Been hearing reports of a major problem with CSX’s bridge over the Anacostia River near Washington–stuff that will take about three weeks to repair. Might make for some interesting detour operations.
People who know more about the significance of this story, please weigh in!
What I am hearing is that the bridge has settled by a significant amount ( like 4-5"). The juice train is to detour via Washington Union Station, and no Widenoses will be allowed. Many other trains will go west to get to Cumberland and then over the Mountain Sub, heading for the C&O. That’s the long way round.
New plan is manifests via Columbus, OH, Intermodals via the NS through Hagerstown, no updates on the “Juice”. Bridge to be closed 20+ days.
K650-13 was by Montezuma, GA northbound at 08:50 enroute to Atlanta. R174-13 was a couple of hours behind it. Still waiting to see what will be done with the Amtrak trains…
anb740
How does Anacostia Br. effect Amtrak trains?
If they’re talking about running the Juice Train through Union Station to avoid this bridge, I can’t see that passenger trains would have any problems. But if they need Spartan-cab units to handle everything that takes that route (why? they’re no narrower than the others), not much will be able to go that way, given the need for cab signals on the former RF&P.
If they’re talking Columbus for detour routes, that might liven things up on the old C&O. And possibly at Fostoria.
I’ll have to look on the way home. That is right on my commute route. CSX has been doing a lot of rebuilding of the yard right there. There was even a picture in a recent TRAINS of the new signals and yard throats.
Amtrak does not go over the Anacostia at all. Lots of garbage and intermodals though, with coal for Northern Virginia too. This will have them screaming in the DC council to reroute hazmat shipments again. CSX has been rebuilding that whole line the last 2 years. They shifted the tracks just north of the yard there to ease curves and increase speeds.
It doesn’t!
Another possible (and shorter) detour for trains running between Richmond and Philadelphia might be to run out of Richmond on the RF&P Subdivision to Doswell to connect with their former Piedmont Subdivision now operated by the Buckingham Branch Railroad. From Doswell the trains would run to Gordonsville where they would turn north to reach the Norfolk Southern in Orange. The CSX detour trains would use the Norfolk Southern to Manassas where they would turn west to run over the Norfolk Southern’s “B Line” to Riverton Junction. The CSX detour trains would then turn north to run over the Norfolk Southern’s "H Line (former Shenandoah Division) to Shenandoah Jct. where they regain their own rails. From Shenandoah Jct the trains head east to Point of Rocks where they continue on to Baltimore or Philadelphia via the Old Main Line or the Metropolitan Subdivisions.
This detour is predicated on the Norfolk Southern being able to accept the sizeable number of CSX trains from the south for the next few weeks.
All detour reroutes are dependent upon the physical abilities of the lines involved to handle the additional traffic, secondly upon the crew base on those lines to handle the additional the additional load.
The thing to remember about most all railroads operating in the 21st Century. Their plants, both track structures and the manpower to operate them, have been ‘optimized’ to handle their normal levels of traffic that currently exist on those lines. There is no excess capacity on anybodys system to handle any significant amount of extra traffic on a continuing basis.
The time of the outage come in the middle of the Fall Peak Season…it will be an interesting time for all involved.
Last night both the Juice Train and the UPS train 171/172 ran through Union Station, and that will continue until the bridge is fixed, it’s reported.
Ah the irony, Amtrak as the host railroad for the Class I …
S. Hadid
Yes, there’s plenty of irony in Amtrak hosting detouring freights, all right. You can be sure all moves will be tightly scrutinized by all concerned. Do not attempt to photograph any of this unless you are prepared to fight for the constitution, which has been partially repealed in the DC area. Shame on the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that can defy the constitution as it pleases! With that bunch and (CENSORED)!
The flash will give you away on picture taking as the movements are restricted by Amtrak to be between the hours of 2300 to 0400.
I’ll bet CSX will miss that window a few times before this is all over! And, yes the flash units will definitely get one in hot water in dear ol’ D.C.