heard Feb. 15 and 16, and the reciprocal switching case will be held March 15-16.

All hearings will be held at the agency’s Washington headquarters.

CSX Willing to Give up PAS Ownership

CSX CEO James Foote said during a conference this week that his company is open to giving up its half ownership of Pan Am Southern if it is allowed to acquire Pan Am Railways.

PAS ownership is currently split between Norfolk Southern and Pan Am. PAS provides NS with access to Boston.

CSX has proposed keeping its PAS ownership but giving operating control of it to a neutral party, a subsidiary of short line railroad conglomerate Genesee & Wyoming.

However, some critics of the CSX-Pan Am deal have argued that the G&W subsidiary – Berkshire & Eastern – is not necessarily a neutral party.

Speaking to the North American Rail Shippers conference on Thursday, Foote said, “It was our partner in that initiative that thought we should do it this way.”

PAS oversees the former Boston & Maine west of Ayer, Massachusetts, and a north-south route along the Connecticut River in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

Among those opposing CSX plans for PAS are the U.S. Justice Department, Canadian Pacific, and Vermont public officials.

All have said the manner in which CSX has proposed to handle PAS raises competitive concerns, saying CSX is already the dominant freight railroads in New England.

Foote said he is baffled by why CP wants to route its New England traffic through the Hoosac Tunnel, which cannot accommodate double-stack intermodal traffic.

 “We’ve got a super deluxe double-stack railroad, but they don’t like it for some reason,” Foote said about his company’s Boston & Albany route.

Amtrak, CP Wants Conditions on CSX-Pan Am Merger

Canadian Pacific and Amtrak are asking the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to impose certain conditions on the CSX acquisition of Pan Am Railways.

In its filing, CP contends that the merger will threaten the viability of the former Boston & Maine Hoosac Tunnel route that provides competition for CSX’s own New England main line.

CP said most of its New England traffic operates via Mechanicville, New York, and the former Boston & Maine route that is now part of the Pan Am Southern joint venture between Pan Am Railways and Norfolk Southern.

James Clements, CP’s senior vice president of strategic planning and technology transformation, said in the filing that if CSX becomes a half owner of PAS it will have an incentive to downgrade PAS’s competition against CSX single-line routes

“Though PAS’s Hoosac Tunnel Route hosts relatively few daily freight trains, it serves as a vital and unique competitive discipline to CSX, which dominates traffic volumes,” Clements wrote.

“CSX will have a veto over capital maintenance and other investments in the viability of the competing PAS route,” he wrote in the filing.

CP fears that NS plans to divert its intermodal traffic to the former Boston & Albany route now operated by CSX would reduce NS’s incentive to support the viability of the Hoosac Tunnel route.

CSX has proposed having a Genesee & Wyoming subsidiary, Berkshire & Eastern, serve as a neutral operator of the PAS.

But CP questioned whether B&E would be a neutral carrier due to G&W’s ownership of neighboring lines in New England, including New England Central, Providence & Worcester, and Saint Lawrence & Atlantic.

CP wants the STB to require that CSX and G&W keep open all Pan Am Southern gateways via the Hoosac Tunnel route, that PAS maintain the former B&M main line at or above pre-merger levels; and that PAS maintains current service levels, including frequency, transit times, and consistency.

The STB should also monitor the effects of the merger on the B&M and maintain the ability to impose additional conditions to “protect the viability of the route,” CP said.

CP projected that post-merger traffic on the line would fall by about a third due to the diversion of NS intermodal and auto trains and the shift of CSX-Pan Am Railways carload traffic to CSX’s former Boston & Albany line.

Clements said there is a risk that PAS would not restore service if there were another collapse in the Hoosac Tunnel as happened in 2020 when it took almost two months to reopen the tunnel.

As for Amtrak, it wants protection for current and potential expansions of passenger service in New England, noting that the CSX-Pan Am merger involves some routes on which passenger trains account for the majority of traffic.

In its STB filing, Amtrak said Pan Am has cooperated with efforts to improve Downeaster service between Boston and Maine as well as the launch of the Valley Flyer service in western New England.

“In contrast, CSXT consistently has taken the approach of obstructing the expansion of passenger rail, and to limit access to its facilities, despite the fact that CSXT is statutorily required to provide Amtrak with access to its rail lines,” Amtrak wrote. “Indeed, as the Board is aware from the current Gulf Coast dispute, CSXT has a history of stonewalling Amtrak’s requests for additional service.”

