(The following article was posted on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website on September 7.)
RICHMOND, Va. — CSX Corp., the third-biggest U.S. railroad, has resumed “limited service” on about one-third of a 148-mile line east of New Orleans that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
CSX, which said it expects storm-related costs of at least $25 million, ran trains Tuesday for the first time since Aug. 29 between Mobile, Ala., and Pascagoula, Miss., spokeswoman Misty Skipper said.
Almost 100 miles of track between New Orleans and Pascagoula remain closed. Those tracks carried more freight before the storm than any other lines still out of service.
Jacksonville-based CSX is the major railroad operator in New Orleans, where its tracks connect to Western railroads Union Pacific Railroad Co. and Kansas City Southern Railway, as well as its largest Eastern competitor, Norfolk Southern Corp.
CSX’s Gentilly Yard is between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. The railroad’s tracks run along the coast all the way from New Orleans to the Alabama state line, where they begin to veer north.
In the aftermath of the storm, the yard was flooded by the lake. Shipping containers were left strewn about the site. Locomotives sat at crazy angles, tilted off their tracks.
Thirty hazardous-material cars stranded in and around New Orleans and the company’s diesel tanks appeared unharmed by the storm. But about 100 miles from New Orleans to Pascagoula, Miss., were affected, with some tracks ripped from the ground and others covered by debris, including houses and barges.
Company officials have no estimate of how long it will take to bring the yard or the tracks back to usability.
Six North American railroads, including No. 1 Union Pacific, ended direct service to New Or- leans and began rerouting trains around the city when the storm hit and left some terminals under water and tracks blocked by trees and power lines. Those detours through cities such as Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis are continuing.
CSX, which used to be based in Richmond, had as many as 45 daily trains serving New Orleans via Mobile, more than any other railroad. Norfolk Southern, the No. 4 U.S. railroad, stopped trains 117 miles east of New Orleans, which can’t be reached because of bridge damage and flooding.
Union Pacific is running local trains at Avondale, its New Orleans-area terminal. Canadian National Railway Co. said on its Web site that repairs to tracks into New Orleans should be completed by midmonth. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. also continues to bar shipments to New Orleans itself, as does Kansas City Southern.