JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CSX and its contractors are nearly to the halfway mark of the Howard Street Tunnel clearance project in Baltimore.
In a video update on Tuesday, July 1, CSX said crews have safely lowered 3,400 feet of the flooring in the 8,700-foot former Baltimore & Ohio tunnel beneath downtown Baltimore. The tunnel, which opened in 1895, cannot accommodate double-stack container trains.
Once the floor is lowered about 2 feet, CSX will be able to offer double-stack service in the I-95 Corridor as well as between Baltimore and Midwestern points via the former B&O main line. Since last fall, when clearance work was finished between Baltimore and Philadelphia, the Baltimore-Midwest traffic has been routed the long way around via Selkirk, N.Y., on the former New York Central Water Level Route.
Work inside the tunnel began on Feb. 1 [see “CSX closes Howard Street Tunnel …,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 4, 2025]. CSX expects to complete the tunnel work in September or October. A pair of bridge clearance projects, expected to be completed early next year, will wrap up the $566 million effort to raise clearances at 22 locations between Philadelphia and Baltimore.
For more on the project, see “Digging Deep in Baltimore” in the August 2025 issue of Trains Magazine.
Unfortunately, stock buybacks are now Wall Street’s way of increasing stock values without significant growth in a company’s sales. Even worse, it creates the constant pressure to trim operating expenses to the bone and beyond. I really wish there was some agency approval needed before a company could buyback stocks.
However, in justification of federal aid to the freight RR’s, it is probably the least taxpayer subsidized in the USA. Truckers don’t pay the true cost of the damage they do to roads and the governments accept that. [If they were made to do so, the cost of the goods to the public would go up significantly.] I can’t get too upset that government funding is now available for the freight railroads, especially for the smaller ones where a relative small amount of government funding may make the difference between existing or closing up.
I’d be fine with public investments if, and only if, the public retained rights for using the public investment. Recall Amtrak paid several million to build a bypass in New Orleans Gentilly Yard for the Sunset. CSX effectively seized the public asset as a yard lead. The Mardi Gras service resulted in a $200M extortion by CSX to build infrastructure that surely benefits their freight operations. Taxpayers own nothing for their investment.
It was interesting to note in the “Digging Deep in Baltimore” in the August 2025 issue of Trains Magazine that CSX is only funding 30% of the project. Public money is paying 70%.
There is something wrong chiseling public money when CSX has spent $10.5B on stock buybacks on 3 years and had over $5B in profits in 2024.
GREGG — America is built on corporate welfare. America revolves around corporate welfare. If CSX had only $5B’s in profit last year, all the more reason for them to plead poverty and get subsidized.