U.S. 80 Mississippi River Bridge superintendent Herman Smith counts railroad cars crossing the Mississippi River Thursday.(C. Todd Sherman The Vicksburg Post)

[6/13/03]The commission that oversees the U.S. 80 bridge over the Mississippi River will look into keeping its own count of trains that cross the river in Vicksburg after a manual tally indicated a discrepancy with numbers provided by the railroad.

Bridge Superintendent Herman Smith said that a one-day count by bridge crews on May 31 totaled 1,200 rail cars using the tracks that run parallel to the roadway. The monthly car-count provided by Kansas City Southern Railway showed 800 cars used the bridge that day, and since the commission charges a per-car toll to generate funding, Smith said the commission is losing money by using KCS totals to bill the railroad.

“It’s like putting the fox in the hen house and telling him to sell the eggs,” Smith said.

He said if that one day is typical, then the commission could be losing as much as $500,000 annually in tolls. Smith has been asking KCS for printouts showing how the railroad calculates the number of cars using the bridge, but has gotten no response from the company, he said.

“I think the commission is getting ripped royally,” Smith said.

One reason for the difference in the number is that the railroad company counts stacked cars as one car no matter how many are stacked on top, Smith said. Commission attorney Bobby Bailess said the agreement between the commission and the railroad, which dates to the bridge’s opening in 1930, does not define what counts as one rail car.

Commissioner Bob Moss suggested the commission purchase a railroad-car counter to be placed on the bridge and consider generating its own bills to KCS.

“I just think we need to get all these issues straightened out,” Moss said.

The commission met in closed session Wednesday to discuss the matter, but took no official action. Smith said he will present the commission with information about rail car counters at their next meeting, in July.

Smith said the counter will likely cost about $10,000 although Moss pointed out that if the commission is losing $500,000 annually, the counter will pay for itself, but Commission Chairman Max Reed said they should not rush into anything.

“Let’s look at this for a minute. We’ve got $6 million in the bank, and we’re going to tell them we need another $500,000?” Reed asked.

The privately built bridge was authorized under special Congressional legislation and allowed to charge tolls to maintain the structure; however, the now county-owned span is not supposed to generate a profit.

The commission currently has about $6.2 million in funds generated from the KCS tolls. About $1.3 million has been spent in the past 12 months on repairs to the bridge, including repairs to two concrete bridge piers that had been shifting toward Louisiana for years.

More work is needed, including repairs to other shifting supports and fixing the roadbed deterioration that led to the bridge being closed to vehicular traffic in 1998. Public outcry led to a countywide nonbinding referendum in 1999, followed by the Warren County Board of Supervisors voting to reopen the bridge to traffic once repairs are complete.

Concerns have since been raised that the bridge built before modern highway safety standards is too narrow for two-way traffic. The span runs parallel to the Interstate 20 four-lane bridge, but is the only railroad track crossing of the Mississippi River between Memphis and Baton Rouge.

About 13 trains cross the river in Vicksburg daily; many headed to or from Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement.