Csx

PHILADELPHIA -- Conrail stockholders, clearly looking for the most money, yesterday emphatically rejected a proposal that would have allowed CSX Corp. to proceed with its takeover of the huge railroad.Voting for the first time in the heated takeover fight, Conrail shareholders defeated a plan proposed by Conrail's board of directors to "opt out" of a Pennsylvania law that prohibits two-tiered takeover offers such as CSX's $104 a share cash-and-stock, or $9.3 billion, deal.The outcome was a victory for Norfolk Southern Corp.

A spokesman for CSX Transportation said the railroad expects to complete plans next month for a $90 million truck and train terminal in South Baltimore to serve port container traffic. As a result of meeting with civic leaders and public officials, CSX is revising its blueprint to place the terminal entrance on Bernard Drive, which serves an industrial park, to minimize impact on residential areas to the south and west, said CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan. The terminal, on the 70-acre Mount Clare rail yard in the Morrell Park neighborhood, will alleviate the bottleneck caused by the century-old Howard Street tunnel by allowing containers brought from the Port of Baltimore by truck and trains to be stacked two-high on outbound trains.

CSX Corp. says it is investigating whether any of its trains hit a 12-year-old Cumberland boy who was seriously hurt while allegedly cutting across the company's property. The boy was being treated Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital for injuries he suffered Monday night. His name and condition haven't been released. CSX spokesman Gary Sease says the Jacksonville, Fla.-based company is getting a full accounting of all the trains that moved through the area. Cumberland police say the boy was hit by a train about 8:30 p.m. His friends told police he had sneaked through a hole in a fence and tried to beat a train across one of multiple sets of tracks.

Herbert Christian Forrester Jr., a retired railroad vice president, died of coronary artery disease Thursday at Mays Chapel Ridge Assisted Living. The former Cockeysville resident was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised in Windsor Hills, he was the son of attorney Herbert C. Forrester and Mary Davis, a legal secretary. He was a 1942 Forest Park High School graduate. He enlisted in the Army's Air Corps during World War II. Trained as a pilot, he served until 1945. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in transportation at the University of Baltimore, where he also taught from 1962 to 1964.

The negative impact on residential neighborhoods must be considered when CSX decides on the location of its intermodal facility, which is essentially a freight yard. It's obvious that proximity to the freight yard is directly correlated with negative impacts. There are nearly 1,000 residences within half a mile of three sites being considered, along with four public schools. CSX and the government officials involved need to be fair when considering sites for the freight yard, and its negative impact on residential neighborhoods should be a key component of the decision process.

It is incredibly frustrating, not only to myself but to many residents of the Elkridge/Hanover area, that CSX claims to elicit public involvement in the site selection process (for a new railway facility) yet continues to refuse to release details on how they arrived at their cost estimates for each of the proposed sites. Cost estimates for the proposed sites are not the only concern surrounding this issue but, in my opinion, CSX is being brazenly deceptive at this early stage of the process and I have a deep concern that CSX will continue to operate as such, if not more so, as the process continues.

The derailment that killed two young women in Ellicott City Tuesday morning adds one more incident to a long history of CSX trains leaving the tracks in Maryland - from little-remembered events in the company's own railyards to the spectacular fire in the Howard Street Tunnel in 2001. It could be months before federal investigators determine the cause of the bizarre tragedy that occurred overnight in the historic Howard County mill town. The facts that emerged Tuesday suggested the fatalities were largely the result of trespassing on the tracks.

Howard County officials have postponed a decision about a site for a new school in Elkridge this week, citing concerns among neighbors that the state is eyeing their backyard as a site for a new rail transfer facility. Howard's school board delayed voting Thursday night on a plan to build a badly needed elementary school on a 20-acres donated by a developer next to Coca Cola Drive, where big trucks carrying cargo containers could rumble 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if an adjacent parcel is chosen for the transfer facility.

I find it unconscionable that our esteemed members of the "fourth estate" employed by Patuxent Publishing have been relatively biased in their reporting on the siting of the proposed CSX intermodal site in Maryland. Not once have your reporters done any obvious investigative work to confirm what residents suspect: that CSX has been less than transparent in its disclosures to the general public. Whenever anyone asks CSX (and the Maryland Department of Transportation to a lesser degree)

Elkridge residents are turning to lawmakers from Howard County for help fighting the potential placement of a CSX rail transfer facility in their community, arguing that lower costs should not be the only factor considered. The site in Elkridge is the cheapest of four potential locations, and the only one estimated to stay within the original $150 million cost estimate — which CSX and the state had agreed to split equally. But Elkridge residents say the project would devastate the property values of the 353 homes that lie within a quarter-mile of the facility.

