ALTAMONT — The village of Altamont has asked the federal regulator overseeing a significant rail deal to reject the proposed agreement because the “negative consequences to the safety and wellbeing of the community cannot be understated and could result in loss of life and property under a worst-case scenario.”

In a Jan. 5 letter to the Surface Transportation Board, village attorney Allyson Phillips writes that Altamont is opposed to CSX’s attempted acquisition of Pan Am Systems because the running of a 1.7-mile-long train twice per day over the Main Street railroad crossing would leave parts of the village inaccessible to emergency responders for as long as 10 minutes.  

The dire language of Altamont’s letter is belied by its timing. 

The STB is due to make its decision on the proposed deal in April. 

In contrast, the village of Voorheesville filed a similar letter with the federal regulator in July and was able to meet with CSX and Norfolk Southern as well as representatives from the county, state, and federal governments over a six-month period to come up with solutions to the issues it raised. 

In response to an Enterprise question about why the village waited so long to raise its objection to the deal, Mayor Kerry Dineen said in an email, “The STB does not consider Altamont to be within the project area since there are no improvements proposed within our municipality unlike in Voorheesville where they are proposing a new rail connection. As a result, the Village had to gather what information it could about the proposal on its own initiative. The Village then communicated its concerns to the STB.”

The 15 miles of track known as the Voorheesville Running Track, which has endpoints in Delanson and Voorheesville, and traverses over Main Street in Altamont is due for track upgrades, according to CSX’s third application filing.  

Voorheesville, like Altamont, also had to gather what information it could about the proposal on its own initiative, with Voorheesville officials crediting Enterprise reporting in May of last year for bringing the issue to light for the first time two months earlier. 

In November 2020, CSX reached an agreement to acquire Massachusetts-based subsidiaries. But Norfolk Southern, the owner of the rail line crossing over Route 146 in Altamont, raised objections to the STB, which has economic regulatory oversight over the nation’s railroads.

At issue for Norfolk Southern was its 50-percent stake in a Pan Am Railway subsidiary, Pan Am Southern, a 425-mile system that runs across four New England states and New York. Norfolk Southern, among other things, said the deal could be anti-competitive. The two sides came to an agreement that would allow Norfolk Southern to use 161.5 miles of CSX’s rails to move 9,000-foot-long specialty train between Voorheesville and central Massachusetts twice a day every day.

Lately, CSX has been buttoning up deals with monthslong critics of its proposal including Voorheesville, which dropped its opposition to the deal in December, and, on Jan. 13 and 14, the STB undertook an almost 18-hour review of the company’s application.  

Earlier letters partially addressed some concerns 

An Aug. 19 letter to the STB from Joe Burke, director of the Altamont Free Library, largely focused on the same issues the village of Altamont touched on in its letter to the regulator and were addressed by CSX and Norfolk Southern in subsequent filings with the STB. 

Burke expressed concern that the 1.7-mile-long train would cause back-ups along Main Street. 

CSX maintained the impact of running two 9,000-foot-long trains would “be limited to a few minutes per day and is typical of any at-grade crossing.” CSX estimated it would take a Norfolk Southern train, traveling at 25 miles per hour, between four and five minutes to clear the Main Street crossing.

Burke was also concerned about “potential damage” to the library itself, since the historic building is located feet from the rail line. 

CSX asserted that the vibrations from Norfolk Southern’s trains as they pass by the library “will be neither extraordinary nor significant,” arguing that the Altamont Free Library “building is a former train station, which has apparently been located adjacent to an active railroad line for over 120 years.”

But CSX said Norfolk Southern would commit to installing “continuous welded rail on the tracks adjacent to the library, which should minimize any vibration impacts from the [Norfolk Southern] operations.

Voorheesville, like Altamont, had similarly brought up concerns about first responders being cut off from entire portions of the village in its letter. 

In the case of Voorheesville, the village expressed concern about the simultaneous closure of at-grade crossings on School Road, Main Street, and Voorheesville Avenue as a result of Norfolk Southern’s 9,000-foot-long train passing through the village.

“Voorheesville focused its concern on the possibility that these blocked crossings could interfere with emergency vehicle response times,” CSX stated in an earlier regulatory filing. “Voorheesville’s concern is understandable but unavoidable for train movements over grade crossings. CSXT understands that [Norfolk Southern Railway] is willing to commit to stage and operate its trains to reduce potential impacts on Voorheesville.”

A map included with the CSX’s filing said the School Road crossing, which is near the Voorheesville Public Library, is about 3,000 feet from the Main Street crossing, which is about 1,100 feet from the Voorheesville Avenue crossing. 

“The short time that a particular grade crossing will be blocked as the [Norfolk Southern] train moves through Voorheesville is typical of any at-grade crossing,” CSX asserts, and “there is nothing extraordinary about the [Norfolk Southern] trains. CSX conceded there may be times when the three crossings are blocked simultaneously, but argued the period of time would be small “given the distance between the crossings.”