It appears from public records that Norfolk Southern Railway wanted, figuratively speaking, to tie North Carolina to the tracks in a test of nerves during negotiations over $461 million in federal grants that will greatly improve passenger rail service in the state and create almost 5,000 jobs for designers and construction workers.
The freight railroad is responsible for keeping the trains on time on tracks that it shares, and its executives say they don’t believe that adding a second track between Greensboro and Charlotte and straightening curves in other areas and building bridges at crossings to separate trains and cars would help Norfolk Southern.
It appears that Norfolk Southern dispatchers would have their hands full with added traffic made possible by the track improvements, but the job can be done. And by the way, the railroad is getting a $105 million federal grant for freight rail upgrades stretching from Pennsylvania to Alabama. So it isn’t as if Norfolk Southern has exactly been left in the cold by the feds.
But according to records, as reported by The News & Observer’s Bruce Siceloff, the railroad tried to throw its weight around in last-minute negotiations while it knew the state was in a hurry to close the deal on that $461 million.
So, before reaching an agreement with the state, Norfolk Southern engaged N.C. Department of Transportation officials in drawn-out talks trying to minimize the freight carrier’s legal obligations related to passenger service being on time. State officials held the line in a way that did not automatically excuse the railroad from responsibility.
Then Norfolk Southern wanted the federal Department of Transportation to sweeten the terms of a deal with the railroad on a $131 million grant for a project in Illinois that had nothing to do with North Carolina’s plans. But nobody would agree, and rightly so, to link the two different efforts.
Basically, it appears the freight carrier was simply trying to use the urgency of North Carolina’s situation to its own negotiating advantage.
What it apparently didn’t count on was the savvy and toughness of state Secretary of Transportation Gene Conti, who’s been in the transportation field at the federal and state levels for a long time, and who is a politically active professional rather than a politically active politician, which has been the case with some prior DOT chiefs.
Conti wrote to federal transportation officials and had state transportation people talk with an influential congresswoman from Florida (who publicly chewed on Norfolk Southern for trying to block the state’s efforts).
The railroad came to an agreement pretty quickly after state and federal officials threatened to nix that $105 million deal for the Alabama-to-Pennsylvania freight improvements.
Some perhaps would say that what Norfolk Southern was doing here was simply being cagey and trying to get the best deal it could. Nevertheless, its actions could have put that $461 million in jeopardy, which would have been a serious blow to North Carolina.
Norfolk Southern is based in Virginia, but it has a huge presence in North Carolina and should realize the importance of helping boost this state’s economy, which the rail projects will do.
This episode is evidence of the importance of having a pro to head the state transportation office, one who knows how to throw the high, hard one when the “game” starts.
