FOR RELEASE	Contact: Dennis Watson
06/17/2002 (Monday)	(202) 565-1596
No. 02-22	FIRS 1 (800) 877-8339
	www.stb.gov

Board Grants Request by CSX and NS to Eliminate Certain Reporting Related to Operational Monitoring of the Conrail Transaction

Surface Transportation Board (Board) Chairman Linda J. Morgan reported today that the Board's Director of the Office of Compliance and Enforcement (OCE) has approved a joint request of the "CSX" and "NS" railroads to eliminate their filing of weekly and monthly operational monitoring reports containing both confidential and non-confidential data related to the implementation of the "Conrail merger" transaction. This action will become effective after the submission of the weekly reports for the week ending June 28, 2002, and the monthly report for the period ending June 30, 2002. The weekly reporting required of the Shared Assets Areas, however, will continue, given the unique importance of those areas to the overall benefits of the transaction.

Chairman Morgan noted that, since the difficulties following the June 1, 1999 implementation of CSX and NS operations over Conrail lines, the systemwide operations of CSX and NS have continued to improve, as have those for the Conrail Shared Assets Operator. This systemwide improvement was described in a recent report to the Board by OCE, which indicated improvement in critical operational metrics such as average system terminal dwell hours, average system train velocity, and total cars-on-line by as much as 31 percent, 37 percent, and 20 percent, respectively, since June 1, 1999, and corridor on-time performance being maintained at about 80 percent. In its report, OCE also noted that the "Buffalo Hot Lines" instituted by NS and CSX in response to concerns raised by the Board and others about service in the Buffalo area reportedly have not been used by shippers in more than a year, and that, while the carriers have not so suggested, it would appear that these could also be eliminated.

Chairman Morgan also noted that, as pointed out in the joint request by CSX and NS, publicly available operational metrics will continue to be filed weekly as part of Class I railroad reporting through the Association of American Railroads, and will be placed by the railroads on their respective web sites. In addition, the joint request of CSX and NS to eliminate reporting to the Board and OCE's letter granting the request, as well as OCE's report on their operations, are available to the public in the correspondence section of STB Finance Docket No. 33388.

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