Saw this come through on my rss feed.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryla ... 5680.story

It's probably the worst time to ask CSX to spend extra money on making the bridge look nicer. The park folks and the railroad have two entirely different perspectives of the bridge and a railroad themed park. We are all familiar with these opposing positions.

I think their heart might be in the right place (particularly if somebody else was picking up the tab) but there are few corporations that are sued in so many different ways as CSX. And that makes them just off the chart on something like this. What if somebody jumped a fence? Fell off the bridge? Had a rock fall on them?

Unfortunately they have been burned in a couple big ones that have made them hypersensitive. I'm certainly not on the CSXT payroll, but here's my two favorites that they ended up paying on that changed the world as they/we know it:
http://library.law.emory.edu/11circuit/ ... 3.opa.html

The kicker is that they even got NAMED in that one. Mind you, in the statement of facts from the NTSB investigation, there were no recommendations that CSX should do anything different. But, as the property owner with deep pockets they still got sucked in. And we're still paying for that in the extreme for proposed commuter operations today, big time.

The second monumental one for getting hammered for just being CSX is the spill in New Orleans in '87: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/09/busin ... -fire.html I think the settlement got reduced big-time, but they still had to pay, basically for just being there.

There's times when they deserve it, and times when they don't, but if you're a lawyer for CSX, the resulting approach becomes pretty obvious. Everything is a liability waiting to happen, and whether or not you actually had anything to do with it you're in the lawsuit. So when something like this comes along, their resistance doesn't seem reasonable.

The article is very correct about the condition of the top of the viaduct. Having had to walk trains up there, I can tell you there is no margin for mistakes. There is also NO room to hide if you are walking a train, and another one comes on the other track. It's a place you truly need block protection to be.

Yet, because of the state park below, it does attract the public. I've chased oblivious non-fans off the bridge on a weekend before, people who thought it was part of the park, totally unaware that it is part of one of the busiest freight lines in the East. Teenagers also like to party and drink by the monument late in the day and on weekends. As long as you can walk-in from neighborhood streets it's going to happen.

This could be one of the primo photo locations in the country if it was done right. That means that the parks people would have to get over the idea that EVERY tree must be protected. They need to open up the view of the bridge like it was after Hurricane Agnes washed through the Patapsco Valley in '72. I agree that building a viewing platform at the West end on the South side is a very desirable idea. Building a second one up higher on the hill would also be great. The brief glimpse you can get from up high in the winter from the Harbor Tunnel Throughway is really dramatic. However, it's going to have to come from private money, and be totally separated from CSX property. Maybe, putting the viewing area up higher than the ROW would be the better answer for the liability issue. That would make it very difficult for people to get to the tracks.

I know the town of Elkridge, MD uses the viaduct as a symbol for the town, maybe they could be persuaded to help?

I've mentioned in the past that I've talked with otherwise rational people--people with college educations and government jobs--who sincerely believe that the railroad tracks belong to the State of Maryland, and CSX should just step aside and let the MARC trains take all priority, even taking all the freights off that line so commuters aren't inconvenienced.

With mentalities like that in play, is it any wonder CSX now has a national advertising campaign (including on NPR, an admitted favorite of those I've spoken with that didn't believe me when I told them CSX owned the railroad), and that they've had to adopt a hard-core approach like the one described above?

Surely you jest!