New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is requesting commissioners of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, a city-owned property, to consider putting the railroad up for sale to a private-sector operator.
One potential buyer already has voiced interest, according to the New Orleans Advocate web site: Thomas Coleman, a New Orleans businessman who served for four decades as the CEO of International-Matex Tank Terminals, a company operating terminals and storage facilities in Louisiana and other states, as well as an unspecified rail line in New Jersey.
Coleman made a formal request for consideration in a Jan. 14, 2015 letter to the Public Belt Railroad commissioners, the City Council, and Mayor Landrieu. The latter, in his own letter addressed to the commissioners last month, urged the board "to hold open, public hearings, where those who support and those who oppose selling the Public Belt can make their case."
Created in 1904, the Public Belt Railroad placed all freight rail operations serving New Orleans' port facilities under the governance of one agency. Public Belt owns and operates over roughly 100 miles of right-of-way. It generates revenue from freight railroad customers paying for trackage rights.
Sale of the railroad would require both the approval of the board commissioners and a majority of the City Council.