CINCINNATI — The only municipality in the U.S. to own an interstate railroad could lose that title, after the Trustees of the Cincinnati Southern Railway voted unanimously to sell it to Norfolk Southern.
The trustees met Monday afternoon to vote on whether to sell for around $1.6 billion. Currently, the city makes around $25 million annually from the railroad, according to the city.
The closing of the sale can't happen without the approval of voters in Cincinnati, regulatory clearance from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board and "passage of proposed state law changes," according to a press release from the city. The sale will only make it on a ballot if state lawmakers pass a bill allowing the funds to be used for current infrastructure — a process that will begin in January of 2023.
Currently, state law demands the funds be spent paying off debts, which the city's press release says won't happen.
Trustees are seeking to put the billions in funds netted from the proposed sale of the railway would be put into an infrastructure trust for existing infrastructure maintenance like streets, bridges, municipal buildings, parks and green spaces. That trust would be available solely for "the rehabilitation, modernization or replacement of existing infrastructure," according to a press release from the city of Cincinnati.
The railway, which runs from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, TN, stretches 336 miles through Kentucky and Tennessee. The last rail spike was driven in on Dec. 10, 1879 and the first route from Cincinnati to Chattanooga was completed just one year later in 1880.
In 1881, the railway was leased to the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (CNO&TP), though in 1893 the company was bought by Southern Railway — which later merged with Norfolk Southern, the company that will now buy the railway, according to the city of Cincinnati.
According to the city, the current lease for the railway expires in 2026.
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