The old L&N line from Montgomery to mobile has had a bridge fire near Evergreen Alabama. Have no further information but did check CSX.com and found the following bulletin —
CSX Service Bulletin - Re-routes in Place after Trestle Damaged in South Alabama
November 9, 2011 - 1 p.m. - A trestle was heavily damaged by fire near Evergreen, Ala., late last night, prompting the re-routes of several CSX trains. Traffic operating on and normally scheduled to travel over the Mobile-Montgomery main line could be delayed 24-48 hours.
Bridge repairs are expected to begin once equipment and materials are in place. Customers will be notified on www.csx.com once it is determined how long the repairs will take. Other rail carriers are assisting with traffic re-routes until normal service can resume.
An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the fire, which was reported at 10:40 p.m.
The company’s Customer Service Center is coordinating with affected shippers and receivers. Customers should contact the Customer Service Center via ShipCSX’s Problem Resolution tool or by calling 1-877-SHIPCSX, prompts 5, then 6.
The reroutes mentioned as of now are pure speculation.
Jacksonville / Waycross – Mobile; can probably route over the Tallahassee - Pensacola - Flomaton track although this is dark territory west of Tallahassee - Flomaton.
Some traffic from Montgomery might go on the old ACL line to Dothan but believe that is also dark territory. Then track rights on the Bay line to Cottondale and then on # 1. above to Flomaton? This line may not be able to handl
Re-routes in Place after Trestle Damaged in South Alabama
November 9, 2011 1 p.m.
A trestle was heavily damaged by fire near Evergreen, Ala., late last night, prompting the re-routes of several CSX trains. Traffic operating on and normally scheduled to travel over the Mobile-Montgomery main line could be delayed 24-48 hours.
Bridge repairs are expected to begin once equipment and materials are in place. Customers will be notified on
Some traffic could be routed over the Dothan line down to the Bay Line, and yes, it it dark territory, but as far as I know, the line is capable of handling double stacks and long trains. 90% of the rail that I’ve seen along the route is 132-lb rail, so I don’t see how it would be difficult for a heavy train to negotiate the line.
There is a bigger problem than the existence of rail routes around the damaged bridge.
MANPOWER
All the lines that have been mentioned are light density and have the crew base sized to handle the regular needs of the line. A influx of detour movements will very quickly (12 hours) exhaust the the crew base and bring things to a screeching halt. The effort to force manpower to transfer to and then become qualified on the detour routes is a month to three month process.
When CSX had to detour around the lines between Flomaton and New Orleans account the damage from Katrina it took several months and a special labor agreement to pull off the detour over the NS between New Orleans and Birmingham … a detour that was limited by the NS to 2 trains each way, each day - a detour that routinely caused the trains to be recrewed one or more times on the NS.
A single bridge should not present the obstacles to service restoration that the Katrina damage did.
Traffic in front of the house suddenly increased with several 3 and 4 train meets since 0900. Checked CSX and found the following service bulletin. Evidently CSX built an ~ 144 foot shoefly around the bridge. We are in a severe drought so the shoefly should hold up and not be washed away until the bridge can be replacedd by the end of the year per the below bulletin. All speculation is now moot.
CSX Service Bulletin - Traffic Restored on Route in South Alabama
CSX Service Bulletin - Traffic Restored on Route in South Alabama
November 11, 2011 - 11 a.m. - Train traffic has resumed over the route between Mobile and Montgomery, Ala., following a trestle fire earlier this week near Evergreen. However, traffic in the region will continue to move slowly while a backlog of trains is processed.
CSX and its contractors built a temporary route around the heavily damaged trestle, which is 144 feet in length. The bridge is scheduled for replacement, and that work is expected to be complete by year end.
Railroads respond quickly to implementing ‘fixes’ when critical facilities are damaged or destroyed; the fix implemented may not be the permanent repair but it will allow traffic to flow again while a permanent repair is implemented.
The damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina was ‘fixed’ by CSX in 5 months after the storm … governmental authorities were still attempting to advertise for contracts to repair damages to I-10 and US 90 which parallel CSX in many locations that damaged when CSX was back in operation.