Condition Of CSX Mainlines

Hello All:

Is it me or is CSX having excessive derailments? With all the modern safety devices in place and rails being maintained to FRA standards what is going on?

If the derailment today was caused by a broken rail that is one thing extremely difficult to prevent.

If it was car breakdown that can be prevented by car inspectors. One of these times there will be a derailment what will kill hundreds maybe thousands.

I see the way some truckers on the interstates break the speed laws daily and in some of those trailers are material that could do the very same thing and those highways run through major cities.

We all scream when gas prices go up...we need to scream for safer rail lines and highways as well.

Your thoughts?

Best,
Craig

While It's true CSX does a piss poor job of maintaining there network. It's not like other railroads don't have there share of derailments. Also, keep in mind the derailments you see on TV are a very small fraction of all the derailments we have every day. But again, thats not limited to CSX.

Derailments happen every d#@% day of the week, mostly in yards and switching. But on CSX they're happening at speed; they're happening on the mainline; they're happening a result of "deferred" maintenance.

CSX from the START has been known to keep track up only to a bare minimum. Even before the Conrail breakup, CSX had ongoing citations for "out of gauge" track. When former Conrailer Ron Conway was made President, the lynch mob of Seaboard goons that sacked him, blamed him for the out-of spec track...a ridiculous accusation, since he had the office for less than five months.

It's getting worse. When CSX flunkies were surveying the Water Level Route, they were heard to comment that the line was "overmaintained." They took care of it, all right...

Condition of CSX mainline? Ruff!

I seriously believe they have an under the table competition with PAR to see how bad they can let the tracks go and still move freight.

I agree with you, I think trucks should have the same technology locomotives do, speed limiters, overspeed controls, that thing where if you dont touch anything for 10 seconds it sounds an alarm you have to acknowledge.

15 years ago it wasnt uncommon to see conrail replacing ties and doing other track maintanence along the mainline on a regular basis. i cant think of one time ive seen any preventitive maintenance done sence CSX took over. im no rail inspector but it seems to me any work done today sucks ! no pride taken at all !! i can think of several places were the rail has been fused back together by a crew and there is such a dip in the rail im suprised the engineers arent slowing down to prevent a derailment. looks like the days of the penn central are back.

Unless there are track inspectors in the audience, I don't know if our unqualified observations add up to much.

Otto

Ive worked the Mohawk sub, at that time there were 10 to 15 slow orders plus 8 to 10 of my own, called em in everytrip nothing and I repeat nothing was ever done about them. I dosent matter that when you cross over you get thrown around cab as do the people riding in the coaches or have a spot they say is good for 60mph and most of us wouldnt dare go over 40mph because it was so ruff.

Watched last years tie replacement program that was supposed to help clear up some of the bad spots, ya right most of them are worse now that before. CSX dosent do any undercutting or resurface work at all, unlike the Mets. They fix it after the derailment. Figure its the price of doing business.

Railjunkie- I believe you about the slow orders. My friend works for Sperry, and you'd be surprised how he reports the same defects over and over every year to certain class 1's- and they don't get repaired until they break.

A spokesperson for CSX was quoted in the NY Times today. He said that the line from Buf. To Alb. is inspected twice a week......

......any thoughts on this comment?

I'll offer a comment- I don't doubt that the line is inspected twice a week or more... but I didnt see anything in that line about "repairs."

I believe that. I know that when I worked in Lackawanna last year at least once a week when I ate lunch at Lake Ave I would see and hear one of there TC on the line.

But visual inspection of a mainline with the relative light weight of the vehicle might not reveal some of the problems.

Chris

It's more like, "Hello, we found a defect here at MP ____. This section of ____ looks like it could be replaced soon."

"Does it need to be repaired right now? Can trains continue to pass?"

"Well... there's no physical break yet."

"Will it last another week if we reduce speed?"

"Sure, I guess. Or we could fix it right now and maintain speed. We'll have to take the track out of service for a few hours."

"Log the defect, and we'll issue a slow order."

And so on. Technically they are following the rules, and deferring maintenance as long as possible. But it appears CSX is taking too many gambles- and losing.

I have to concur with Otto. I'm a regular visitor to the section of the Mohawk Sub between CP175 and CP218. True, they do run TC's twice per week. As a rule of law in fact. Now....repairs? That's another story. A patrol that reports several defects is a good start, but you also have to repair those defects swiftly enough to prevent major incidents.

A perfect example is in Fonda. The main runs just 20 feet from the MOW field office in the middle of downtown. Last summer, another regular and I noticed that there was a good 3.5" long by 0.5" deep chip in the rail at that location. It had been taken clean off by whatever forces. The patrols noted it, and reported it from August until November. It wasn't fixed until December. Sad isn't it? And I'll emphasize again. This was right out side the backdoor of the MOW Field Offices, not more than 20 feet from the Track Foreman's desk.

Makes you wonder...

Wanderer, that's a good point, but it should also be noted that not every physical defect is life-threatening. So what looks dangerous to you and me might actually be realtively harmless.

Otto Vondrak wrote:Wanderer, that's a good point, but it should also be noted that not every physical defect is life-threatening. So what looks dangerous to you and me might actually be realtively harmless.

Valid statement Otto. However, it's not just Railroading 101, it's also common sense. Steel expands in heat. If you have a defect of a nature such as the one I mentioned above, it's only time before it turns into a broken rail and something disasterous happens. Remember...we noticed that first in August of last year. The heat wave that was present at that point was doing damage on rails that had far less severe issues than a railhead with a chunk of material taken out of it.

The fact that nothing bad happened there isn't a statement as to the severity of the defect. It's a statement as to dumb luck.