Eastern Railroad Discussion > Can Sand Patch Tunnel do double stacks? If not ...

Hello, All.  Question: Can the CXS Sand Patch tunnel accommodate double-stack container trains. If not, is there a plan to enable it to do so?  If not, does that put the future of the CSX Cumberland - Pittsburgh line in potential jeopardy?  Thanks.

qed479 Wrote:
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> Hello, All.  Question: Can the CXS Sand Patch
> tunnel accommodate double-stack container trains.
> If not, is there a plan to enable it to do so? 
> If not, does that put the future of the CSX
> Cumberland - Pittsburgh line in potential
> jeopardy?  Thanks.

Yes...here's a Q135 from October 2017 at Fairhope heading for Sandpatch with double stacks head out; then the rear-end DPU on a Q016 which came through Sandpatch and Cumberland headed for Chambersburg, PA from May 2019 with stacks ahead of it.

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All tunnels on the Pittsburgh-Washington route were enlarged (or, in at least one case, daylighted) during the 2010s to accommodate full-cube double-stacked containers as part of CSX's National Gateway program. It would not have made sense to do only the ones east of Cumberland because CSX has no other doublestack corridors west of Cumberland.

CSX also enlarged the Virginia Avenue Tunnel in Washington at a fairly great expense.

CSX's clearance problem in the East is the Howard Avenue Tunnel in Baltimore, which for now does not allow CSX to handle doublestacks between Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Why the OP would think that this line is not cleared for stacks is beyond me, given all the publicity when it was being done.

5/13/2021
Sand Patch summit
WB Q015 passes EB Q136

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bigsavage Wrote:
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> Why the OP would think that this line is not
> cleared for stacks is beyond me, given all the
> publicity when it was being done.
>
> 5/13/2021
> Sand Patch summit
> WB Q015 passes EB Q136

Might be a new fan just asking a question.

ernie