By Justin Franz 

NORTH BILLERICA, Mass. — Dozens of jobs will be eliminated if Genesee & Wyoming takes over Pan Am Southern as proposed by CSX Transportation in its effort to acquire Pan Am Railways. This week, CSX filed a labor impact chart with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board that illustrated how G&W — which has been selected by CSX and Norfolk Southern to operate the jointly-owned Pan Am Southern — planned to reduce the railroad’s workforce from 214 employees to 159. 

In its initial filing last week, CSX officials wrote that they did not anticipate any negative impacts to craft employees on the rest of the Pan Am system, east of Ayer, Mass. Pan Am Southern is a joint venture created in 2009 between Pan Am and Norfolk Southern in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut. NS initially protested CSX’s advances toward Pan Am last year but has since come to an agreement with CSX that would allow both Class Is to each own 50 percent of the former Boston & Maine west of Ayer and have it be operated by G&W as the Berkshire & Eastern. 

According to the chart submitted by CSX, the number of dispatchers would go from six to five; the number of trainmen would go from 62 to 47; maintenance of way would go from 56 to 27; signal maintainers would drop from 11 to 7; shop crafts would go from 19 to 12; draftsmen would go from three to two; and clerical staff would go from four to three. The number of carmen would remain the same (eight) and the number of engineers would increase from 45 to 48. 

Shortly after the labor chart was made public, four different unions — SMART Transportation Division, the American Train Dispatchers Association, Transportation Communications Union, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers — all filed Notices of Intent To Participate. The motions did not include comment or reaction at this time but simply a request to be kept abreast of actions on the filing.