Login
or
Register
Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Hurricane Katrina
Edit post
Edit your reply below.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
Repairing rails in the Gulf Coast <br />> U.S. COUNTING ON NICHOLASVILLE FIRM FOR RAILROAD REPAIR <br />> By Jim Warren <br />> HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER <br />> <br />> NEW ORLEANS - Along the economically crucial rail corridor east of <br />> here, trees and shattered houses still sit in the middle of the <br />> railroad tracks, all courtesy of Hurricane Katrina. <br />> <br />> Near Port Bienville, Miss., Katrina left another calling card: 10 <br />> shrimp boats, swept up by the storm surge and deposited almost on top <br />> of the rails. The stranded boats -- one containing 100,000 pounds of <br />> shrimp, rotting in the Gulf Coast heat -- make it impossible for <br />> trains to pass, blocking shipments in and out of an adjacent plastics <br />> plant. <br />> <br />> Elsewhere along the corridor, boxcars and locomotives lie in woods <br />> and bayous, tossed aside like toys. In some places, the rails <br />> themselves are gone. In others, entire railroad bridges have <br />> disappeared, leaving behind only their concrete supports, rising <br />> above the muddy water like the fossils of lost dinosaurs. <br />> <br />> The worst damage is between New Orleans and Pascagoula, Miss., and <br />> cleaning it up figures to be a huge task. One of the principal <br />> players will be Nicholasville businessman Rick Corman, whose R.J. <br />> Corman Railroad Group last week won a major contract to repair and <br />> rebuild roughly 40 miles of CSX Transportation Inc. track between New <br />> Orleans and Bay St. Louis on the Mississippi coast, roughly halfway <br />> to Pascagoula. Corman has 90 days to reopen the line. <br />> <br />> The sheer magnitude of that task is daunting, with mile upon mile of <br />> track that must be rebuilt -- or hauled out of the mud and put back <br />> in the roadbed. But working conditions will be just as tough. In many <br />> places, repair crews will be toiling in marshes and swamps where <br />> snakes and alligators abound, and where any piece of heavy equipment <br />> that ventures off the roadbed risks sinking into the muck. <br />> <br />> "It's going to be the biggest project we've ever taken on by far," <br />> Corman said Friday. "It's a major challenge for the company, but our <br />> people have the expertise to handle it." <br />> <br />> When will the work start? "Five minutes ago," Corman said. <br />> <br />> Corman, who toured the area last week and has flown over the <br />> hurricane zone numerous times this month, called the hurricane damage <br />> "unbelievable." <br />> <br />> "What's really amazing is that it goes on and on for 50 miles or <br />> more," he said. "After you leave Biloxi, Miss., and start west, the <br />> farther you go, the worse it gets. There are places here that have <br />> been absolutely annihilated." <br />> <br />> Corman train derailment expert Gary Miller has worked many disasters <br />> before. But he says he's staggered by Katrina's devastation and the <br />> work ahead. <br />> <br />> "I've been doing this for 38 years, and I've never seen anything like <br />> it," Miller said last week. <br />> <br />> Tiffany Nease, a Corman safety coordinator who was working with <br />> repair crews at CSX's Gentilly Yards in New Orleans on Thursday, said <br />> workers are coping with safety issues that go far beyond their usual <br />> concerns. <br />> <br />> "Someone killed a cottonmouth moccasin here in the yard this morning, <br />> and they saw gators up near Biloxi last week," Nease said. <br />> <br />> The human carnage of Hurricane Katrina, particularly the flooding of <br />> New Orleans, has dominated national news for three weeks. Though many <br />> neighborhoods in the Crescent City remained flooded last week, <br />> conditions were improving, and some residents are being allowed back <br />> into the city this weekend. <br />> <br />> Railroads have received less coverage, but they also suffered heavily <br />> when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. <br />> <br />> Six of the nation's seven biggest railroads converge in the New <br />> Orleans area: CSX and the Norfolk Southern from the east; the Union <br />> Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads from the west; and <br />> the Kansas City Southern and Canadian National railways from the <br />> north. Several smaller railroads also operate in the area. <br />> <br />> Many of those lines were damaged by Katrina. Norfolk Southern's huge <br />> bridge across Lake Pontchartrain, for example, was heavily damaged. <br />> But that bridge and most of the damaged tracks were back in service <br />> late last week. However, the CSX line between New Orleans and <br />> Pascagoula remains out of action. It hugs the Gulf Coast for about <br />> 100 miles and bore the brunt of Katrina's fury when the storm came <br />> ashore. <br />> <br />> CSX is rerouting traffic through Memphis, Birmingham and East St. <br />> Louis, Ill., according to company spokesman Gary Sease. But while <br />> cargo is getting through, alternative routing means delays and higher <br />> costs, which is why CSX wants to get the line reopened as quickly as <br />> possible, Sease said. <br />> <br />> Corman said his company's job will involve restoring many miles of <br />> damaged track and rebuilding five railroad bridges that were knocked <br />> down by the storm. That means placing cranes on barges so they can <br />> lift bridge sections out of the water and put them back in place, he <br />> said. Crews will start from the west shore of St. Louis Bay and work <br />> their way west toward New Orleans, he said. <br />> <br />> R.J. Corman Railroad Group has had about 150 employees doing railroad <br />> repairs in the Gulf Coast area since shortly after the hurricane. <br />> Corman crews helped repair damaged Norfolk Southern lines near New <br />> Orleans and, over Labor Day weekend, reopened a section of CSX track <br />> near Pascagoula so that an oil refinery there could get back in <br />> operation. But Corman said he'll need to bring in more manpower, and <br />> should have nearly 300 people on the job within the next few weeks, <br />> some from Kentucky and some from elsewhere around the country. <br />> <br />> Last week, the company sent a 3-mile convoy of vehicles and more than <br />> 100 workers into the Gentilly Yards at New Orleans, which were <br />> flooded in the wake of Katrina. Most of the water is gone, but it <br />> left behind tangles of overturned rail cars and shipping containers, <br />> plus whole sections of undermined track. Corman officials said crews <br />> will live on site in trailers and motor homes for up to three weeks <br />> while they complete repairs. <br />> <br />> Hundreds of rail cars that were flooded will have to be inspected. If <br />> the cars' wheel hubs were underwater, federal regulations require <br />> that wheel bearings and other parts be replaced before the cars can <br />> go back into operation, said Noel Rush, president of R.J. Corman <br />> Derailment Services, a part of the Corman Group. <br />> <br />> Crews are using bulldozers with side-mounted booms to pick up <br />> overturned cars and locomotives and put them back on the tracks. It's <br />> tricky, but routine work for Corman's derailment crews. But getting <br />> those 10 shrimp boats off the tracks at Port Bienville, Miss., could <br />> be a different matter. <br />> <br />> The U.S. Coast Guard halted removal of the boats last week, fearing <br />> diesel fuel in the boats' tanks might cause an environmental hazard. <br />> R.J. Corman workers plan to try again, once the fuel is pumped out. <br />> <br />> "I've never tried to move a shrimp boat in my life," said Gary <br />> Miller, Corman's most experienced derailment worker. "As far as I <br />> know, this the first time I've ever even seen one." <br />> <br />
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
Update Reply
Join our Community!
Our community is
FREE
to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Login »
Register »
Search the Community
Newsletter Sign-Up
By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our
privacy policy
More great sites from Kalmbach Media
Terms Of Use
|
Privacy Policy
|
Copyright Policy