I had a casual conversation with an off-duty Amtrak employee yesterday; he indicated that NS was a few weeks or months away from abandoning the Kalamazoo to Ann Arbor trackage; the same portion of their system that was to become the Michigan Central RR several months ago.
Has anyone heard similar information?
I suppose that could be good or bad for Amtrak, depending on who gets/takes custody of the rail and infrastructure… If Amtrak takes ownership, who would continue the freight service for the area?
Tom
The fact that they wanted to spin the line off to “Michigan Central” is proof enough that NS doesn’t want it.
Your Amtrak employee is reading the handwriting on the wall here, just as everyone should have at the time–not really news, but I’d hope there is an action plan in place for whenever it finally does happen.
The lineage of that line would be: Norfolk Southern-Conrail-Penn Central-New York Central, correct?Would the trackage between Porter and Kalamazoo be retained by NS (I assume they own that portion now)?
The portion between Porter and the west side of Kalamazoo is already owned by Amtrak.