Hoosac Tunnel Discussion & News

Apparently a short west bound with flat cars went through Shelburne this afternoon around 3PM.

Hoping for early next week!

Norfolk Southern Update dated 2/27. Estimated reopening of the tunnel "mid-March". Full details here.
http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en ... ption.html

I was told "another month" this AM. Ugh.

I guess at this point they might as well take the time to do it right.

Like any other repair project,there's more damage that needs to be repaired than first suspected.

Trains is reporting mid March.

After the cave in of the 1970s the project was undertaken to reinforce the weak areas. I'm sure that if Mr. Dustin's tenure was longer, more would have been done, as time and funds allowed. It's funny how given the weakened state of the arch 40 years ago, that nothing was invested in continuing the project. There's no way that the condition would improve on its own. They have just been lucky that everything has held up since 1983, and that the cave in wasn't much worse.

...the line is expected to remain out of service until at least the end of March.

Per a 0200/03-06-2020 visit to the NS website. Italics mine.

Not only is the tunnel re-opening pushed back another few weeks but carload traffic on 11R/16R is now re-embargoed due to lack of detour route capacity. So the only un-embargoed traffic is autos to Davisville. This unending Patriot Corridor outage is having obvious impact on NS traffic on the D&H South lines, especially intermodal. I'm guessing JBHU is still moving containers into/out of New England - is NS draying them to/from Mechanicville/New Jersey? Or are they riding CSX to/from Worcester? I wonder if NS has a Plan B if this outage drags on indefinitely?

Excerpt from the NS 3/5/20 Service Alert posted at http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en ... pdate.html

...NS continues to work with our interline rail partners on detouring over alternate routes:

General Merchandise traffic to Ayer is moving over a detour route. Due to lower detour capacity than originally calculated, NS is reestablishing the embargo on this traffic that was lifted Sunday, Feb. 23. NS will allow permits as the backlog of traffic is worked off.
Automotive traffic to Davisville, Rhode Island, will move over a detour route. The embargo was lifted Friday, Feb. 21.
Automotive traffic to Ayer remains under embargo but is allowing permits to match our detour capacity.
Intermodal gates remain closed to all shipments billed for movement to and from Ayer.
Customers with traffic moving through this area should expect delays of 48-72 hours.

The operative words in each of these announcements is "until at least". Hunt has shifted to CSX with both Chicago-New England train pair's volumes swollen.

Just an update yesterday when at work there was a eastbound autorack train going thru west Fitchburg my office overlooks the line.

Peter

With CSX becoming "testy" with PAR/PAS,has the VTR/GMRC detour also become Kaput?

AFAIK, 11R/16R detours continue to detour via VRS to work off the backlog of cars between Binghamton and E Deerfield. A 16R departed Binghamton yesterday at 2:30pm. I wonder if RJED/EDRJ detours have been scuttled as CSX can handle E Deerfield traffic via Ayer?

Who says that CSX has been "testy" with Pan Am?

They are running 100+ car trains between Ayer and Worcester in both directions daily, including an extra each way when both parties have crews available.

There is a lot of traffic at Portland and Selkirk. Most of it is the last effects of the CN/CP shutdowns in Canada as those blockades just ended earlier this week on March 2nd. So there were 1000s of cars already in transit trying to use Pan Am and CSX as a bypass around New Brunswick and Ontario.