CINCINNATI — While most people who follow trains and railroads realize that Cincinnati owns a railroad line, there is a good chance most local residents aren’t aware of what their city holds title to. The Cincinnati Southern Railroad, a 336-mile route connecting Cincinnati and Chattanooga, Tenn., was built by the city in the late 1870s. Originally leased and operated by the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railroad, then the Southern Railway, and currently Norfolk Southern; the 25-year lease expires this year. On Nov. 7, election day, Cincinnati voters will play a role in what happens next, and it may not be a clear-cut issue.
Norfolk Southern wants to buy the line and has offered $1.62 billion [see “Norfolk Southern to buy CNO&TP line from city of Cincinnati for $1.6 billion,” News Wire, Nov. 22, 2022]. However, an 1869 law requires any sale to be approved by Cincinnati voters [see “Cincinnati Southern sale to go to voters in November,” News Wire, July 14, 2023]. The initial lack of public knowledge made the issue appear as if it would pass with little opposition. The resulting sale proceeds, according to railway board trustees, would be put in a trust fund with the annual interest being used in support of infrastructure projects.
Now, however, a group called Derail the Sale has begun a grassroots campaign to persuade voters that Cincinnati should hold onto its tracks.
“We have a big hill to climb,” Abby Friend, the group’s leader, recently stated in an interview with WLWT-TV. “The 25-year lease is up this year. So, as the landlords of the railroad, we have the ability to raise the rent on Norfolk Southern.”
Friend feels the city would come out ahead by keeping the railroad and raising the rent. “If we’re playing Monopoly, you definitely don’t sell your most important asset, your most valuable asset,” she says.
Jan-Michele Kearney, Cincinnati’s vice mayor, who supports the sale, presented a different view in the WLWT interview. Kearney says the city and the railway board of trustees tried the raise-the-rent approach and it failed. “Norfolk Southern said we’re not going to do that, we’ll just buy it.”
A pro-sale ad campaign by the group Building Cincinnati’s Future points out to voters that selling the line presents the opportunity to “climb out of a $400 million infrastructure hole.” This would be done without any new taxes, says the group.
Derail the Sale has come up against another significant pro-sale group — the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council. The CLC, in a statement carried by the Cincinnati CityBeat, announced late this past week that it would be supporting the sale.
“After a great deal of internal discussion and debate, as well as numerous meetings between The City of Cincinnati and labor leadership, Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council is supporting the sale of the CSR,” the release reads.
The CLC represents more than 40,000 workers in numerous trades, including boilermakers, bricklayers, firefighters, teachers, musicians, air traffic controllers and more. This was support Derail the Sale was counting on.
“At Derail the Sale, we are disappointed and surprised to learn of the close vote by the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council,” Friend told Cincinnati CityBeat. “But we are undeterred in our mission to stop the sale of the Cincinnati Southern Railway to Norfolk Southern. We have union workers on our side, including Railroad Workers United and many working Cincinnatians are with us as well.”
The Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, weighs on both sides of the sale argument.
“By selling the railroad we will get a $1.6 billion trust fund to shore up our basic services for generations and we also get the benefit of getting out of a rail industry that is under-regulated, under-managed, and risky,” Aftab Pureval, Cincinnati mayor told Cincinnati CityBeat. “Certainly, the environmental catastrophe that we’re seeing in East Palestine … no one here wants that and if we continue to hold on to this asset, we could be on the hook for liability if something like that happened here.”
For Friend, it’s a belief that the city is not trying hard enough to find alternative means to fund basic services, while still holding onto the only city-owned, interstate railroad in the U.S.
“They’re looking at our [railroad] as something we can just toss out the door instead of sitting down and finding creative solutions to some of our problems,” she said.
What happens next is up to Cincinnati voters on Nov. 7.
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