I was just looking at the area on Google where CSX raised the tunnel at Tunnel Park along the old P&LE. Is double-tracking the line East of the tunnel to where it connects back with the old B&O part of the project. Why have such a bottleneck when the whole B&O main is double track?
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It appears CSX figured it too expensive to widen the former J&L tunnels on the southside of Pittsburgh versus while raising the tunnel roofs to accommodate doublestacks thru them.
Also there would probably be right-of-way issues in this area due to the buildings along the streets.
As a result the main line remains a single track from the Birmingham Bridge going south.
The portion from the J&L tunnel to Braddock is single track for two reasons, the tunnel and the Mon River bridge. Without doubletracking the bridge, widening the tunnel would not result in an appreciable increase in capacity.
...Why have such a bottleneck when the whole B&O main is double track?
The whole B&O is NOT double tracked. There is a short section just west of Akron, OH that is single track for several miles. There may be others.
I drove dump truck out of second ave. asphalt plant in Pittsburgh and along that area the B&O has been changed from rail to trail walking / bike path. Choo Choo Kenny
The CSX mainline from Beaver Falls up to West Pittsburg(New Castle) is a single track and a bottleneck. Just ask an operating crew sitting at a red signal for an hour. One engineer said, "Don't start me talking about it !! ) I think there is some single track along the Ohio River from McKees Rocks to Monaca. This might change with the new intermodule yard planned at McKees Rocks and if the new chemical plant is built on the Ohio River near Monaca. When the PL&E had it there was a 4 track mainline.
The CSX mainline from Beaver Falls up to West Pittsburg(New Castle) is a single track and a bottleneck. Just ask an operating crew sitting at a red signal for an hour. One engineer said, "Don't start me talking about it !! ) I think there is some single track along the Ohio River from McKees Rocks to Monaca. This might change with the new intermodule yard planned at McKees Rocks and if the new chemical plant is built on the Ohio River near Monaca. Shell Oil, cracker plant. When the PL&E had it there was a 4 track mainline.
It has already been discussed that the trackage to the existing Zinc Corporation of America site is not enough.
It's not just the tunnel that causes a bottleneck.There's single track from Wampum 40.4 to Beaver Falls 29.5 and West Economy 18.4 to Coraopolis 9.8 west of Pittsburgh and J&L 1.8 to Braddock 9.1 east of the Burgh.
We would not be privy to such information, but there may already be plans in place to add additional tracks if the traffic warrants it.
It will be interesting to see how the project evolves. This past summer a CSX track inspector told me they are planning two new yards near the plant so you would think with the increased traffic they would make it two way but who knows ?? I bet NS would like to be in on the action. Also will be interesting to see which direction the bulk of the loads go.
Even the Westland, marcellous gas collection site, Houston, Pa, has a rail yard that could handle 100 cars a day. Single track access. The existing Zinc Corp. of America plant had been removed. I'm not sure if Shell has committed in writing to this point or not. What is called FID, Final Investment Decision. Surprisingly there is another major corp. looking to do the same type of plant in the Marcellous/Utica shale area. There is major construction to happen related to the exit of RT. 376 and a large parking lot for the construction site off RT. 18. There may be NS access to the site, but it would come from down river, Midland upstream to the site. Primarily NS is on the other side of the river.
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