Csx Transportation

CSX Transportation finished the removal of derailed cars from the Howard Street Tunnel today and is expected to resume rail traffic through it this evening, according to a railroad spokesman. Thirteen cars of a 79-car freight train left the tracks Thursday in the tunnel and outside its northern portal at Mount Royal Avenue for reasons yet to be determined, said CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan. With the cars removed, he said, railroad officials were repairing and inspecting the tracks to prepare for a resumption of traffic.

The Howard Street Tunnel has been a headache from the day its opened in 1895. It drove the railroad that built it into bankruptcy. It's been obsolete for decades. A derailment and chemical fire in 2001 showed it to be a bottleneck for East Coast freight rail traffic. And it's likely to remain that way for a long time. Alternatives have been proposed, but any of them would be costly and take decades to build. CSX Transportation, the tunnel's owner, seems in no rush to replace it. "For the foreseeable future, that tunnel is an important part of our network," said railroad spokesman Bob Sullivan.

The Baltimore Department of Transportation and railroad conglomerate CSX agreed yesterday to a one-month deadline to decide which entity will pay for improvements needed on five "structurally deficient" bridges in the city. "We've essentially agreed to agree," said Jason T. French, a spokesman for CSX Transportation. "We today are committed to working with the city of Baltimore, despite what has happened in the past." For more than a decade, the two have squabbled over which is responsible for maintaining the spans.

Four and a half years after a derailment and fire in the Howard Street Tunnel created havoc downtown, CSX Transportation Inc. has agreed to pay Baltimore $2 million to settle the city's lawsuit against the railroad company. Mayor Martin O'Malley and CSX Corp.'s chairman and chief executive officer, Michael J. Ward, said the railroad will defray the city's costs from the fire and the cleanup without either side admitting fault in the July 2001 accident. "Rather than continuing to litigate, both parties have agreed to dedicate shared resources and energy to further enhance safety and security in the city," O'Malley and Ward said in a statement yesterday announcing the settlement.

ATHREE-JUDGE panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals is to hear oral arguments today from CSX Transportation challenging the District of Columbia's right to prohibit ultrahazardous material from a designated zone in the heart of Washington. CSX is appealing a ruling by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who last week upheld an ordinance recently passed by the D.C. Council. Judge Sullivan, ignoring objections by CSX Transportation and various federal agencies, sent an unmistakable message to the Bush administration in his April 18 ruling: Get out of court and get something done.

Baltimore native Michael J. Ward has been named president of CSX Transportation Inc., which operates the largest railroad in the Eastern United States - and the primary line serving the port of Baltimore. Ward, 50, has been with the CSX Corp. subsidiary for his entire career, serving most recently as executive vice president of operations. Ward assumed that post in April after a management shake-up that coincided with the departure of Ronald J. Conway, who formerly headed CSX's railroad subsidiary.

CSX Transportation is putting 18 Maryland industrial and manufacturing sites on the auction block in the railroad's attempt to sell off surplus land.The sites are valued at more than $6 million, according to the Carlton Group Ltd., a New York-based firm handling the auction.The deadline for bids is Oct. 14.The properties include 13 parcels in Baltimore, two in Jessup, one in Halethorpe and one in the Cecil County community of West Leslie.The parcels range in value from $60,000 to $5 million.

A unit of CSX Corp. said yesterday that a jury had ordered it to pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages stemming from a railroad-car fire in New Orleans 10 years ago.But A. R. "Pete" Carpenter, the president and chief executive of the unit, CSX Transportation, said that the decision by the jury was "clearly inconsistent with the facts" and that the company would appeal.The case involved an incident that began Sept. 9, 1987, when a tank car containing butadiene, a volatile compound used in making synthetic rubber, began to leak and then burst into flames at an interchange rail yard, on tracks that belonged to CSX Transportation.

CSX-Conrail merger would harm the portI am surprised that Maryland has not taken an active role in preventing the CSX Transportation stock tender for Conrail Corp. The two transportation companies provide rail and other services to the northeast and mid-Atlantic areas.CSX Transportation's interest in Conrail is a legitimate business interest. But let's view the probable outcome from the perspective of the Port of Baltimore.CSX Transportation and its subsidiaries have a financial interest in having its rail customers transloading in its Newport News, Va., facilities.

Congress must help MARC in CSX disputeI am a regular commuter on the Maryland Rail Commuter (MARC) train from Baltimore-Washington International Airport to Union Station in Washington. I recently learned that CSX Transportation is attempting to raise the Mass Transit Administration's cost of operation to such a high level that MARC fares would be doubled, making commuting by train completely unfeasible for me and, I believe, for most customers, or drive MARC off the tracks entirely.At present, the MTA is negotiating an operating agreement with CSX Transportation, which owns and maintains the track on which the Camden and Brunswick MARC trains run. It is clear the MTA needs the same right that Congress has given AMTRAK to operate over any track it requires to provide efficient service.