WASHINGTON — The parties involved in the fight over Amtrak Gulf Coast service want to make one more effort to settle the matter without resuming their hearing before the Surface Transportation Board.
Just five days after the STB issued its schedule for additional hearings, and indicated it could vote on a resolution as soon as Dec. 7, those parties — Amtrak, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and the Alabama State Port Authority — have asked the board to authorize another 30 days of board-sponsored mediation, and delay the hearings.
The joint filing requests mediation beginning Wednesday, Nov. 2, and running through Thursday, Dec. 1, with a stay of board proceedings until Dec. 1.
“The Parties have made considerable progress in their discussions, and expect that the coming weeks, leading up to Dec. 1, will be critical in determining whether a negotiated resolution can be reached,” the joint filing asserts. The last in a series of extensions to board-sponsored mediation had ended Oct. 25.
The STB could grant the mediation request, or theoretically could sponsor mediation while maintaining its planned hearing schedule. But the filing argues “it would be very challenging for the Parties to focus on settlement efforts while also preparing for those proceedings.”
In an Oct. 28 decision, the board had scheduled hearings for Nov. 17-18, which it indicated would conclude a process that had included 11 days of previous hearings, the most recent on May 12 [see “More Gulf Coast STB hearing set …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 28, 2022]. The board then planned to meet Dec. 7 and said it could “vote on the outcome” at that time.
Coincidentally or otherwise, the request by Amtrak, CSX, NS, and the Port for more mediation was filed Monday — the same day the board released a decision, reached the previous Friday, Oct. 28, that was highly critical of the inability of Amtrak and CN to resolve, even after mediation, a long-running dispute over their operating agreement. In that decision, the board suggested that by leaving resolution the board’s hands, the two parties were choosing “one of the least optimal ways” of settling the matter [see “Regulators scold Amtrak, CN …,” News Wire, Oct. 31, 2022].
— Updated at 1:10 p.m. CDT to correct and clarify timing of joint filing seeking mediation and Board decision on Amtrak-CN case.
What’s stopping Amtrak from buying right-of-way and building its own railroad?
All talk and debate and money being wasted on hearings and studies. For all the time wasted, by now the extra tracks needed could have built by now and both Amtrak and CSX operating trains over this disputed area. However there might be a hidden strategy to all this wear everbody down by endless talk and hearings and both sides will give up and drop the idea in frustration and lack of progress and Amtrak casting their Gulf Coast operating plan into the dustbin of failed ideas
Joseph C. Markfelder
Considering how Amtrak was originally pushing to run the trains NOW, and also accused the freight lines of using mediation as a stall tactic, I find it interesting that they also appear to be backing continued mediation. Maybe they actually are making progress.
“A CSX train with Union Pacific power passes the former Mobile, Ala., station site, where a new station for Amtrak Gulf Coast service could be built.”
Unfortunately I don’t believe Amtrak will ever run trains along the Gulf Coast again. But if they do somehow pull it off passengers won’t have anywhere to get on and off the train.
Amtrak can forget the City or county of Mobile or the State of Alabama putting one penny towards a station. Far right politicians have made Amtrak a dirty word here in Bama.
Given the size of the federal subsidy, why should there also be a state/ local subsidy? How many subsidies does Amtrak need?
It would be a small investment for a larger return. Mobile has squandered millions of tax dollars on far less useful projects. The Maritime Museum for one.
Delay, defer, forgotten.
Railroads will push this off until the either the people don’t care of the makeup of the STB changes. And railroads are experts at putting thing off.
May I hope that the STB will grant the hearing delay only if the parties can provide concrete proof that the preceding mediation actually produced tangible results. That is, the STB should demand a list of the issues actually resolved and the spcific progress on the others.
Yes, the “Gulf Coast” case here is Exhibit “A” of how & why the push for more Amtrak ‘corridor’ passenger rail services appears to be unrealistic and doomed to failure (dare one suggest….?) …..
How many babies will be born before this is decided? Huh?