HOUSTON — A short line holding company has asked the Surface Transportation Board to allow it to become a neutral operator of key trackage in New Orleans should the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger win regulatory approval.
County Line Rail today announced the formation of the New Orleans Terminal Railroad Co., which it says would operate the gateway as a neutral, open-access facility open to all Class I railroads and Amtrak.
New Orleans is the only deep-water U.S. port served by all six Class I railroads, and all six, together with Amtrak, own track and operate through the terminal area. Control of the two key routes through the gateway is divided between two railroads: Norfolk Southern dispatches the New Orleans Terminal Back Belt Line, and Union Pacific dispatches the Huey P. Long Bridge over the Mississippi River. Canadian National and CPKC do not currently hold rights to move their trains over the Back Belt or the Huey P. Long Bridge.
“Combining Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern without conditions would place ownership and dispatch control of substantially all cross-terminal freight movements, and of as many as 48 Amtrak trains per week, in the hands of a single carrier that also competes for the traffic moving over those tracks,” the company said in a press release. “CLR’s position is that a durable structural remedy, rather than a temporary pricing condition, is the appropriate answer.”…