Reason for Freight Railroads opposing Gulf Coast Service

[Seaboard92]

No doubt they wouldn't be. I'm hoping there's a good result from this Surface Transit Board case for the Gulf Coast service, so there's a precedent that the freight railroads wouldn't any longer be able to just flatly say no to new service.

And you hit the nail on the head to why CSX is fighting tooth and nail on the Gulf Coast Service. They don't care about that one particular line into New Orleans, and I think even they know that the argument on it is a hard sell. But what they do care about are the other ConnectUs routes.

Here is a breakdown of the host on each one.

CSX
Service Expansions
~Boston-Albany
~New York-Cleveland
~Washington-Petersburg
~Richmond-Newport News
~Jacksonville-Miami
~Chicago-Cincinnati
~Buffalo-Niagara Falls

New Services
~Nashville-Atlanta
~Atlanta-Montgomery
~New Orleans-Mobile
~Selma-Wilmington (Part of that is NS too but I'm not going to look up the exact limits)
~Cleveland-Columbus.

NS
Service Expansions
~Washington-Roanoke
~Petersburg-Norfolk
~Raleigh-Charlotte
~Charlotte-Atlanta-Birmingham
~Cleveland-Toledo
~Harrisburg-Cleveland

New Service
~Salisbury-Asheville
~Roanoke-Christianburg (Done Deal already)
~Atlanta-Savannah
~Philadelphia-Reading
~New York-Reading
~Toledo-Detroit (Could also do this on CSX or CN)
~Columbus-Cincinnati

CN
Service Expansions
~Chicago-Carbondale
~Detroit-Toronto
~Niagara Falls-Aldershot
~Rouses Point-Montreal

CP
Service Expansions
~Chicago-St. Paul
~Albany-Rouses Point

KCS
New Service
~New Orleans-Baton Rouge

BNSF
Service Expansions
~Vancouver-Portland
~Los Angeles-San Diego (Technically it's NICTD)
~Oklahoma City-Taylor
~Chicago-Wyanet, IL

New Service
~Duluth-St. Paul
~Topeka-Oklahoma City
~Colorado Springs-Cheyanne

UP
Service Expansions
~Los Angeles-Sacramento
~Eugene-Portland
~Los Angeles-Tuscon
~San Antonio-Taylor
~San Antonio-Houston

New Service
~St. Paul-Tomah area
~Los Angeles-Las Vegas
~Dallas-Houston

Shortlines
New Service
~Wyanet, IL-Iowa City-Iowa Interstate
~Tomah-Madison-Milwaukee-Wisconsin & Southern
~Louisville-Indianapolis-Louisville & Indiana (Half owned by CSX)
~Scranton-New York-Delaware Lackawanna and NJ Transit

So who has the most to "lose" in this judgement before the STB. CSX has 12 lines in question, of which 6 are pretty busy lines. While other railroads have smaller interests in this like BNSF.

Then you have railroads needing good PR for their merger KCS/CP who are agreeing to everything right now in hopes the merger gets a green light. BNSF is naturally pretty good with passenger service and what is on their list has been in the working plans for a few decades.

It is NS and CSX who stand to have the most new passenger services, but that is partially due to population density along their route networks.

 

[jis]

BTW on the Jacksonville - Tampa - Miami route at present the ownerships are as follows:

Jacksonville - Palatka CSX
Paltatka - Deland Amtrak
Deland Poinciana FLDOT/CFRC (SunRail)
Poinciana - Tampa CSX
Auburndale - West Palm Beach CSX
West Palm Beach - Miami FLDOT/SFRT

CSX will probably try to palm off Auburndale and south to someone sooner or later. They have already been trying to get rid of all their holdings south of West Palm Beach in and around Miami.

 

[Seaboard92]

I think they still own the underlying land however on the FDOT parts as well.

 

[jis]

I think they still own the underlying land however on the FDOT parts as well.

I don't know, and I don't see how that matters in the context of this discussion. They also own the property for Poughkeepsie to Hoffmans but it is leased to Amtrak/NYSDOT for 49 years or some such with two extension options with NYSDOT having right of first refusal. For all operational purposes it is Amtrak that controls it for the period.