(The following article by Chip Jones was posted on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website on September 17.)
RICHMOND, Va. — Shockoe Bottom car owners weren’t the only ones drenched by Tropical Storm Gaston.
CSX Corp., the freight railroad that runs through the heart of Richmond, said this week that 698 rail cars in the area were damaged by the Aug. 30 storm.
The Florida-based railroad has been busy making repairs to ensure the cars’ safety, spokeswoman Misty Skipper said.
“If a wheel is submerged, all the wheel bearings and wheels have to be replaced,” she said from CSX headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla.
CSX officials would not release a cost estimate of the storm damage to cars, track and roadbeds in Virginia.
About 6 miles of track around Richmond sustained some storm-related damage, spokesman Gary Sease said. This included washouts of small sections of track, requiring replacement of ballast to support rails and crossties. Some portions of track were left hanging in midair, he said.
Additionally, most of the railroad’s Acca Yard here required “various levels of repairs to get in good shape,” Sease said.
One industry source said the car- and track-repair bill could easily run into the millions of dollars.
The cost of replacing axles alone is about $1,600 per axle. With four axles per car, refitting 698 cars could cost up to $4.5 million.
It could not be determined this week exactly how many axles, wheels or bearings were being replaced at the Acca Yard shops or at five other car shops CSX operates.
Acca Yard, a major East Coast transfer point for rail cars, has 37 railroad tracks and typically has 50 freight or passenger trains pass through daily.
Sease said the railroad may include a damage estimate in its third-quarter earnings release next month.
It has been a stormy stretch for CSX.
As Hurricane Ivan closed in on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday, Sease noted, “The line from New Orleans almost to Tallahassee is closed. All of that adds to congestion on an already capacity-constrained network.”
The nation’s third-largest railroad has heard complaints from shippers for much of the year about slow or inconsistent service.
Yesterday, CSX issued a service bulletin, noting the staging of “ballast trains” to help repair rail beds throughout the Southeast.
Generators, chain saws and other equipment have been staged throughout the region, with private contractors on call to help remove debris after Hurricane Ivan, the bulletin said.
Norfolk Southern Corp., the other major Virginia railroad, said none of its equipment was damaged by the post-Gaston flood.
Spokeswoman Susan Terpay said a stretch of track between Burkeville and West Point was washed out but was fixed in less than a week.