WASHINGTON — The Massachusetts congressional delegation has asked the Surface Transportation Board to consider CSX Transportation’s acquisition of New England regional Pan Am Railways as a significant transaction, which would put the deal under a more stringent regulatory review process.
“While the STB’s procedures for a significant transaction provide additional time for interested parties to address the impacts of this purchase, and for the STB to reach a decision and impose any necessary conditions, these procedures are still accommodating to CSX,” the state’s two senators and nine members of the House of Representatives wrote to the board in a letter today. “A purchase of this significance must consider the implications for all parties and the impact it will have on local residents.”
STB Chairman Martin Oberman said in a statement Tuesday said that federal regulators will post a decision Thursday regarding whether the CSX-Pan Am deal will be reviewed as a significant transaction or as a minor deal as the railroads have requested.
The Massachusetts delegation contends that CSX’s acquisition of Pan Am will affect commuter rail service in the Boston area and presents environmental concerns.
The most significant environmental issue, the members of Congress wrote, is increased rail traffic on a causeway that crosses the Wachusett Reservoir, which provides drinking water to 3 million people in the Boston area.
Although CSX says the Pan Am acquisition won’t change traffic patterns, there is one exception: Norfolk Southern will route a daily pair of intermodal and automotive trains via new trackage rights over CSX and Pan Am between the Albany, N.Y., area and Ayer, Mass., via Worcester. Those trains will use the Pan Am Worcester Main Line that crosses the reservoir instead of reaching Ayer via the former Boston & Maine main line through Hoosac Tunnel.
The state’s water resources authority, in a separate letter to the board, last week raised similar concerns, noting a 2017 derailment in the watershed.
CSX has asked the board to review the Pan Am deal as a minor transaction. Under the board’s rules, a significant transaction gets a more thorough review.
Last week Norfolk Southern urged the STB to consider the CSX-Pan Am deal a minor transaction. NS also threw its full support behind the acquisition, which it said would improve service and strengthen rail competition in New England.
Vermont transportation officials, meanwhile, submitted a second filing that claims the CSX acquisition of Pan Am, and the naming of a Genesee & Wyoming subsidiary as neutral operator of the Pan Am Southern joint venture, would hurt north-south rail competition in New England.
CSX’s response to those competitive concerns, Vermont officials wrote, was “tone deaf” and failed to recognize that some shippers along the Connecticut River in Vermont and New Hampshire will see their rail service reduced from two railroads to one.
G&W’s Berkshire and Eastern will operate Pan Am Southern, which has trackage rights from East Northfield, Mass., to White River Junction, Vt., on G&W’s New England Central. Vermont Rail System interchanges with Pan Am Southern at Hoosick Junction, N.Y., as well as White River and Bellows Falls, Vt.
Poland Spring, which bottles water in Maine and ships it via Pan Am Railways, says it supports CSX’s acquisition of the privately held New England regional. “Poland Spring looks forward to the improved service that we will receive from CSXT,” Sarah Cohen, the company’s regional transportation manager, wrote to the board.
— Updated at 4 p.m. CDT on March 23 with statement from STB chair Martin Oberman, NS support for considering deal a minor transaction.
Everyone is an environmentalist when it comes to things that affect them personally. Even those who hate environmentalists.
Trains have been operating through watersheds as long as there have been trains. I wonder if anyone in the Bay State has noticed the zillions of cars and trucks leaking crankcase oil in the Quabbib/ Wachusett watershed. Or the deer and birds pooping or whatever. Get a grip, two more trains a day isn’t going to amount to anything. For god’s sake, get a grip, the environmentalists want more trains but they hate trains. Basically they’re just a bunch of idiots.
I spent the first five years of my life drinking Metropolitan District water, at a time when the Boston and Albany ran frequent freights pulled by filthy 4-8-2 steam engines. I lived to tell about it. As have tens of millions of people who have lived off the Wachusett/ Quabbin system. Environmentalists have zero credibility with me, none whatsoever. They literally look for something to be upset about. Fewer trains, they complain. More trains, they complain.