Amtrak Trains Get Priority Over Freight in Legal Settlement

The Justice Department reached a settlement with freight railroad company Norfolk Southern, which controls 1,140 of the Amtrak Crescent line’s 1,377 route-miles, in a lawsuit centered on Amtrak’s right of preference on shared tracks. 

As Bill Stephens reports for TrainsPro, the Justice Department alleged that Norfolk Southern violated the 1973 right of preference statute by unlawfully giving its trains priority over passenger trains on the Crescent line. “The resulting delays, the Justice Department said in July 2024, harmed and inconvenienced passengers, impeded passenger rail transportation, and negatively affected Amtrak’s financial performance.”

As part of the settlement, Norfolk Southern agreed to provide Amtrak trains the highest priority, train its dispatchers to prioritize Amtrak trains, require supervisor approval for any dispatching decisions that do not prioritize Amtrak, and provide records about delays on the Crescent line to help identify their causes. “In 2023, according to Amtrak data, 57% of Crescent passengers arrived on time, which was well below the 80% threshold required under federal customer on-time performance standards that went into effect in 2020.” In 2023, none of Amtrak’s 15 long-distance lines met the federal standard.

According to Amtrak, performance on the Crescent line has markedly improved since the case was filed, with 34 percent fewer delays caused by Norfolk Southern compared to last year. “Across all NS-hosted routes, delays decreased 26% and FTI dropped 42% year-over-year. Ridership on these routes also rose by 2%, reflecting growing customer confidence in service reliability.”