The fate of the last municipally owned interstate railroad in the United States will be decided by voters in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 7. At stake is the 336-mile Cincinnati Southern Railway, which runs from Cincinnati to Chattanooga and earns the city approximately $25 million annually. The city has tentatively accepted an offer of $1.6 billion from none other than Norfolk Southern (NS), its current lessee, which has been cited for fifty-eight violations of various federal and state environmental laws after their freight derailment in East Palestine created an environmental disaster in February.

In the short time between the July 13 tentative agreement and the beginning of early voting on October 11, a local nonpartisan opposition group, Derail the Sale, has formed. Working in close collaboration with Railroad Workers United and River Valley Organizing, these activists have organized multiple teach-ins to raise awareness of the issue and urge their neighbors to vote no on Issue 22.

Because the vote shares an off-year ballot with major measures around reproductive justice and recreational marijuana, Dylan Bauer, an activist with Derail the Sale, thought that city officials “expected this to be a minor issue,” and they were “ready to coast on not putting too much information out to voters.” But the potential sale is shaping up to be quite contentious.