Tempers flared last Tuesday night as Clyde City Council discussed a number of issues regarding railroad crossings across the city with representatives from Norfolk and Southern.
While no action was taken by council, council members discussed the closure of the crossing on Amanda Street and voted on removing the temporary detour through town when McPherson Highway is closed due to the “grain train”, though the motion failed.
At the council meeting two weeks prior, on April 5, Council Member Steve Keegan had questioned whether or not Amanda Street, which has been closed at the train crossing since August 2012, would reopen after the schedule paving project on the street this summer if the grain train situation was not resolved. In response to that question, Norfolk and Southern had representatives at last week’s meeting in hopes of reaching a verbal decision on the matter.
“The crossing at Amanda Street has been closed since 2012,” Clyde city manager Paul Fiser said. “It was supposed to be a temporary closure, as we looked for solutions to the grain train problem. Obviously, we still have problems with the grain train.”
The grain train is a Norfolk and Southern train that comes through Clyde multiple times a month to pick up grain from Sunrise Cooperative, located at 1100 Burkholder Road. During the time the train is being loaded, the train is stopped across McPherson Highway, which causes traffic to be backed up on Clyde’s busiest roadway for anywhere between one to two hours.
To help alleviate the traffic problems, the city instituted a temporary detour through town while the grain train has Route 20 closed, sending all traffic, including semi-trucks, along other roadways through the town. The Clyde Police Department also has officers directing traffic through the detour the entire time McPherson Highway is closed.
“Originally we set up the detour whereby when the grain train is in town, we have a couple officers at Maple and Route 20 and Woodland and Route 20 to direct traffic down the detour, which is Maple to the sharp turn at Woodland,” Fiser said. “We’re basically taking all of Route 20 traffic through town for anywhere from an hour to two hours.”
In 2012, the city and Norfolk and Southern decided the solution to the problem was building a longer spur, a type of secondary track, at Sunrise which would allow the train to remain hooked together instead of five separate units that pull out and back up repeatedly, according to Fiser.
“We had had a commitment from Norfolk and Southern for roughly $500,000 to close East Street and to close Amanda Street,” Fiser said. “That $500,000 was to be used for the spur extension at the co-op. That extension was roughly estimated at $2.5 million to complete.”
In addition to the commitment from Norfolk and Southern, Sunrise also had a commitment from Norfolk and Southern for another $500,000, plus another $500,000 in rebates for the project, according to Fiser.
“The bottom line is: the funding was short,” Fiser said. “We couldn’t ever seem to fill that funding gap. We couldn’t get money for the project from ODOT, because we basically solved ODOT’s problem in 2008 by allowing the detour.”
During the meeting last Tuesday, Casey Talbot, outside legal counsel for Norfolk and Southern requested the closure of the crossing at Amanda Street be made permanent.
“The Federal Railway Administration asked the states and major railroad carriers to work together to reduce the number of crossings in the whole country,” Talbot said. “The reason they was to do that is safety; they say the only safe crossing is a closed crossing. The fewer crossings, the fewer opportunities for trains and vehicles to intersect.”
Talbot stated that since the crossing on Amanda Street has been closed since 2012, people in the area have become accustomed to going around the crossing and asked that it remain closed.
If the city agrees to permanently close the Amanda Street crossing, Norfolk and Southern is prepared to pay $33,000 to the city for whatever they purpose it wants, and will pay, along with the Ohio Rail Development Commission an additional $10,000 for any highway safety projects, according to Talbot. Additionally, the Ohio Rail Development Commission and Norfolk and Southern would improve safety by installing lights and gates at at the railroad crossings on Nelson and Church streets without any funding from the city.
If the city does not agree to close the crossing, Norfolk and Southern could file a formal petition with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to force the closure. In the case of having to file to a formal petition, the incentive package money is off the table.
The consensus of council seemed to lean toward accepting the incentives and voluntarily closing the Amanda Street crossing permanently, though Keegan voice his opposition to the matter.
Additionally, Keegan made a motion during the meeting to do away with the temporary detour through town when Route 20 is closed by the grain train.
“It’ll help us save on our resources: have our police officers not have to go out there and direct traffic and save on our streets and bridges from the wear and tear of the extra traffic due to the detour,” Keegan said.
Vice Mayor Ken Dick saw the motion as an opportunity to force the parties involved into fixing the grain train problem.
“I keep making the statement that you don’t want to slap the hand that feeds you,” Dick said. “But now I kind of agree with Mr. Keegan that it might not be such a problem if we get something accomplished because of this. We are spending a lot of money on maintenance and police. We have to think about what’s good for everyone involved. If Whirlpool gets a little ticked off (because they can’t get trucks in and out), well, we’re a lot ticked off here.”
Fiser asked that council not pass the motion without first discussing it with Whirlpool, who he said could lose thousands of dollars for each minute that the plant is not running due to not having parts.
Council voted 2-2 on the measure, with Dick abstaining from the vote.
Council hopes to discuss the issue again soon, possibly at the next council meeting, and hopes to have representatives from Whirlpool and Sunrise Co-op in attendance.
