Passenger vs. Freight Priority. Was: DOJ sues Norfolk Southern for making Crescent late

If you have a renter who refuses to pay rent, the only "negotiation" you have with them is how quickly they can leave the premises. After that it's off the sheriff.

Looks like Amtrak has finally gone to the sheriff.

Hmmm. You seem a bit confused over who owns the building and who is paying rent.

Let's rephrase this for clarity.

Right now, all the Class 1's signed onto an agreement saying that they (the Class 1's) will give access to (then newly formed) Amtrak and make sure they stay on time for the set negotiated rate in order to give up having to do passenger service entirely... or go into bankruptcy over passenger service. The requirement for that priority access was put into law as part of that deal. Negotiations happened over time to try to make the timing right and everyone happy.

Lately, PSR happened, and the government established the actual metric used to determine violations of the priority access law. And hooooo boy, when it used the metric, it did not like what it saw... and it tried negotiations again. That didn't work this time, so now Amtrak went to the STB saying "Hey, this is a systematic issue with UP, and we're not getting any help from the DOJ on this."

I would bet that woke up Amtrak Joe and he woke up angry, found someone to fire whoever was ignoring Amtrak, and got DOJ to actually rep Amtrak for once... which is why DOJ finally got off their butt and sued NS.

The point here is that regardless of how much Amtrak was (not) paying for this, the law got violated anyway, and Amtrak's fed up... so they're taking it to the STB because DOJ couldn't care enough until Amtrak Joe smacked some sense into them.

Can a statue passed by both houses of Congress and signed by a President be changed by executive branch personnel many years later by issuing new regulations? Can executive branch personnel enter and cancel treaties with foreign nations without Congress involvement? Can executive branch personnel change contracts with private enterprises, or treaties with foreign nations all by themselves?
I strongly believe the answer to all three questions above is No.

Contracts are broken every day that had been agreed with from all parties, and there is usually a remedy sought for and applied in our legal system. But is a contract still enforceable when the conditions have changed without agreements from all parties? It will be interesting who wins in court.

The recent Chevron Deference ruling would imply that STB and FRA cannot reinterpret legislation beyond what's written in statutes.

The on-time requirements are in CFR 49 S 24308, and haven't been enforced since 2008, which may be when they were added.

So, while STB is within their rights, Amtrak may be hurting their own case here by trying to force the issue on too many fronts at once. A new administration and/or GOP majority in Congress could easily change this if they were motivated to take it up.

Given that BNSF, CSX and UP are based in Red states, and NS is from a purple state, this might be a poor time to be kicking that hornets' nest.

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lensovet wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 8:55 pm You can bet Amtrak would be paying more if their trains weren't constantly sidelined and delayed.

It's the other way around. Amtrak is the renter. They would have to pay a lot more up front, then the trains are given priority. Just this month there was a huge article in Classic Trains about the historic JB Hunt trains on Santa Fe. JB Hunt agreed up front to huge payments to receive that type of service.

In our scenario of Amtrak and trackage rights, the host railroad has decided to stop holding up their end of the bargain. They don't get to choose to adjust the payment terms – that's Amtrak's call. Looks like the DOJ is finally doing the equivalent of repossession – and it's about time.

You have this backwards. NS is the landlord. Amtrak is the tenant. There was an agreement in 1971. Then another in 1998ish. Neither of those agreements really had any enforcement mechanism or teeth to them. The tenant is paying half price for the access they want, and the landlord is ignoring them. It's rich when the tenant then sues and demands "fair" treatment.

Also, all the guys who keep demanding Amtrak buys its own tracks... try to square the financials of that concept with today's half-price trackage rights. The costs would quintuple if not more. This is why the smart solution (and "fair") is to pay market rate trackage rights. It moves the trains on time and save billions over the concept of owning their own trackage.

Tadman wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2024 8:13 am You have this backwards. NS is the landlord. Amtrak is the tenant. There was an agreement in 1971. Then another in 1998ish.

Alright, let's run with this analogy. NS decided to rent their house to Amtrak in 1971 for a slightly below-market rate for 20 years because they couldn't bear to wait longer for someone to rent it out. Five years later, they decided that the rate was too low and as a result, stopped doing maintenance.

The renter would be swiftly taking them to court in most areas of this country for failing to provide a safe space to live and the landlord wouldn't be able to just say "oh well the rent is too low" and go on their merry way.

Even less so if they renewed the agreement 30 years later for rates that were still supposedly too low (by whose standards, no one knows).

Tadman wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2024 8:13 am Also, all the guys who keep demanding Amtrak buys its own tracks... try to square the financials of that concept with today's half-price trackage rights.

Quite a number of states own trackage and lease them to freight railroads. It wouldn't be that hard for a
subsidiary of the U.S. government to do the same. The advantage of government owned trackage is the freight
carrier avoids property tax had it owned the line directly.

How many states are leasing mainline and secondary tracks to Class 1 railroads?

eolesen wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 1:30 pm How many states are leasing mainline and secondary tracks to Class 1 railroads?

North Carolina

Okay, that's a good example. It's also a railroad that was built originally by the state with a Norfolk Southern predecessor as a partial owner... but is it a lease or just trackage rights?

A lease is paying a fixed price for use of the property over a term, regardless of how many trains you run on it, and the leasee has to perform regular maintenance.

Trackage rights are paid per use, and by tonnage and/or axle counts. The owner handles maintenance.

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If by "leasing" you mean "granting trackage rights to," (which I think is what R36 is referring to) then I think there are lots of examples. A few feet from me is Caltrain/JPB tracks which host about 4 UP freights per day. I've seen CSX over Metro-North/CDOT.

A web search says Amtrak itself grants access to 70 freight trains per day over the NEC. I think CSX runs freights on Amtrak's Post Road branch near Albany. This is actually nothing new and can make sense in many instances.

Until March of this year, NS leased the "Rathole division" from Cincinnati.

rohr turbo wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 4:52 pm If by "leasing" you mean "granting trackage rights to," (which I think is what R36 is referring to) then I think there are lots of examples.

Nah, they're separate issues. Trackage rights would imply that the owner i.e. the state would be doing the dispatching.

Technically, the State of Wisconsin owns a fair amount of the track that is operated by the WSOR and pretty much all of the track in Wisconsin that the E&LS operates on. They're selected to operate the lines which is essentially an operating lease.

But WSOR and E&LS do the dispatching and upkeep aside perhaps from capital projects that the State funds (e.g. bridge replacements).

RandallW wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 5:09 pm Until March of this year, NS leased the "Rathole division" from Cincinnati.

Another good example, but like the NCSR, that was an 1881 agreement that the Southern assumed in 1891, and kept renewing in 25 year increments.

Incidentally... we bought property earlier this year that's only 600 feet or so away from the CNOTP. Quite the busy line if you like Topper.

Arizona DOT notes that railroads operating on easements on public land are not paying property taxes (which implies they may be private improvements to public property?), but I can't find which railroad lines are in that situation.