Norfolk Southern Railway got two major rail routes back in service after days of flood closures this week around Atlanta, but it will be a while before traffic is back to normal, the Journal of Commerce reported.
Spokesman Robin Chapman said "trains are running, but we are playing catch-up" as of midday on Sept. 23.
NS alerted customers that "traffic may continue to experience delays as the switches and signal systems are restored to service over the remainder of this week, and as the backlog of traffic is worked off."
Heavy rainstorms that swept the area starting last weekend closed a heavily used north-south line for the railroad between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tenn., and a busy east-west route from Atlanta to Birmingham, Ala.
The storm reportedly killed at least nine people in Georgia, but swept a broad area that included parts of Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina. Fast-rising flood waters closed some highways as well as train routes, and in the process washed out roadbeds.
Chapman said NS tracks suffered washouts as well as high water, and the railroad closed the routes out of Atlanta on Sept. 21. The Atlanta-Chattanooga corridor is one of the busiest segments in the entire Norfolk Southern system, with 70 trains a day moving in it normally.
The western route to Birmingham reopened in mid-afternoon on Sept. 22, but the northern route stayed closed until 8:30 a.m. Sept. 23.
A flood closure on a heavily traveled rail line backs up a lot of trains. While intermodal and other time-sensitive loads may be rerouted around the closed area -- sometimes traveling hundreds of extra miles -- some other loads can only go through a single route.
NS trains bring coal into the big Scherer power plant at Atlanta, and reopening the line only began the process of getting coal loads back in line at the site. "Those have to be spaced out over time, so we can't run them all into Scherer at once," Chapman said. It would take another full day to clear that backlog.
Overall carload volume for the week is likely to be affected for NS and perhaps eastern-U.S. rival CSX Transportation, plus for regional short lines. The several days of flood backups and system slowdowns might even curb volume at western carriers BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad, since they load coal and intermodal trains in states far away that hand off to NS and CSX.
(The preceding article by John D. Boyd appeared on the Web site www.joc.com on September 23, 2009.)
