WASHINGTON – CSX has reached a trackage rights agreement with Norfolk Southern that will allow its trains to detour over NS while the Howard Street Tunnel clearance project is under way in Baltimore.
CSX had previously planned on operating through the 1.7-mile tunnel during short work windows, a complex process that would have required construction crews to remove tracks while working and then install panel tracks to allow trains to pass.
The trackage rights deal is expected to shave months off the construction schedule. The most recently published schedule, which included operating rail traffic during construction, called for completion of the project in the spring of 2027. CSX officials were not able to immediately provide an updated schedule today.
When complete, the $556 million project — along with 21 other clearance projects between Baltimore and Philadelphia — will enable CSX to handle double-stack traffic on its I-95 Corridor.
In a regulatory filing today, CSX said it had reached two separate temporary trackage rights deals with NS.
The first would allow CSX trains to run 2.8 miles between the CSX Bayview Yard and the NS Bayview Yard in Baltimore. The rights are limited to one train in each direction per day.
The second covers a 148.3-mile route over Norfolk Southern’s Lurgan Branch and Harrisburg Line between Lurgan, Pa., and Norristown, Pa., and a 0.5-mile route between CP Falls and a connection with CSX’s Philadelphia Subdivision at CP Laurel Hill. CSX would be able to run two trains in each direction per day.
“CSXT and NSR have agreed that CSXT could re-route traffic over certain NSR lines while CSXT’s Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore, MD (the ‘HST”) is closed during the HST
clearance project (“HST Project”). At certain times during the HST Project, CSXT will close the HST and will not be able to route traffic through the HST,” CSX said in its filing. “During such closures, CSXT intends to reroute its current traffic away from the HST and over other CSXT lines and the lines of NSR, in order to continue to provide service to its customers whose traffic normally moves through the HST. CSXT will re-route the HST traffic using a combination of existing trackage rights and the new trackage rights that are the subject of this Notice. CSXT is also granting NSR concurrent trackage rights over certain CSXT routes, which CSXT understands will be the subject of a separate NSR request for Board authority.”
The trackage rights will terminate when the Howard Street Tunnel project is complete.
-About the maps. The upper map describes a route bypasThe sing Baltimore by 70-100 miles to the North. Howard St. Tunnel is in Baltimore City and is too far to be on the map.
The lower map is a finer scale and in Baltimore City. The location is North (PRR, AMTK) and East (B&O, CSX) of the respective passenger stations and tunnels. The B&O and PRR Bayview Yards were adjacent and parallel with a connection each way. The B&O/CSX (blue) and PRR/AMTK (red) lines going up and to the left lead to the tunnels, passenger stations and Washington. The lines going down and to the left (both AMTK and CSX) go to Baltimore Harbor and a connection is here. The lines up and to the right go to Perryville, Wilmington and Philadelphia.
The location of the Howard Street Tunnel on the maps would be helpful.