By Ed Blazina, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; February 5, 2019
Port Authority has joined North Side residents, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pittsburgh officials in questioning Norfolk Southern’s controversial plan to expand the railroad’s use of double-stacked rail cars in the region.
In a Jan. 31 letter to the railroad, released Tuesday, the authority said an August derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train onto the authority’s light-rail tracks at Station Square gives the agency “significant concerns regarding the safe operation of freight trains and proper inspection.” Burton Jennings, Port Authority’s chief safety officer, called for more frequent track inspections and other safety assurances before the railroad moves ahead with plans to use double-stacked cars on tracks that run parallel to the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway, which has the authority’s busiest bus route and carried 6.8 million riders on all routes last year.