Norfolk Southern ducks millions in recommended fines for delaying Cuyahoga River boaters

Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – One thing keeping boaters from enjoying summer in the Flats is the Norfolk Southern lift bridge.

Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

Known derisively as the Iron Curtain, it crosses the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, requiring vessels coming off Lake Erie to sail beneath it.

But the bridge, which goes up and down like an elevator, is usually stationed at track level. Boats must wait to pass until it can be raised.

And that can take a long time – too long, many say.

For years, the river’s pleasure boaters and commercial users have complained about unreasonable delays at the bridge. Even the threat of serious fines against Norfolk Southern has failed to resolve the problem.

“It’s gotten so bad that people won’t even try to come down the river anymore,” said Michael Grano, operating partner of Collision Bend Brewery, which has docking space along the east bank of the Cuyahoga.

Instead, boaters patronize establishments along the Chagrin River to the east or around Catawba Island and the Lake Erie Islands to the west, he said, where there aren’t the same access-related hassles.

A couple of people on a personal watercraft pass under the bridge. Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

The magnitude of the problem is evidenced by the number of complaints. The U.S. Coast Guard office in Cleveland has initiated more than 180 cases against Norfolk Southern since 2019, each asserting unreasonable delays at the bridge.

In most of those cases, the recommended penalty was reduced by a hearing officer or dismissed altogether. And once Norfolk Southern was allowed to weigh in, most of the reduced fines were zeroed out completely.

A couple of boats docked to wait out the delay after the bridge was lowered. Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

As of early June, only $52,000 of the recommended $3.84 million in penalties had been made final, although some of the proposed fines had yet to make their way through the system.

Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

When asked why so many proposed fines were eliminated, Janelle Vashon, manager of the Coast Guard’s hearing office in Washington, said she could not say, as each case is different with its own set of facts.

“When there’s no penalty, that means the case was not proven,” she said.

The problem

As many as 100 Norfolk Southern trains cross the Cuyahoga River at its mouth in a 24-hour period, which means there are plenty of times when the bridge is justifiably kept at track level, preventing anything much larger than a kayak from passing beneath it.

Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

Thomas Will, a local boater who frequents the Flats in the summer months, understands that some delays can’t be avoided, but said “some of the delays are very, very long. They can be upwards of two hours.”

The red light on the bridge tells boaters that it's not safe to pass by the bridge. Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

The real frustration, he said, is when the bridge stays down even though there seems to be plenty of time to raise and lower it before another train arrives.

Blair Stanifer, bridge manager for the Coast Guard’s Great Lakes district, has seen that scenario play out many times.

When oncoming trains are within the block, which is roughly three miles on either side of the bridge, the bridge cannot be raised, he said. But when trains are outside that zone, he believes the railroad should slow them down, raise the bridge to let a ship go by, and then lower it again.

The Lady Caroline heads towards the Flats after just making in ahead of the bridge being lowered. Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

But that rarely happens, Stanifer said: “That’s my number one complaint.”

To its credit, Norfolk Southern has begun keeping the bridge in the raised position more often, or at least high enough to allow recreational boats to safely pass, he said. But there’s no consistency.

“So, it’s not like they’re not trying,” he said, “but in my opinion there’s more that can be done.”

Frustrated freighters

Pleasure boaters aren’t the only ones cursing Norfolk Southern over unreasonable delays. Commercial users are equally frustrated, and more likely to contact the Coast Guard.

Most of the official complaints are made by freighters, including several represented by the Lake Carriers’ Association, whose members deliver iron ore and other bulk cargo up the Cuyahoga.

Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

Not only does a bridge in the down position delay deliveries, but it can create a dangerous situation for a giant freighter, which might have to hold its position in the water while dealing with crosswinds, currents in the river and pleasure boats who don’t always keep their distance, said Eric Peace, vice president of the Lake Carriers’ Association.

“We do everything possible to notify them we’re coming in and they still don’t lift,” he said.

