COLUMBUS, Ohio — The city of Cincinnati’s plan to sell the Cincinnati Southern Railway to Norfolk Southern — which had been in jeopardy — has been revived by the state legislature.
WXIX-TV reports that, after the state House and Senate passed versions of a transportation bill with conflicting language regarding the sale, a conference committee on Tuesday restored language allowing the funds from the sale to be used for capital projects.
That language was a key facet of the city’s plan to sell the railroad, since Cincinnati uses the current annual lease payments for capital funding. Without that clause in the transportation bill, it could only have used sale proceeds to pay down public debt.
The language approved by the committee will specifically identify Norfolk Southern as the buyer, places limits on principal in a trust to be managed by the CSR Board of Trustees, and allows the board to submit the question of a sale to be submitted to voters only in 2023 or 2024, and only once. Voter approval is required for the city to sell the railroad.
State Sen. Nickie Antonio (D-Cleveland), a member of the transportation and conference committees, told WXIX that some members of the senate “wanted some guardrails around the sale of the railway. … This is a local concern. What the legislation does is enable the people in the community to make the decision.”
The House and Senate will each vote on the compromise version of the bill today (Wednesday, March 29). If it passes, Gov. Mike DeWine must sign it by Friday.
Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Southern board, and Norfolk Southern announced an agreement to sell the railroad — the nation’s only municipally owned interstate rail line — in November [see “Norfolk Southern to buy CNO&TP …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 21, 2022]. NS and predecessor Southern Railway have leased and operated the route as subsidiary Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific since 1881. But while the city currently receives about $25 million annually from the lease, the sale is structured so those payments will increase to $60 million a year or more.
Along with the question over the use of funds, the sale has faced opposition over safety concerns arising from the Feb. 3 NS derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
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