<p>Eastern railroad giant CSX Corp. said Friday it will close training centers in five states and consolidate the classes in Atlanta to cut the cost of educating thousands of new conductors, engineers and train controllers.</p><p>The Jacksonville, Fla.-based company will save several million dollars by closing its schools in Jacksonville; Cleveland; Cumberland; Savannah, Ga.; and Barboursville, W.Va., spokesman Gary T. Sease said. He said the new $8 million center in Atlanta will reduce training times, ease travel complications and cut lodging costs.</p><p>When the consolidation is complete by the middle of next year, the new center will handle more than 3,500 students annually, CSX said. The company's railroad division is hiring 1,800 people this year and expects to hire another 2,300 next year, largely to replace union workers who are leaving under liberalized retirement rules.</p><p>"The railroad industry, including CSX Transportation, is expected to need thousands of new employees each year for the next five to seven years to offset retiring front-line employees," said Wayne Richards, a CSX assistant vice president in charge of training union workers.</p><p>The 39 instructors at the schools that are being closed will be offered jobs in Atlanta or elsewhere in the company, Sease said.</p><p>The closings will send ripples through the economies of the affected communities, where the schools have helped sustain hotels and restaurants. This year, the locomotive engineer school in Cumberland trained 315 students, 40 at a time, in classes four weeks long. They all stayed at the Oak Tree Inn, an 82-room motel in nearby LaVale that has contracted with CSX since 1997 to house its trainees.</p><p>Owner Lodging Enterprises Inc., of Wichita, Kan., put the motel and the adjacent Penny's Diner up for sale following CSX's announcement, President William Burgess said. The company, with 30 locations in 18 states, specializes in railroad crew lodging, he said.</p><p>Burgess said CSX trainees account for nearly half of the motel's business but far less of the diner's sales. Still, diner manager Melony Files said the restaurant's 20 workers are concerned. "We're waiting to see what happens when it is sold," she said.</p><p>At nearby Jerry's Subs & Pizza, which delivers to the motel, franchise owner Bud Willetts said the school closing "certainly will have a negative impact" on the community. "We hate to see something like that leave the area because it was such a good, steady inflow," he said.</p><p>CSX said the conductor school in Cleveland was the busiest of the training centers, with 575 students this year. The Barboursville school of track engineering and train control had 500 students, the Jacksonville school for conductors had 415 and the Savannah school for train controllers had 175, CSX said.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x2865a94)</p>
