ALBANY COUNTY — A deal that initially began to worry some local officials starting almost a year ago and others in just the past few months has become reality. 

The Surface Transportation Board on Thursday signed off on CSX’s acquisition of Pan Am Railways, paving the way for work to begin on 15.5 miles of railroad track that runs through the heart of Altamont and Voorheesville. 

Norfolk Southern, which owns the 15.5 miles of rail known as the Voorheesville Running Track, told the STB in January that, if the deal were approved, the full track and crossing rebuild over Main Street in Voorheesville could be completed in six months. 

Work is anticipated to start by October or November, according to Connor Spielmaker, media relations manager for Norfolk Southern. 

In November 2020, CSX reached an agreement to acquire the Massachusetts-based Pan Am Railways, its seven subsidiaries, and their approximately 1,200 miles of track.

But Norfolk Southern, the owner of the rail line crossing over Route 146 in Altamont and crossing over Main Street and Voorheesville Avenue in Voorheesville, raised objections to the STB, which has economic regulatory oversight over the nation’s railroads. The issue for Norfolk Southern was its 50-percent stake in a Pan Am Railway subsidiary, Pan Am Southern, a 425-mile system running across New England and New York. Norfolk Southern claimed, among other things, that the deal could be anti-competitive. 

But the two sides came to an eventual understanding with Norfolk Southern gaining track rights on CSX’s mainline at milepost 22.5 Voorheesville, which is located right between the post office and Gracie’s Kitchen at the Voorheesville Avenue railroad crossing, extending 161.5 miles into Massachusetts. 

This will allow Norfolk Southern to run a 9,000-foot-long specialty train each way every day between Voorheesville and the Ayer Intermodal Facility, a 52-acre freight hub 35 miles northwest of Boston and home to a 13-acre Norfolk Southern automotive distribution facility, without having to stop in Saratoga County to take the top stack off the train to make it through a too-low tunnel in Massachusetts.

In 2015, Norfolk Southern bought the 282-mile former Delaware and Hudson line from Canadian Pacific. The acquisition allowed Norfolk Southern to extend its system from central Pennsylvania through Binghamton (where a Norfolk Southern line that runs all the way to Chicago previously terminated) and from Oneonta to Delanson, where the line splits east toward Schenectady and south to Altamont and Voorheesville. 

Altamont concerns unanswered

The village of Altamont sent a letter to the STB in January, asking the regulator not to let the deal go through 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 the Jan. 5 letter, village attorney Allyson Phillips wrote that Altamont opposed 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.  

Joe Burke, director of the Altamont Free Library, had filed his own letter in August 2021, expressing concerns he had with the proposed merger. Burke was  concerned that the 1.7-mile-long train would cause Main Street back-ups. And he was also concerned about “potential damage” to the library itself, since the historic building, a former train station, is located feet from the rail line. 

The STB in its 75-page decision states the concerns raised by Burke and the library “arise from preexisting train traffic and thus are not merger related.”

Addressing an issue of both the village and Burke — a 1.7-mile-long train traversing the village twice a day, every day — the STB determined “the addition of two trains per day over a crossing that already has rail traffic does not demonstrate potentially significant merger-related effects warranting Board action.”

The regulator encouraged the freight carriers to continue to work with the village and library to find solutions. 

Voorheesville concerns rectified 

It’s been almost a year since Voorheesville began to discuss the project’s impact on the village and local officials organized a response.

While the 15.5 miles of rail between Voorheesville and Delanson are also slated for rehabilitation, it’s the roughly couple of thousand feet of track near Main Street that has drawn the most attention. This stretch between milepost 11, which starts about halfway between Skyler Lane and Main Street on Prospect Street and follows what used to be the railroad to a point behind 18, 22, and 28 South Main Street, the former home of Phillips Hardware and current home of Gio Culinary Studio and Old Goat Wood Shop, respectively, is due for a full track and crossing rebuild. 

In July 2021, Voorheesville sent a letter to the STB, asking it to reject CSX’s proposed takeover because of the “significant impact” the transaction would have on the community. 

By December of last year, Mayor Rich Straut was asking for authorization to sign an agreement with CSX and Norfolk Southern that said, among other things, that, no matter what happened with the ultimately-approved deal: 

— CSX would continue to work on the design and implementation of Quiet Zone so train whistles won’t sound in the village;

— Separately, CSX and Norfolk Southern “both agree to advance the survey and design work for the Quiet Zone project”; and

— CSX and Norfolk Southern would provide the county with the easements necessary to obtain grant funding from the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. There’s a provision in the grant that the county has to own the asset to obtain the funding.

With the STB approving the acquisition, it also means, among other things:

— CSX and Norfolk Southern will incorporate the Quiet Zone work into their overall upgrades. 

“We wouldn’t have to ... produce a separate contract for that, OK? They would work on the construction as part of their overall improvements,” Straut said on Dec. 21. “[It] kind of streamlines the construction process”;

— In what Straut called “one of the most significant aspects” of the agreement, CSX said it would keep construction costs to its August 2016 estimate of approximately $288,000.

“As of late, they have indicated that that was not enough money,” Straut said of the initial estimate to construct the Quiet Zone. “However, that is the estimate on which the request for grants was made and the grants were issued.” Straut said the $288,000 estimate had been “juiced” to $400,000. The county received  $340,000 for the project in 2018.

With CSX agreeing to build the Quiet Zone at its original estimate, “it means that it’s financially feasible for us to do it,” the mayor said; and

— Norfolk Southern will kick in $125,000 for its own Quiet Zone-related expenses. 

To receive the preceding, the village had to withdraw its July 2021 objections  with the STB. 

Norfolk Southern received $5 million from New York State in February to make the track upgrades.