The City of Cincinnati has entered into an agreement to sell the 337-mile railroad it built in the 1870s to Norfolk-Southern for $1.6 billion:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/norfolk...=hp_lista_pos3
This is a crazy moment in U.S. history as one of the great anomalies in municipal and railroad history is about to vanish. It would be like if the Green Bay Packers were sold by their namesake city to typical scumbag owners and the team up and moved to Milwaukee.
The railroad's lease didn't pay the City of Cincinnati very well for its first 100 years. Everything changed around 1987 when the City was awarded a large payout and much higher annual payments. Currently the City is earning about $25 million annually. The sale would place $1.6 billion in a trust fund.
The sale is contingent on a public vote. Already, the who's-who of local agitators have taken shots, and lawsuits are imminent. Opponents are already suspicious of the issue being placed on a special ballot or at least the spring 2023 primary ballot, which nobody pays attention to.
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