Just before midnight Wednesday, three words brought a stream of emergency crews and hazardous materials units to a wooded corner of Cecil County just north of Interstate 95: liquid sulfuric acid. A train operated by CSX Corp. derailed about 11:45 p.m., and initial reports said two cars contained the highly corrosive and environmentally dangerous substance. Luckily, officials said, the acid didn't leak, even though the cars containing it were off-kilter. "They were either sideways or just off the rail, but none are on their side," said CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan of the nine cars determined to have slipped off the tracks.

The CSX Transportation dockworker who is suing a Panamanian shipping company for $5.2 million in connection with an accident at a Curtis Bay coal pier last August will be in court next week on charges he sexually abused a child. David Rienas, 42, of Abingdon was indicted in December on three counts of sexual misconduct for an encounter last year, Harford County Circuit Court records show. He faces a felony charge that carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and two misdemeanors.

The collision between a Panama-owned tanker and a Curtis Bay coal pier caused in excess of $22 million in damages - more than four times the original claim - according to documents filed in U.S. District Court by CSX Transportation, the pier owner. The Aug. 25 accident took the Bayside Coal Pier out of action for nearly two months and a CSX employee was hospitalized for injuries, said CSX, a railroad based in Jacksonville, Fla. The 479-foot Wawasan Ruby was making a left turn from Curtis Bay on its approach to the Bitumar Asphalt Dock when it struck the Bayside pier.

The state, city and CSX Transportation have tentatively selected the Mount Clare train yard in Southwest Baltimore for a roughly $90 million facility where containerized cargo would be transferred from trucks to trains, a project designed to improve the Port of Baltimore's efficiency. The project would help the port and CSX by allowing the railroad to bypass the more than century-old Howard Street Tunnel, which is too low for passage of trains with containers stacked two high. Such double-stacking of truck-sized shipping containers is the most cost-effective way to move them by rail.

The Maryland Department of Transportation is working with CSX Transportation to review four sites in Baltimore that the railroad company could use as a new multi-million-dollar cargo transfer facility needed to accommodate increased freight demands at the Port of Baltimore, a state official said Friday. Leif A. Dormsjo, MDOT's acting deputy secretary, said his department and CSX officials are considering four parcels of land currently owned by CSX in South Baltimore. The possible sites are in the areas of Locust Point, Curtis Bay, Mount Clair and Mount Winans, he said.

A CSX Corp. coal pier in Baltimore is out of service for the foreseeable future as the railroad assesses the "substantial" damage caused by a ship that hit the structure. The Bayside Coal Pier, on Benhill Avenue in Curtis Bay, was struck Saturday by a tanker headed for a dock up the channel — an unusual accident that could cause ripple effects for coal shipping. CSX said an employee was injured in the incident, hospitalized and later released. The Jacksonville, Fla.-based company estimates in a federal lawsuit that the Wawasan Ruby, owned by Panama-based Trio Happiness S.A., caused more than $5 million in damage, both to the property and in revenue loss.

I was pleased to have an opportunity to attend a recent public meeting focused on the new CSX facility. Being very aware of some residents' vocal opposition to the rail stop, I was interested to learn of the impacts this station would have on communities immediately surrounding the site. Not only did I learn that the new facility could bring thousands of jobs to our county, I was also surprised by a noise simulator, which replicated what people close to the site would hear. The noise was faint.

As concerned citizens, we were pleased to attend the recent public meeting about the proposed Baltimore Washington Intermodal Rail Facility. This facility will play a major role in Maryland's long-term economic growth by supporting the expansion of the Port of Baltimore and providing additional rail access. This project is a great example of the public-private partnerships that everyone is talking about, which will help rebuild our economy and infrastructure at a time we need it most.

Two foolish, under-aged, teenage girls drinking and sitting on a freight train bridge, dangling their feet 20 feet above the street at midnight while Tweeting ("Derailed lives," Aug. 22), then buried in coal? The girls contributed significantly to their tragic demise. As in "self-inflicted. " The Sun's coverage included information about CSX accidents of the past ("CSX has history of Md. mishaps"). Why not a companion article about the jobs and economic benefit that CSX brings to Maryland and the danger of trespassing on railroad tracks and freight train bridges?

Loved ones and friends prepared to say goodbye to the two young women who perished in a train derailment in Ellicott City as the first of the viewings began Thursday evening. Cars lined both sides of the quiet residential street leading up to the Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City for the viewing for Elizabeth Conway Nass. At 6 p.m., about 100 people stood queued down a brick stairway of the Roman Catholic church from a sprawling parking lot where most of the spots were filled.