The Justice Department needed to file a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern for its poor handling of Amtrak’s Crescent because Class I railroads routinely ignore the law that gives passenger trains preference over freight traffic, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told Trains on Wednesday.
The suit, filed Tuesday, July 30, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is only the second time the Justice Department has sought to enforce the 1973 law that requires host railroads to give Amtrak trains preference.
A similar case, which Amtrak brought against Union Pacific in December 2022 over freight train interference with the Sunset Limited, is making its way through the Surface Transportation Board. It’s the first on-time performance dispute brought to the STB since the agency gained the authority to investigate violations of the federal Amtrak service standards that went into effect in 2020.