Local railfans there must be delighted to see that back in service.
When Blue Line transit opened between Long Beach and Los Angeles, Calif., I couldn’t believe that I’d lived long enough to see passengers riding that route again.
It’s getting close- they aren’t done yet. I went down there past Rosenberg on Saturday and took some pictures of their progress, the track machines working from the north had made it as far as Hungerford- seen here-
http://flickr.com/photos/nordique72/3317922440/
http://flickr.com/photos/nordique72/3317925254/
There are other shots of the construction on my photostream as well- I’m hoping they get the line open in April, but by the looks of it I’d say it’ll be later than that.
If they make it by June 1 they will have gotten past the logistics / material supply nightmare they are fighting with rail and rock supply.
Mudchicken: Are you saying that even though there is a slow down in steel production that there is a shortage of good quality rail??
Well, it’s June 10 and getting hotter, but the work isn’t quite finished yet. However, they’re pretty close. The interchange track in Victoria to the line to Bloomington is close to completion. Virtually the entire ROW from Rosenberg to Victoria seems to be in place. The line is pretty much like a tangent built on a pool table, but it’s impressive to see a new construction of 130 something lb. rail on concrete ties. There were about 4 ballast regulators working in various places, a few bridge gangs and a ballast train pulled by 2 TFM units just NE of El Campo (I don’t know what the timetable direction is going to be on this line.) No signals are up, maybe it’s all track warrant. Virtually every bridge is new and concrete, except for the old truss bridge in Wharton over the Colorado River. The first MP outside of Rosenberg is numbered between 890 to 894 and the last one I saw was MP 974 near Telferner, with about 10 miles to go to Victoria. Interestingly, I didn’t see any turnouts for customers along the line; still working on the big intermodal facility between Beasley and Hungerford. Shouldn’t be too long before it’s done.
Looks like they’ve set the opening date as June 17th, a week away from now. Here’s a link to the new press release on their website:
http://www.kcsouthern.com/en-us/Media/Pages/NewsReleases.aspx?release=465
The release reads in part:
"Kansas City, Mo., June 10, 2009 - The Kansas City Southern Railway Company (KCSR) announced today that it will begin operating freight trains on its newly rehabilitated line from Victoria to Rosenberg, Texas on June 17.
…
Train operations will begin gradually in order to allow motorists to adjust to the restored service. In the first few days of operations, trains will run a maximum speed of 10 miles per hour over all public crossings. The maximum authorized speed will increase to 25 miles per hour beginning June 29. Except for segments of the line where there will be speed restrictions, maximum train speeds will increase to 40 miles per hour beginning July 13. Beginning August 1, the maximum authorized speed will increase to and remain at 49 miles per hour."
More information at the link.
Regards
Ed
List-
Towards Houston should be timetable “east” and toward Victoria should be “west”- the line runs at a southwesterly angle between the two points. For right now the line will be track warrant, since all the sidings have handthrow switches, but KCS is planning a CTC overlay for the line.
Here’s some shots I took on the line three weeks ago shows much of what Sunbeam was describing-
The connection rebuild in Victoria-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nordique72/3539921615/in/set-72157617594387257/
The Colorado River Bridge in Wharton-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nordique72/3539924413/in/set-72157617594387257/
El Campo (tracks run through the town square)-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nordique72/3540735090/in/set-72157617594387257/
and lastly- the only other remaining original spans on the line besides Wharton, the Lavaca River bridge south of Edna-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nordique72/3539923845/in/set-72157617594387257/
and the concrete bridges over Lake Texana south of Ganado-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nordique72/3539923643/in/set-72157617594387257/
Many other pictures of the line can be found in my KCS Macaroni Line Rebuild folder, and while I will be out of town when the line opens I am very much looking forward to railfan