In February, a freight train carrying industrial chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. As the toxins leaked into the surrounding area, the EPA conducted a controlled burn, sparking a towering black plume to billow over the town. Residents of East Palestine suddenly felt as though they had stepped into an apocalyptic nightmare that would, for months (and possibly years) afterward, contaminate their town.
East Palestine has largely faded from the news, but Norfolk Southern—at least in Ohio—has not. Earlier this year, officials in Cincinnati voted to sell the city’s publicly-owned railway tracks to Norfolk Southern for $1.6 billion. Now, on November 7, voters in the city will decide whether to approve or deny that sale.
Cincinnati is the only city in the United States to own interstate railroad tracks—a 337-mile network that stretches to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Although media attention has focused on Ohio’s state-wide referendum on abortion, which is on the same day, Cincinnati’s vote on its railways could become a test case for privatizing public assets in cities across the country. Alternatively, if voters scuttle the sale, Cincinnati could emerge as an example of standing up to a company that has already proven itself to be dangerously careless.
Cincinnati is the only city in the United States to own interstate railroad tracks—a 337-mile network that stretches to Chattanooga, Tennessee. City voters, in 1869, originally approved $10 million in municipal bonds to pay for the construction of the railroad. One hundred and fifty-four years later, when Cincinnati’s railway oversight board agreed to sell to Norfolk Southern, they argued that the influx of money would pay for badly needed repairs to the city’s streets, parks, bridges, and other public infrastructure.
While Cincinnati has leased the use of the tracks to Norfolk Southern for decades, grassroots activists who oppose the sale contend that changing this arrangement could cost the city more money than it would generate.
“It shortchanges the constituency. The people of Cincinnati deserve better,” Matt Weaver, a founding member of the inter-union solidarity caucus Railroad Workers United, tells The Progressive. “[The railway] is worth quite a bit more than $1.6 billion. My advice is to vote no and raise the rent.”
For Abby Friend, an organizer with nonpartisan grassroots organization Derail the Sale, public control also provides accountability and leverage for the city’s residents. “When we win and maintain our public ownership, we will have oversight,” Friend says. “We have elected officials that we can hold accountable to the things that they say . . . . [and] the ability to put pressure on our government in a way that we don’t have with corporate assets.”
Commercial freight is far more lucrative for private rail companies than passenger trains, with estimates that the freight accounts for 95 percent of rail transportation revenue in the United States and Canada. Opponents of the sale argue that turning over ownership to a company only interested in short-term profit will short-change members of the public who are interested in services such as increased passenger rail, expanded fiber optic, and renewable energy services.
“People want passenger rail. We want to have options other than car travel,” says Friend. In 2021, Virginia bought over 220 miles of rail from private carrier CSX to prioritize the less profitable passenger services.
“The Virginia example is a perfect demonstration of why public ownership of rail is necessary, and how it can be accomplished. Officials there determined, rightly, that it would be basically impossible to expand passenger rail service and meet the growing transportation needs of the region if the rail lines remained in private, corporate hands,” Thomas Hanna tells The Progressive.
Hanna is the president of the Institute for a Democratic Economy and Society, a public interest group. Virginia was not the only recent example of the public sector buying out private rail lines in order to better serve the general public. Hanna cited Santa Cruz County’s purchase of thirty-two miles of rail track from Union Pacific in 2012 as another instance of this.
Weaver notes that under the current lease, the city gets 75 percent of the profits from any fiber optic broadband leasing. With money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law rolling out to localities for broadband and renewable energy expansion, he feels there is even greater potential for the city to profit.
While no campaign finance figures are listed online, it is likely that Derail the Sale and other opponents will be outspent by Norfolk Southern.
Derail the Sale is also tapping into voters’ distrust of the political establishment. This distrust has been inflamed by past scandals involving corruption charges against three city council members. The campaign has also tried to tap into conflict-of-interest concerns raised against the current mayor’s re-election campaign treasurer, who is also serving as treasurer for the railway sale campaign.
While no campaign finance figures are listed online, it is likely that Derail the Sale and other opponents will be outspent by Norfolk Southern. That has not fazed activists like Friend. “We know that when we talk to people in our communities, they listen to us in a way that they will not listen to Norfolk Southern because we live here and have a vested interest in this,” she says.
Weaver asserted that the rise of the Internet, Facebook, and email services have leveled the playing field in terms of getting the word out to voters. And other grassroots organizations have highlighted the elephant in the room—namely the involvement of Norfolk Southern in the environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio.
On October 5, residents of East Palestine posted a public letter in opposition to the sale. “There are no potential benefits from the sale of Cincinnati Southern Railway that outweigh the health of your families,” they wrote.
Voters in Ohio have historically been resistant to selling off public assets to private corporations. In 1979, Cleveland voted overwhelmingly not to sell off their public utility system to the private, investor-owned utility Cleveland Electric Illuminating. In 1998, the Cleveland City Council passed a resolution commending the actions of former-mayor Dennis Kucinich in blocking the sale of the public power system, citing how the utility has saved consumers hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. Many supporters of the system saw this action as a vindication of their efforts.
Railroad Workers United and the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers Union (UE) have endorsed public ownership of private railroad companies. But with the private railroads being able to easily block minimal safety legislation proposed in Congress in the wake of the East Palestine disaster, the far more ambitious goal of a government takeover seems unrealistic, at least for now.
Cincinnati’s vote this November, along with other developments, could shift that dynamic. “I would like to say it will open people’s eyes to the potential for nationalization,” says Weaver. “I’m seeing that the STB [Surface Transportation Board] and FRA [Federal Railroad Administration] are unwilling to regulate the industries . . . . Maybe we should lean more towards nationalization. The cat is out of the bag, and it’s profit over people.”
But others are more skeptical of a potential widespread impact of a “no” vote on Issue 22.
“Successful anti-privatization efforts are always inspiring to other such campaigns, so a victory here would be important to similar efforts in the rail sector and beyond. However, traditionally anti-privatization and public ownership campaigns in the United States have been largely local in nature,” Hanna says.
It remains to be seen how broad an impact a “no” vote on Issue 22 would have. But at the very least it would seem likely to be a shot-in-the-arm to activists fighting privatization and promoting public buyouts at the local level.