Eastern Railroad Discussion > Covington, KY bridge

In reading the news segments of TO, I see that a bridge in Covington, KY needs repainting and that the city wants to collect $100 per day fine. Good luck to Covington.

In the Cleveland, OH area CSX told various municipalities that they could drop dead. They had no money and no intention of painting bridges.

Such attitudes by operating railroads are what endears them to the general public and makes them ready targets for lawyers who want to sue over any possible claim.

On the other hand, if the railroad saw itself as part of the community and painted its bridges and in general kept up its right-of-way, then "good will" could be an asset which even the accountants find valuable.

In Washington DC where untold thousands of drivers pass under it, just off of the 14th street bridge is a bridge that CSX owns (at least I am 99% sure they do) which has not seen paint or maintenance in 50 years.

I say again, CSX runs trains withing a few hundred yards of the US Capital on horrid track and bridges. When they dump one with hazardous cargo and DC is evacuated, then what?

MEKoch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In reading the news segments of TO, I see that a
> bridge in Covington, KY needs repainting and that
> the city wants to collect $100 per day fine. Good
> luck to Covington.
>
> In the Cleveland, OH area CSX told various
> municipalities that they could drop dead. They
> had no money and no intention of painting bridges.
>
>
> Such attitudes by operating railroads are what
> endears them to the general public and makes them
> ready targets for lawyers who want to sue over any
> possible claim.
>
> On the other hand, if the railroad saw itself as
> part of the community and painted its bridges and
> in general kept up its right-of-way, then "good
> will" could be an asset which even the accountants
> find valuable.

A new paint job would be nice, but as has been stated many times on Trainorders, CSX has a lot of more pressing needs to deal with such as track and structural bridge issues. It seems paint falls under the "nice to have" column and from all repeated comments, I'd say CSX is in no position to afford "nice to haves." Just my two cents.

RB

They forgot to mention the chunks of concrete that periodically falls into traffic.