Csx

A new agreement between the Maryland Rail Commuter service and CSX Transportation will provide $36 million in funds for improvements to a service whose tracks have been troubled frequently by congestion from freight trains and signal malfunctions. Although officials said yesterday that MARC service has improved significantly in recent months, the new contract creates incentives to help keep it that way. In the year after CSX's takeover of part of the Conrail freight system in June 1999, on-time service dipped as low as 56 percent on the Camden line, according to Kathy Waters, manager and chief operating officer for MARC, which is part of the state Mass Transit Administration.

The great train race of 1996 continued yesterday, as CSX Corp. sweetened its bid for Conrail Inc., Wall Street yawned and Conrail's board formally rejected an earlier, even higher offer from Norfolk Southern Corp.Tune in soon for the next installment. Will a Pennsylvania judge force Conrail shareholders to swallow CSX's new, $8.3 billion cash-and-stock offer? Will Conrail's board get sued by shareholders who would rather sell to Norfolk Southern for its $9.1 billion in hard cash?Will Norfolk Southern try to slam-dunk over judge and CSX alike by raising its hostile bid even higher?

A man was struck and killed by a CSX Transportation freight train around 10 a.m. today near Aberdeen in Harford County, officials said. The train's crew spotted the man walking on the tracks away from the train, according to Maryland State Police spokesman Major Greg Shipley. The crew activated emergency stop procedures and sounded the horn, but the man ignored the warnings and did not turn around, Shipley said. The name of the victim, described only as an older man, will not be publicly released until authorities have positively identified him and notified his family, Shipley said.

As the locomotive and freight cars shook the ground beneath his feet, Irvin Lee Meeks could feel the danger that a cracked retaining wall and collapsed sidewalk along the rail line pose to neighborhood children."

The morning commute turned miserable yesterday for thousands of people who take trains to Washington after CSX Transportation's computer system went down, halting train traffic from Canada to Florida for up to six hours. Most of the morning trains on the Maryland Rail Commuter service's Camden and Brunswick lines were canceled, and those few that ran were up to 90 minutes late. Both lines run on tracks owned and operated by CSX, a freight railroad. CSX said a computer virus infected its network and shut down the signaling and dispatching systems at 1:15 a.m. yesterday.

CSX Corp., the Richmond, Va.-based transportation giant that employs about 3,000 people in Maryland, reported yesterday that its earnings for its latest quarter increased 7 percent from last year, a gain the company attributed largely to efficiency gains in railroad operations.John W. Snow, the chairman and chief executive officer of CSX, said that the third-quarter results "reflect substantial progress achieved by greater focus on operating discipline."Earnings for the quarter were $108 million, up from $101 million during the comparable period a year ago.Rail revenues were up 3 percent in the quarter, to $1.3 billion.

Spurred by a Nov. 24 derailment near Camden Yards, Maryland and CSX Transportation completed an agreement yesterday under which security officials will be given real-time access to information about hazardous cargoes moving through the state on freight trains. The agreement "will allow Maryland security and law enforcement officials to independently track the location of [CSX] trains and the contents of rail cars being handled by [CSX] trains across the state," said a railroad spokesman, Bob Sullivan.

CSX Transportation wants to close Route 30 in Hampstead for five days to renovate the railroad crossing at the north end of town, Douglas Rose, district engineer with the State Highway Administration, said yesterday.Hampstead's Town Council decided Monday to ask the SHA to approve repairs to the rail crossing, though the work will require Route 30 to be shut down from Aug. 23 through 27.Hampstead Mayor Clint Becker invited representatives of CSX and the SHA to Monday night's Town Council meeting, to see whether a compromise could be worked out."

NOW THAT A bidding war has broken out over the Northeast's dominant freight-rail carrier, what matters most is finding ways to preserve competition.Both CSX and Norfolk Southern want to buy Conrail, the 20-year-old freight line pieced together by the government from the shards of the Penn Central and other bankrupt Northeast railroads. Over time, a costly taxpayer basket case became a highly profitable rail line with a near-monopoly in the Northeast.This has made Conrail a prize. CSX announced a friendly $8 billion cash-and-stock offer, since sweetened to $8.5 billion; Norfolk Southern's offer now is an all-cash $10 billion.

The stone bridge project left several laborers dead and injured, Patapsco River floods occasionally stopped the work and once a trestle collapsed, dropping granite loads into a millrace. The Thomas Viaduct was completed nonetheless and stands to this day, 174 years later - the country's oldest main line railroad span. Trains have gotten bigger, heavier and longer, but still they roll over the eight granite arches heading north and south with freight and MARC passengers, wheels squealing through the river valley.