CSX announcement on future of Buffalo rail yard expected today
(The following report appeared at WGRZ.com on April 26, 2009.)
BUFFALO, N.Y. Local union leaders confirm that a major announcement about the curtailment of operations at CSX's Frontier Rail Yard in Buffalo is expected this morning.
Dave Kellner, president of Transport Workers Union Local 2020, says CSX management is considering a proposal that would reduce the flow of commercial shipping through Frontier Yard by nearly 50 percent.
Jim Louis, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, says if the proposal is enacted, the number of railcars coming through the local CSX yard would be reduced by 400 to 500 cars daily. Louis says most of those cars would be re-routed to CSX railyards in Albany, NY or Willard, OH.
Currently, about 1,000 cars pass through Frontier Yard on a daily basis.
Kellner says there are rumors that, along with the reduction of traffic, the company could lay off as many as 400 local workers. That's about half of Frontier Yard's current workforce.
"Right now, we just don't know," Kellner said Sunday. "We have to wait until Monday and hear what they have to say."
Monday morning's "town hall" style meeting between local managers and CSX's Northeast District Manager, John Gaylord, is scheduled to begin at 9:00 AM at Frontier Yard.
Louis says many of the workers his union represents have expressed outrage that they were not informed of the meeting or the curtailment proposal sooner. Louis says he was not told about the meeting until late Friday afternoon.
"Where is the trust?" Louis asks.
Louis also says the curtailment proposal goes against a previous agreement made between CSX and local unions. He tells 2 On Your Side that, at one time, CSX had committed to making upgrades at Frontier Yard that would increase the flow of daily commercial traffic.
"Other industries will be affected by these reductions," he told us by phone Sunday. "At a time when the local GM plant is in trouble, we don't need another local industry going under."
According to Louis, dozens of local companies use CSX to ship their products and raw materials. They include ADM Milling, American Brass, Ashland Oil, Batenfield Oil, Bestway, BFI, Boc Gas, CertainTeed, Chem Central, Chevy Motor-Tonawanda, CO Steel, KP, DuPont, Exolon, FMC, General Mills, Goodyear, Henry & Henry, Lake Erie Recycling, MHF, Nabisco, NOCO, NRG Power Plant, Ocello, Protective Closures, Quebecor, Safety Kleen, Smurfit Stone, Sonwil, Standard Elevator, Stetson Chemical, Stone Container, Sunoco, Tonawanda Coke, Weyerhaeuser, and 84 Lumber.
Kellner says other rail companies could be in trouble if CSX goes through with the reduction plan. Canadian National and Norfolk and Southern both currently use Frontier Yard as an interchange for their trains.
CSX posted a profit of $246 million during the first quarter of 2009. That's down from last year's first-quarter profit of $351 million.
The latest I heard about this is that at one time CSX was going to spend money to upgrade Frontier Yard. Since the economy took a dive CSX changed their position and decided to divert the money elsewhere and divert traffic elsewhere. They'll probably run Frontier into the ground and then when shit starts to fall apart, they won't fix it, they'll just close it. From what I've seen so far, it has already started.
(The following story by George Pyle appeared on the Buffalo News website on April 27, 2009.)
BUFFALO, N.Y. In what a local union leader calls the culmination of years of "lies and false hopes" - and a bet against Buffalo's industrial future - CSX Transportation Monday announced plans to sharply curtail operations at its Frontier Yard switching operations and lay off some 250 workers.
A company spokesman would not confirm the number of workers to be laid off. CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan released a brief statement that said, "CSX expects significant reductions at Frontier, but that there are no plans to close the yard at this time. While a small number of reductions will begin immediately, the larger number is not yet determined."
The statement from the Florida-based transportation giant said that daily traffic through the rail yard, now some 800 cars a day, will be cut in half, and half of those cars being moved from Buffalo will still be processed in New York State.
Dave Kellner is president of Local 2020 of the Transport Workers Union. He said the action is an abrupt reversal of what seemed to the be the rail operators plans as recently as six weeks ago, Kellner said, when machinery and crews to upgrade the rail yard's tracks and switching equipment were moved into place, only to be pulled out again a few weeks later.
"We used to be one of the busiest terminals around," Kellner said. But, he said, ever since CSX took over operations from Conrail in 1998, with announced plans to expand local operations and add an upgraded fueling facility, the company's interest in the Frontier Yards has seemed only to deteriorate. The fuel plant was built in Ohio instead and other improvements never came to pass.
"It's been nothing but lies and false hopes," Kellner said. "Somebody needs to be held accountable."
Frontier Yard now employees some 800 workers, Kellner said, and some 250 of them are expected to lose their jobs in the next few weeks. Another 125 workers had already been furloughed in recent weeks, he said.
The yard functions as a switching and sorting facility for the CSX, breaking up trains and recombining them according to their destination. Cars passing through the yard are also subjected to multiple safety checks during their transit there.
The plan to service fewer trains in Buffalo reflects a belief by CSX officials that Buffalo has little future as an industrial center, Kellner said, something already reflected in the reduced business at the General Motors plan in the Town of Tonawanda and at the local American Axle & Manufacturing plant.
Acknowledging that Monday's announcement was not the complete closing of the yard, as had been feared in recent weeks, Kellner said, "Does that just mean they are keeping the night watchman on?"
