Vermont Rail System was hit as hard as its namesake state by storms early this week, but the company is beginning to get a handle on the damage.
“I am feeling better today than I did yesterday,” president Selden Houghton said in a a telephone interview today (July 12) with Trains News Wire.
VRS received national attention this week as news reports showed video of unsupported tracks dangling 50 feet in the air, with screen graphics simply reading “Ludlow, Vermont.” Those tracks belong to VRS’ Green Mountain Railroad, and the video was just a sampling of what the company was facing through much of Vermont following major rainfall and flooding that swept through the Northeast on Monday. The Burlington Free Press reports as much as 9 inches of rain fell on the state in a two-day period. No deaths have been attributed to the storm, but as many as 100 swift-water rescues have been performed by first responders.
Houghton’s 400-mile system, with routes in New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, suffered its worst damage throughout Vermont, with washouts and slope failures on several lines.
Houghton’s improving spirits followed a Tuesday aerial inspection of all VRS lines affected. Although much of the system was under water, leaving behind many “medium scale” washouts, the railroads did not suffer any bridge failures, as had occurred during Hurricane Irene in 2011, he says.
Houghton summarized the damage.
— Vermont Rail System’s Clarendon & Pittsford Railroad between Rutland, Vt., and the Canadian Pacific Kansas City interchange at Whitehall, N.Y. was unaffected.
— The Vermont Railway’s route north of Rutland to Burlington experienced high water, which already is receding. Houghton says he expects service on that line will be restored on Thursday.
Amtrak’s New York-Burlington Ethan Allen trains use these two routes, and that service is expected to resume on Friday, Houghton says.
— Vermont Railway’s route south of Rutland to Hoosick Junction, N.Y., should be reopened by the end of this week.
Whitehall and Hoosick Junction are Vermont Rail System’s interchange points for traffic moving to and from CSX and Norfolk Southern.
— Washington County Railroad’s 100-mile Connecticut River line between White River Junction and Newport, Vt., experienced “minimal impact,” Houghton says. WACR interchanges with CPKC at Newport.
Vermont’s capital city of Montpelier suffered severe flooding damage, and so did Washington County’s isolated operation there, serving a steeply graded line to a quarry in Barre. That is expected to be out of service for several weeks. Multiple washouts occurred, and two locomotives and cars experienced some damage as well.
Worst hit was the 52-mile Green Mountain between Rutland and Bellows Falls, Vt., where VRS interchanges with Pan Am Southern and Genesee & Wyoming’s New England Central Railroad. With much of the Green Mountain shut down, including those suspended tracks seen on national news, Houghton predicts that it may be several weeks before the route is reopened. “We are working with our connecting partners,” he says, to discuss detours and other interchange alternatives.
Houghton stresses that the storms did not damage any of the many bridges on the VRS system. Hurricane Irene, already 12 years ago, still is a fresh memory for Houghton and his fellow VRS railroaders.
As a 37-year employee of Green Mountain/VRS (now retired), I would like to add to what I have distilled from the images presented of the Ludlow washout. In the bottom of the new ravine, you will notice the former culvert. According to records, this was 4’x6’x146′ and should have been of cut stone construction dating from the construction of the railroad. I doubt that the culvert became plugged as there was no evidence of the water reaching high enough to start flowing down the paralleling roadway just out of the photo. I believe that water found its way behind the stonework and managed to erode the sand filled embankment. This took most of the culvert down the hill and deposited the debris on State Highway 103 below.
It certainly is the toughest blow to hit my old railroad since the floods of the early 1900’s.
I Just saw a Sperry truck drive through Chester. Also, RJ Corman delivered a large excavator at the Chester Depot station. There is a siding there, and it may be intended for shipment via rail to the Ludlow washout. Ludlow is about 14 rail miles form Chester.
I live less than one mile form the VRS Green Mountain division. It has been strange not hearing horns twice daily. Wishing them well on their recovery.