Eastern Railroad Discussion > PotYard line change--Closure

Well, not really PotYard, but the track alignment through the south end of the former RF&P terminal (in Alexandria, VA, as info to WestCoasters and other auslanders). CSX, you may recall, had sought to straighten out a kink in its line, not so much as to improve operations as to free up valuable--prime--urban land for non-rail development. The kink straightening wasn't as straightforward as one might think, as it required the construction of a new viaduct over Braddock Road--which the (former All-American) City of Alexandria concurrently decided to widen. I'd bet that CSX and the city have been screwing around with this project for two years. Yesterday, I rode under the viaduct and I was delighted to see that the concrete side panel on the rail overpass was finally fastened in place. And the berm shaping, which was dragging along last fall as though ity would never end, has. Huzzah! Closure. Now if CSX could just figure how to add another track from the north end of PotYard to Hyattsville...

There is a move afoot to do just that. Benning Yard is to be realigned and CSX will have double track from "M" Street all the way to Tanglewood (just south of the wye at Hyattsville). All the industrial grade crossings near Jones' Hill will be eliminated by a new road that follows the new Bladensburg Marina renovation and the Rte. 450 crossing will be eliminated with an under/over pass. The D.C. Government also wants to move a portion of Interstate 395 which may involve the daylighting of Virginia Avenue Tunnel. Which will allow CSX to have a double track line all the way up to the bridge over the northwest branch at Tanglewood which will remain single track. If this takes place at all in will be in 5 years or so as it will be a major project. The Benning Yard part is to happen in the next few years, however.

Well, I am a bit confused here. What was CSX doing in the tunnel last year? I thought they were dropping the floor to improve clearance in the tunnel. I can only imagine the cost of that. Yikes! Is CSX (in the long run) going to spend money for improving a tunnel, that will soon be daylighted? I doubt it highly (I'll believe it when I see it).

David

csx6574 wrote:
>
> There is a move afoot to do just that. Benning Yard is to be
> realigned and CSX will have double track from "M" Street all
> the way to Tanglewood (just south of the wye at Hyattsville).
> All the industrial grade crossings near Jones' Hill will be
> eliminated by a new road that follows the new Bladensburg
> Marina renovation and the Rte. 450 crossing will be eliminated
> with an under/over pass. The D.C. Government also wants to move
> a portion of Interstate 395 which may involve the daylighting
> of Virginia Avenue Tunnel. Which will allow CSX to have a
> double track line all the way up to the bridge over the
> northwest branch at Tanglewood which will remain single track.
> If this takes place at all in will be in 5 years or so as it
> will be a major project. The Benning Yard part is to happen in
> the next few years, however.

Wow!! If CSX (and the "Districk" actually manage to bring this about, what a change. They (CSX) still could use a new third track from across the Potomac to the Virginia Avenue Tunnel so freight movements could proceed without hampering passenger moves in/out of Union Station--and vice versa. Thanks for the info.

No serious money has been spent yet by CSX on the tunnel, other than routine maintenance. From the Long Bridge over the Potomac, a third mainline will be put in to Virginia Ave tower. From there east it is up to CSX to foot the bill - tunnel enlargement? or tunnel daylighting? Hopefully a reconfigured Anacostia Yard.

The railroad bridge over Route 450 and necessary elevation to do it, is now on the front burner by the State of Maryland. I think the cost estimate was $62M. It would be double track and elevate the railroad south from Tanglewood and over Route #450 up to Jones Hill.

Major improvements will take time and money.

At the time of the original plan (around when the merger/split of Conrail was being thrown around) D.C. had not mentioned anything about the tunnel project. This was a recent developement. Yes CSX did do some work on the tunnel and raised the speed limit from 10 mph to 25 mph which helps out a lot. But the clearances are the same. Apparently, the tunnel floor can not be lowered any more than it is. The daylighting of the tunnel COULD be a part of one of the many plans to re-align Interstate 395 through the city. CSX sees this as an opportunity to do something about the tunnel. If CSX can get the tunnel daylighted as part of the project, why not??? The city and federal governments would pay for most of it. When the state of Virginia gets 3 tracks from Richmond to D.C., will it end at the river or will a new bridge be constructed for the 3rd track?? If they do make it 3 tracks across the river, there is also room for three tracks from the north side of the river to Virginia Avenue Tower. Adding more tracks and passenger trains will only make the bottleneck worse for freights without work on the tunnel. Variations on all of this will come to pass in the next few years. It will be interesting to watch the D.C. area for the changes.

