LAFAYETTE, Ind. — To hear CSX CEO Hunter Harrison tell it, the embattled freight railroad is on the right track.

But to Amtrak and its customers, nothing could be further from the truth.

As Amtrak's on-time performance tumbles toward record-low territory, it has placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of its partner, CSX, on whose tracks Amtrak trains run between Indianapolis, Lafayette and Dyer.

In a letter to the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, Harrison told regulators that CSX is "driven to provide superior service."

That letter, which touts the railroad's commitment to safety and profitability, makes no mention of CSX's long-running operational problems.

Regulators disagree with Harrison's rosy assessment, and it has ordered CSX to appear at a public hearing in Washington on Sept. 12.

Amtrak also disagrees, pointing to on-time performance that has worsened in August.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said CSX is violating its agreements by failing to allow passenger trains to operate on-time on the Hoosier State, Cardinal and other lines on which Amtrak trains use CSX tracks.

"The schedule that’s there now is the schedule that CSX has agreed to," Magliari said. "We don’t impose the schedule on the host railroad. Those are negotiated, and that is a schedule CSX has agreed to for that train."

Based in Jacksonville, Florida, CSX owns about 21,000 miles of track.

From bad to worse

Amtrak increasingly finds itself in damage-control mode as its trains make it to their destination on time with increasing rarity.

The problems stem from CSX's rocky transition to a new operational plan, which has angered high-profile customers like Amtrak and threatened the railroad's relationship with high-revenue customers like UPS.

"The single most important thing to our customers is whether they are able to get to where they want to go on the schedule that they expected, and the second most important thing to them is how we explain to them what happens if we’re unable to make our schedule," Magliari said.

"Although we’re working to manage both of those, the ones we have the most control of is how we explain, and how we keep up communication with customers," he said. "We’re focused on the second one of those, the one we fully control, while we work on the first one of those, which is largely in the hands of others."

Amtrak's woes come amidst its high-profile takeover of the Hoosier State train earlier this year.

What's the endgame?

As CSX digs itself out of its operational woes, the company promises its network ultimately will be stronger.

"Performance is improving across our network, and we expect additional, noticeable improvements to be evident in the near future," CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle said. "Ultimately, customers will enjoy a more reliable, more predictable, more cost-effective freight-transportation product as CSX moves forward in our transition."

The railroad has eliminated 2,300 jobs since the beginning of the year, including at its yard in Avon, which Harrison mentioned in his letter to the Surface Transportation Board.

The changes are part of a program Harrison has shepherded called "precision scheduled railroading."

The Indianapolis area is one of the largest remaining pain points in CSX's network, according to data provided by the company.

To relieve what Harrison calls "regional congestion," CSX has undone one of the biggest changes it made there: It has converted the yard from a "flat switching" operation back to a "hump" operation.

In a nutshell, that means the massive amount of the company's rail cards handled in Avon are once again being sorted — individually, but in a constant stream and with surprising accuracy — by computers. Flat-switching operations are more tedious, labor-intensive and tend to be more error-prone, but they move much more quickly.

The change suggests CSX cut too deeply in Avon to maintain an efficient flat-switching operation there.

The railroad also has recently run afoul of lawmakers in some states for redacting safety information about the installation of a federally mandated crash-avoidance system across its network.

Representatives of the Surface Transportation Board declined repeated requests for comment.

Should you take Amtrak?

Regardless of CSX's behind-the-scenes issues, Arvid Olson, transportation chair of the Quality of Life Council of Greater Lafayette Commerce, said he hopes the local communities that fund the Hoosier State train maintain their support.

Customers debating taking Amtrak into Chicago due to the railroad's recent woes run the risk of delays even if they don't hop aboard a train, he said.

"It's kind of like saying, 'Well, should I drive to Chicago? Is I-65 going to be OK? Or is the Borman going to be OK?' The answer is, I don't know," Olson said.

To its credit, Amtrak is "doing everything possible to make this a positive experience in light of delays they don't ultimately have control over," he said. "They are behind the scenes working very, very hard that the rail experience is positive, even if it's not always exactly on time."