Tentative Agreement Reached As Railway Strike Looms

The threat of a national railway strike has hit close to home.

All long-distance Amtrak trains are canceled starting today. Amtrak is preemptively suspending some service because its track will be affected if freight rail workers go on strike.

Amtrak’s Crescent line, which runs from New York through Atlanta and on to New Orleans, has stops in both Toccoa, GA and Clemson.

While Amtrak is not going on strike, Norfolk Southern is involved in the dispute. The Crescent uses the Norfolk Southern-owned Charlotte to Atlanta track, which runs through our area.

Unions secured a tentative deal after 20 hours of intense talks brokered by the Biden administration to avert a rail shutdown that could have hit food and fuel supplies nationwide.

The tentative deal will now be voted on by railroad union member, and even if those votes fail, a rail shutdown that could have happened as soon as midnight Friday has been averted, at least for several weeks, due to the standard language in such a deal.