Comment/open letter in response to Times Dispatch article on high speed rail:
“Governor,
Your transportation department has already spent $130 million in taxpayer dollars making improvements to CSX tracks between Richmond and Washington and yet CSX won’t allow you to run any more than these two new round trip trains. Why?”Documents off the internet from VRE and DRPT indicate that your transportation department rail experts are stuck with using slots over CSX that VRE had in their contract from several years ago, slots they are not currently using. This article says your DOT will need to spend another $234 million just from Doswell south to Richmond alone … and what will that get you from CSX .. 4 more slots?
Quit allowing CSX executives to dictate how the track is going to be used, especially right now when their freight train volume is down dramatically from where it was just a year ago, due to the poor economy.
The Commonwealth owned a controlling interest in the Richmond Washington track for over 150 years and one of your recent predecessors gave that control to CSX. But Congress created statutes in October that made the Surface Transportation Board responsible for enforcing mediation of passenger rail access on private freight rail trackage, and Congress isn’t through working on that problem yet, as highlighted in a Logistics Management magazine online article titled … “Railroad shipping: Senators team up to craft new legislation focused on railroad antitrust exemption and reforming STB.“
Please tell you transportation experts at VDOT and DRPT and VRE to start using the new Federal system and ask the STB right now … to fix the problem with CSX so that you can run enough new high speed passenger trains on schedules that the cities and communities want to be worth the public investment. If you’re going to head the National Democratic Party then several other states that are having the same problem with CSX are going to expect leadership on this issue. Why not start practicing for a solution to their problems by fixing your own CSX problem, first. If you’re legacy building with this new Amtrak partnership then why not build an even bigger and better legacy for yourself …. fix the problem.