The process

Stanifer can see boating bottlenecks from his 20th floor office in downtown Cleveland. He has a clear view of the bridge, the open lake, up the Cuyahoga to almost the Center Street bridge, and west along the Norfolk Southern tracks. To the east, he can only see as far as Huntington Bank Field.

Sometimes he will spot a boat waiting at the bridge, and if it’s there for more than five or six minutes, he’ll ring Norfolk Southern and ask, “What’s going on?”

If he reaches the right person, it might “spur some kind of action,” he said.

A boater turns around as he encounters the lowered bridge near the Flats. Boaters along the Cuyahoga River near the Flats in Cleveland have been complaining about delays they experience at the Norfolk Southern lift bridge at the mouth of the river. Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2025, a handful of boaters has to wait for more than 30 minutes when the bridge was lowered for a passing train.

The problem, he believes, is largely a lack of communication.

Boats approaching the bridge reach out to the tender who occupies a shack on the west side of the river, he said. Generally, that’s done by cell phone or marine radio.

The tender then sends a message to Norfolk Southern’s dispatch center in Atlanta, which lets the tender know when the bridge can be lifted. But somewhere in that process, the urgency or desire to take action gets lost, Stanifer believes.

A delay of five to ten minutes is reasonable in some situations, he said. When it starts getting longer, say 45 minutes or even two to three hours, that’s completely unacceptable to him.

“What constitutes an unreasonable delay is basically my call,” said Stanifer.

He said he takes several factors into consideration, including safety, weather conditions, the operational needs of the railroad, the maneuverability of boats in the water, and whether the request to open the bridge was done properly.

“I’m not fining them willy nilly,” said Stanifer, who has been doing his job since 2007.

The process

Stanifer said that once he sends a case to the Coast Guard hearing office, it’s out of his control. In a number of situations, he said, Norfolk Southern has been able to avoid fines based on a technicality.

He said Norfolk Southern has a “gentleman’s agreement” with commercial freighters that they will give the bridge 30 minutes notice of when they are to arrive. But federal regulations require boats to signal their approach by airhorn, a visual signal or via marine radio. Because that wasn’t done in many cases, or there wasn’t evidence of it being done, the hearing officer has often ruled that the railroad was not at fault.

“It was a brilliant piece of legal maneuvering on Norfolk Southern’s part,” Stanifer said.

Balancing boats and trains

Norfolk Southern did not respond to specific questions about bridge delays and the avoidance of fines, but said generally that managing the bridge is a balancing act.

“Norfolk Southern is proud to move the U.S. economy on our premium corridor which traverses Cleveland, often carrying as many as 100 trains a day on this route, including freight and Amtrak passenger trains,” the company said in a statement. “We continue to work closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and local officials to address the challenge of keeping both rail and marine traffic moving. Our priority is to balance the needs of boaters and our nation’s supply chain while following local requirements.

Going forward

Some say the delays at the bridge are improving, including Scott Reese, who keeps a 26-foot Regal cruiser at the Northeast Yacht Club.

“It used to be a lot worse,” he said. “People used to complain like crazy.”

But Don Young, safety administrator for the Greater Cleveland Boating Association, said he believes the problem is worse today than it was decades ago, before Norfolk Southern started relying on its dispatch center in Atlanta to control the bridge.

Young believes the delays stem from Norfolk Southern acting in its own interests and without giving much thought to the boaters that are affected.

“They got to get their traffic through and that’s all there is to it,” he said.

Peace, with the Lake Carriers’ Association, believes Norfolk Southern views being fined as just another part of doing business, and that the freighters have gone out of their way to accommodate the railroad, but to no good end.

“I think they need to be fined more,” he said.

Stanifer agrees. He said Norfolk Southern has never given him an adequate explanation for all the delays and that steeper fines might help remedy the problem.

“The citizens of Cleveland are just fed up with it,” he said.

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