Amtrak cited CSX obstruction of an effort to launch seasonal, weekend-only Berkshire Flyer service between Albany-Rensselaer, New York, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which would be an extension of an existing Empire Service train.

Amtrak noted that CSX has demanded a traffic study and capacity improvements yet did not conduct a traffic study or require capacity improvements as part of its merger-related trackage rights agreement that would allow NS to divert a daily pair of intermodal trains to the former B&A route that Amtrak wants to use.

“Instead, CSXT now claims in its Application that the entire Albany-Worcester line ‘has excess capacity,’ directly contravening the position it continues to take with regard to the proposed seasonal, weekend Berkshire Flyer service that would operate over only a small portion of the line,” Amtrak wrote.

Amtrak also fears the merger could interfere with proposed service expansions in New England, including linking Boston with Concord, New Hampshire; an increase in Boston-Albany service to two daily round-trips; and increased Downeaster service from Boston to Brunswick, Maine, and a summer seasonal extension of Downeaster service to Rockland, Maine.

CSX has said that its acquisition of Pan Am would have no negative impact on passenger and commuter service in New England.

Amtrak said regulators failed to impose conditions to protect passenger service in previous merger cases and Amtrak service consequently suffered.

The passenger carrier cited CSX’s lease of the Buckingham Branch in Virginia; the split of Conrail between CSX and Norfolk Southern; Canadian National’s acquisition of Illinois Central; and the Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger.

Amtrak wants seven conditions imposed on the CSX-Pan Am merger including requiring CSX to fulfill all of its merger-related promises regarding passenger service.

That will include a commitment that the NS trains will be scheduled to operate over CSX’s B&A line outside of the Lake Shore Limited’s operating windows and that the NS trains don’t interfere with the Valley Flyer and Vermonter service at the diamond in Springfield, Massachusettts, where their routes cross.

Amtrak also wants the STB to require that CSX negotiate in good faith with Amtrak and its state partners for service expansions, improvements, and additional weekend and seasonal service, particularly on its route between Albany and Worcester; that CSX be ordered to cooperate with Amtrak and its partners to identify what improvements would be required to raise passenger train speeds on Pan Am and CSX routes, then work in good faith to promptly make improvements.

CSX should be ordered to not make operational changes that would result in a deterioration of on-time performance of Amtrak trains and that non-emergency trackwork be undertaken during non-peak passenger periods.

Amtrak also wants CSX to be ordered to provide for the operation of up to four weekend Berkshire Flyer trips in the summer between Albany and Pittsfield within 90 days written notice from Amtrak and without any Amtrak-funded capacity improvements.

As Amtrak was being critical of CSX in its filing, the agency that sponsors Downeaster Service wrote to the STB in favor of the merger.

The Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority said CSX had worked with it to address a number of issues, including station locations.

 “As the State Sponsor of the Amtrak Downeaster, which operates over approximately 106 miles of railroad to be controlled by CSX if this transaction is approved, NNEPRA expects to maintain strong and productive working relationships with the host railroad,” Executive Director Patricia Quinn wrote.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation said it hoped it could reach a written agreement with CSX that would satisfy the state’s concerns about ensuring that the merger does not have a negative impact on passenger and commuter service.

But it also asked the STB to order CSX to turn over dispatching of commuter lines to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and to cooperate in the launch of new passenger service west of Worcester on the B&A, and west of Ayer, Massachusetts, on Pan Am, as well as Berkshire Flyer service.

Yet more concerns about the CSX-Pan Am merger have been raised by the Vermont Rail System and the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

Both wrote to the STB to argue that having B&E operate PAS would reduce rail competition in Vermont because it would give G&W railroads “a near monopoly on interchange with VRS.”

“This seems akin to NS having to interchange all of its traffic with CSX to get to BNSF or UP in the west,” R.L. Banks & Associates consultant James Cunningham wrote in the railroad’s filing. “In this hypothetical, CSX would not know the rates under which NS traffic was moving but it would see the commodities and volumes to obtain a much better picture of the overall market. NS would never tolerate that commercial disadvantage and neither can VRS.”

But VRS, the filing notes, would be at more of a disadvantage because Berkshire & Eastern would have access to its rates.

“Choosing GWI as the third party is the wrong choice. It gives the world’s largest short line and regional railroad holding company another puzzle piece in the New England area where its presence is already one of, if not the, largest,” Cunningham wrote. “Other short lines and short line holding companies that have the ability and credentials in the industry to operate the PAS in a truly independent manner. By choosing GWI, CSX and NS have solved one problem by choosing the course of least resistance but creating another which can only be fixed by selecting another operator of PAS.”