When my colleague Peter Hermann oversaw The Sun's Watchdog feature, he reported on the hazard created by gaps in the fence around the railroad tracks at the south end of Charles Street in South Baltimore.
With most Watchdog complaints, Hermann would end up calling government bureaucrats to report some incidence of broken or malfunctioning infrastructure. In most cases, he was able to rouse them to take quick action rather than deal with unfavorable publicity.
But when he took on the South Baltimore fence problem two years ago, Hermann faced a much more formidable obstacle: the giant freight railroad CSX, which owned the crumbling fence that posed no significant barrier to those who thought the rail yard was a wonderful place to drink, ingest drugs or practice the world's oldest profession.
To say that CSX was recalcitrant is an understatement.
Multiple calls were not returned. When a spokesman was finally reached, he put off reporters with vague assurances that the railroad would send out an inspector. Later he changed his tune to say there might not be a solution. Months dragged on with no action, even as reporters followed up multiple times and neighborhood associations made repeated requests for action.
"They're the ones that just didn't care," Hermann recalls.
Finally, nine months after The Sun first reported the problem, CSX fixed the fence.
Too little, too late.
As Congress prepares to take up a huge transportation authorization bill, city planning officials are asking Maryland's congressional delegation to back a federal crackdown on the railroads.
The request comes in a wish list of transportation projects the city sent to lawmakers last week. The Dixon administration minces no words in describing its frustration with the railroad industry.
"For local government, large railroads are too often nothing more than a nuisance. Problems which seem small or intractable to large national railroads are often major irritants to local governments: trash-strewn rights-of-way, unsightly bridges in need of cleaning and repainting, unsafe bridge structures and grade crossings, and notification of hazardous material shipments, among others. Phone calls and letters from local officials to the railroad, many times offering to handle the problem on behalf of or at no cost to the railroad, go unanswered; it is oftentimes as if the railroads have no regard for the communities through which their trains pass," the city wrote.