Yes, it will also mean that Benning Yard will be re-aligned. The yard office will be torn down and the new double track main will go right through where it used to be. The Shepherd Branch will be abandoned in the near future as the sewage plant switches chemicals and to trucks. This will eliminate the big loop that CSX trains now negotiate to get to Annacostia Jct. The yard will be moved to the west (towards 295) and reconfigured. The new yard office will be located just south of the 295 bridge closer to Annacostia Tower. The tower may also be torn down with the re-alignment. After re-signaling, the tracks will come under the jurisdiction of the "AU" dispatcher all the way to "RO" instead of the Trenton Line dispatcher.

The story I heard was this:

The tunnel would be daylighted but only temporarily. This would be to improve clearances for double stacks and to double track the line. This would be a "cut and cover" operation because construction of permanent highway bridges would be too expensive. I have seen some work down at the tunnel, but it looked like they were working on the track itself.

Yes, there would also be a third track between CP Virginia and the north end of the Long Bridge. No modifications to the bridge itself.

There would be a fourth track added between Crystal City and Alexandria (presumably AF) which would mean reconfiguring both CP SRO and North Alex.

As has been said, this is going to be a complicated program that will take years to complete.

What about the widths of the other railway bridges on the line.....Anacostia River, Northeast Branch, Route 50? Are they currently wide enough to accept a second track? Seems to me there are some tight rights-of-way between Route 450 and Decatur Street, too. Good luck to the design engineers and contractors on this project.

As stated earlier, the double track bridge at Annacostia and the single track bridge at Tanglewood (northwest branch) would stay the same. The bridge over rte. 50 would have to be double tracked and Decatur Street would stay the same. No modifications would be done on the wye. These are just ideas that CSX has toyed around with. Nothing is set in stone. The only thing that will be done relatively soon is the re-alignment of Benning Yard and the re-alignment of the CSX track through Shepherd Jct. to Annacostia Jct.

Query: Can the existing railroad bridge (I call it the "14th Street Bridge, after the highway bridge it parallels) hold three tracks? Silly bumpkin that I am, I though it only could accomodate its two existing tracks. Comment. The double/triple tracking and, especially, the vertical clearance enhancements) described in the threads above is great, and will be welcomed by freight and passenger interests alike. And yeah, it will cost a bundle. HOWEVER, even as we live and breathe, the Commonwealth of Virginia is in the early stages of rebuilding the intersection of two Interstate highways that meet just a few mniles south of the rail trackage we are discussing. Specifically, the confluence of the Capital Beltway (I-95 and I-495, the former no less than the main street of the US East Coast--like I-5 on the West Coast, only four times more densely travelled), and I-395, its direct connection into downtown DC via the above noted 14th Street Bridge. According to VDOT, a/k/a the Virginia Department of Highways, this intersection is the state's (er, Commonwealth's) most heavily used intersection (140,000 + vehicles per day, as of 1996, and many more today). To speed (haw!) traffic through this godawful bottleneck, the state has committed itself to ponying up billions. And VRE (the Northern Virginia commuter rail authority, is touting itself as the way to avoid this nuisance/abortion/abomination (choose one or all). The reconstruction work will take eight, count 'em, eight years. And when the bulldozers and steamrollers and pile drivers and all the rest of their construction toys and paraphenalia are gone, the damn place will still be a major league highway bottleneck. (If I sound cynnical, it's because I drive through it daily.) Compared to this, any effort to add second and third track to CSX is chickenfeed! Which bugs the bejeesus out me, but that's the subject of another thread! --Billio