CINCINNATI — Norfolk Southern has offered to buy the Cincinnati Southern Railway, the route owned by the city of Cincinnati that it currently leases, for more than $1.6 billion.
A meeting to consider the sale will be held Monday, Nov. 21, according to the Cincinnati Southern website. The meeting, set for 1 p.m. EST in the Cincinnati Dining Room at Cincinnati Terminal, had originally been set for Friday, Nov. 18.
NS, through its subsidiary Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway, currently pays about $26 million annually to lease the 336-mile route from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, Tenn., and performs all maintenance on the line. The lease runs through Dec. 31, 2026, but NS has an option for an additional 25 years.
The Cincinnati Business Courier reports in a paywalled article that under the terms of the proposed sale, annual payments to the city would more than double, to about $56 million. WLWT-TV reports discussions about a possible sale have been ongoing for “a couple of years.”
A sale would have to be approved by voters — as required by the terms of the original lease — and require action by the Ohio General Assembly.
The city voted to build the line — the nation’s only municipally owned interstate railroad — in 1869; it was completed in 1880 and first leased to the CNO&TP in 1881. Since a 1987 renegotiation of the lease, the city has used the income to support infrastructure projects.
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