BOSTON -- Massachusetts reached a final agreement on a $100 million deal with railroad giant CSX that is expected to improve service between Worcester and Boston and lay the groundwork for a long-planned line to Fall River and New Bedford, Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray said yesterday.
The initial deal, to buy railroad tracks and a rail yard from CSX, was announced last year. But the sides acknowledged at the time that they had yet to work out a major sticking point - establishing who would have to pay in the event of a lawsuit stemming from a train crash or fatality on the tracks between Framingham and Worcester.
With a deal reached, the state plans to take over those tracks in 2011, giving the MBTA the ability to run more trains between the state's two largest cities, said Murray, who has championed the issue since he was mayor of Worcester earlier this decade. It also allows the T to maintain the tracks and control train traffic, in hopes of improving service on one of its most popular but least reliable lines. A CSX spokesman, Bob Sullivan, would not confirm the 2011 turnover date, but said company officials would like to complete it as soon as possible. The $100 million would be raised through state borrowing from previously authorized transportation bonds.
The deal also gives the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority control of the right of way needed to build the New Bedford-Fall River line and several properties around Boston that could improve service in and out of South Station.
"It's an enormous opening of opportunity,'' said Senator John F. Kerry, who helped in the negotiations.
But the agreement is not without risk.
The liability question was significant because CSX will continue to run freight trains along the tracks -- even after the state takes ownership -- and the company had been insisting on retaining complete immunity from lawsuits, even if its engineers were responsible for crashes. CSX has had that immunity in Massachusetts since a 1994 agreement was signed to let the T use the tracks, but Murray has said the protection puts taxpayers at too much risk of paying millions of dollars on behalf of a private company.
Under the compromise unveiled yesterday, CSX will pay the MBTA $500,000 a year toward the cost of its overall legal insurance, which costs $3.9 million, and would pay the T's $7.5 million deductible if its employees are found "clearly at fault because of willful misconduct.''
Private lawyers say taxpayers could end up paying for CSX negligence that does not meet the higher legal standard of "willful misconduct.''
"Undeniably, it's exposing the MBTA, and therefore the Commonwealth, to more liability,'' said Jeffrey Catalano, secretary of the Massachusetts Bar Association, who is suing CSX and the MBTA over a 2005 death on another section of the tracks. "It's challenging to establish willful misconduct.''
Murray acknowledged the agreement falls short of complete protection, but said it was a substantial improvement over the old deal.
CSX has been involved in similar negotiations in other states and has consistently fought attempts to accept liability, telling the Globe in March that the issue was "nonnegotiable.'' Sullivan said yesterday that the new agreement is "a mutually acceptable solution.''
(The preceding article by Noah Bierman was published September 24, 2009, by The Boston Globe.)
