ALBANY, N.Y. — Norfolk Southern is suing Voorheesville, N.Y., which has blocked the railroad’s construction of a crew-change facility that will support the shift of its New England intermodal trains to trackage rights over CSX.
In a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Albany, N.Y., NS argued that Voorheesville’s stop-work order on the facility is pre-empted by federal law.
Voorheesville sits at the junction of Norfolk Southern’s former Delaware & Hudson and CSX’s former New York Central Water Level Route. The railroads built a new connection between the long-dormant D&H trackage and the CSX main line so that NS intermodal trains could reach Ayer, Mass., on CSX trackage rights via Worcester, Mass.
The single-stack trains currently reach Ayer via the former Boston & Maine route through Hoosac Tunnel in western Massachusetts, which cannot accommodate domestic double stack trains. Clearance work is under way on CSX’s former Pan Am Railways line between Worcester and Ayer so that NS can run one 9,000-foot double-stack intermodal and automotive train per day in each direction.
The date for the start of the service via CSX has been pushed back several times due to delays in bridge clearance projects.
NS said it notified Voorheesville officials about its plans after it acquired land next to its track for the crew-change facility. The railroad also noted that the site was chosen because it was the only location where trains could stop to change crews without blocking grade crossings.
Voorheesville officials told NS that the facility violated local zoning rules, would violate a settlement agreement regarding stopping trains in town, and violate state regulations covering blocked crossings.
“None of these reasons is legitimate,” NS said in its lawsuit.
NS has asked the court to declare the stop-work order as “pre-empted, void, and unenforceable.”
NS and CSX agreed to the trackage rights deal as part of CSX’s acquisition of regional Pan Am Railways in 2022.
