Major disaster for CSX and NS in the Appalachian mountain areas

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west point

Engineer
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Jun 9, 2015
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Hurricane Helene has delt both RRs severe damages.
1. CSX ex Clinchfield RR probably near wipe out in Erwin. Unconfirmed reports several wash out on to Bostic. The water in Erwin even flooded hospital.
2. NS from Bulls gap on to Newport (dam failure) along US25 reports still coming in on to Ashville. Ashville completely isolated both road and rail. I-40 wash out west of Ashville. East not confirmed. I-26 not known both ways however it was washed away south of Henderson toward Spartanburg just before completion by another Hurricane. NS to both Old Fort and Canton also wash outs??
Report only way in and out of Ashville is by air?
 
west point said:
Hurricane Helene has delt both RRs severe damages.
1. CSX ex Clinchfield RR probably near wipe out in Erwin. Unconfirmed reports several wash out on to Bostic. The water in Erwin even flooded hospital.
2. NS from Bulls gap on to Newport (dam failure) along US25 reports still coming in on to Ashville. Ashville completely isolated both road and rail. I-40 wash out west of Ashville. East not confirmed. I-26 not known both ways however it was washed away south of Henderson toward Spartanburg just before completion by another Hurricane. NS to both Old Fort and Canton also wash outs??
Report only way in and out of Ashville is by air?
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Asheville is accessible from the south, but the water plant is out. Hundreds of miles of highways further out are closed, parts covered in mud or demolished. Here's what NC 511 https://drivenc.gov/ says about I-40: "This is a long-term closure, the estimated clearance time is unknown." The placeholder date for re-opening is Sep. 30, 2025. The NC map has links to 511 in surrounding states. Google maps has the same re-opening dates, ranging from the end of the month to Sept. 2025.

NOAA did a good job predicting this storm, which in just three days went from a depression in Belize to Cat 4 in the bend of Florida. The track did move slightly east, but you can look at the archived animation at NHC and see it was mainly accurate. Flooding in the Appalachians was predicted pretty much from the beginning. But everyone gets so many watches and warnings, it's hard to emphasize the most catastrophic predictions.
 
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Now at least one interstate to Asheville is now open. It is amazing I-26 from 'Spartanburg. That goes up the mountain just east of Saluda. This route was washed away many years ago just before paving by another hurricane. I would guess that anyone driving to Ashville area to locate missing relatives would need to gas up at Spartanburg taking along extra gas.

When driving in this area on the many water level US routes in NC and TN you could see houses across the river / creek connected to the highway by a flimsy bridge across the water. Imagine that these persons are stranded or washed away.
 
As bad as it is for CSX, they can reroute most of the traffic that had moved on the Clinchfield. In fact they essentially did that as a cost saving effort a few years ago. NS has more lines in that part of NC and it will take a while to get it all back.
 
JamesWhitcombRiley said:
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s...ne-quartz-microchips-solar-panels-spruce-pine
With deaths approaching 200, just a note about the CSX line north of Asheville. The quartz mined from these very old mountains is essential to the semiconductor industry, with little chance of replacement sources. It is shipped by rail over CSX's former Clinchfield RR. Forty miles washed out.
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The Spruce Pine Mines have some of the best quality natural Quartz found anywhere. However, it is not even the largest source of Quartz that is actually used in the manufacture of Electronics. There are other sources in the world in Brazil, China and Russia, and heck even in South Carolina. And today a significant proportion of the Quartz used in electronic goods is artificially made using what is called the Hydrothermal Synthesis Technique. So while the loss of the production from NC is significant, it is by far nowhere near a showstopper for the electronics industry.
 
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jis said:
The Spruce Pines Mines have some of the best quality natural Quartz found anywhere. However, it is not even the largest source of Quarts that is actually used in the manufacture of Electronics. There are other sources in the world in Brazil, China and Russia, and heck even in South Carolina. And today a significant proportion of the Quartz used in electronic goods is artificially made using what is called the Hydrothermal Synthesis Technique. So while the loss of the production from NC is significant, it is by far nowhere near a showstopper for the electronics industry.
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I was telling my mother about the quartz mine and mentioned the name (she's from Tennessee) and was "Oh, Spruce Pine, yes, I know it" - she had a college classmate from there (She's class of '49, undergrad).
 
Railroads don’t have the choice to not rebuild as they did 40 or 50 years ago. Class I railroads have rationalized their networks to the extent that there is very little redundancy, leaving few efficient alternatives in the event of a catastrophic event like Hurricane Helene.


CSX’s outage on the former Clinchfield is requiring coal, merchandise and bulk trains to detour across the I-64 corridor between Russell, Kentucky, and Richmond, Virginia, and then down the Seaboard into Hamlet, North Carolina, before diverting west toward Charlotte and into the western part of the state. This adds several hundred miles.

Choosing not to rehabilitate the Clinchfield would mean CSX has little through-route connectivity between Knoxville, Tennessee, and Charlotte, a distance of more than 250 miles. While there is not a significant volume of carload business or through coal trains on this route compared to 40 years ago, the annualized gross ton-miles are still significant enough to justify the rebuilding, given few favorable alternatives.
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https://www.freightwaves.com/news/railroads-have-no-choice-but-to-rebuild-after-hurricane-helene
 
The rebuilding on the Old Fort section is likely to be very significant for any future Ashville to Raleigh service. Whether it'll be a faster line on largely new track or slower line with even worse geometry suitable only for slow service, or sold off to NC without repairs...
 
west point said:
Ashville completely isolated both road and rail. I-40 wash out west of Ashville. East not confirmed. I-26 not known both ways however it was washed away south of Henderson toward Spartanburg
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Henderson is the county. Hendersonville is the city. Henderson, NC, a different city, is nowhere near the mountains and is near Raleigh in the ugly part of the state. Hendersonville is a neat city 20 minutes south of Asheville and it did a lot better than Asheville when Helene hit in spite of 26" of rain. I-26 runs through it on the east side.
 

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