A lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday accuses one of the South's largest railroad operators of causing repeated delays for passengers traveling along Amtrak's Crescent Route.
Norfolk Southern handles dispatching along a 1,140-mile-long segment of the 1,377 mile route, which connects New York to New Orleans.
Under federal law, the company must give Amtrak trains preference over freight trains crossing the tracks. But Norfolk Southern repeatedly failed to do so, forcing passenger trains to travel behind slower-moving freight trains, causing "widespread delays that harm and inconvenience train passengers, negatively affect Amtrak’s financial performance, and impede passenger rail transportation," the complaint alleges.
"Freight train interference caused by Norfolk Southern resulted in more than a thousand hours of delay to Amtrak’s passengers each year," the Justice Department said.
Many of the 266,000 passengers who traveled along the Crescent Route last year experienced delays. The complaint said only 24% of those heading southbound made it to their destination on time.
In one instance, a train outside of New Orleans was delayed for nearly an hour when it got stuck behind a slow-moving freight train. Another was about an hour late after it waited for three trains to pass.
“Americans should not experience travel delays because rail carriers break the law. Our action today alleges that Norfolk Southern violates federal law by failing to give the legally required preference to Amtrak passenger trains over freight trains,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.
In an email to WWNO, Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Heather Garcia said the company was committed to complying with the law.
"Over the past several months with Amtrak, we have focused on the on-time performance of the Crescent passenger train. We hope to resolve these concerns and continue to make progress together," Garcia said.
