SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. — Two construction barges broke loose on the flood-swollen Potomac River, with one of them striking the 1904 Norfolk Southern deck truss bridge here before hanging up further east.
Both runaway vessels were engaged in work at a section of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park to the north along the Potomac River, which separates Maryland and West Virginia. The larger of the pair, bearing an excavating machine, came loose from its moorings on Saturday night but hung up until the river level rose on Sunday, when both it and a smaller barge began to travel downstream. No injuries or damages were reported.
Maryland State Police Cpl. Lee Cain confirmed to the Hagerstown (Md.) Herald-Mail newspaper that one of the barges collided with a pier of the single-track NS bridge, a former Norfolk & Western Railway span that rises about 70 feet above normal river level. It carries NS’s 238-mile-long “H-Line,” stretching from nearby Hagerstown, Md., to Roanoke, Va.
NS posted a temporary speed restriction but lifted it after an inspection found the span to be sound, according to NS spokesman Connor Spielmaker. The Potomac reached a depth of 20 feet here on Sunday, 5 feet above flood stage.
The barges continued downstream, passing over a dam, but stalled before reaching two CSX Transportation bridges at Harper’s Ferry, W.Va. One bridge carries CSX’s double-track Washington/Baltimore-Chicago main line (used by Amtrak’s Washington-Chicago Capitol Limited and MARC Washington-Martinsburg, W.Va., Brunswick (Md.) Line commuter trains), while the other carries a CSX branch line and a walkway that is part of the Appalachian Trail. Both are former Baltimore & Ohio routes.
National Park Service spokesperson Christiana Hanson told the newspaper that NPS was “very lucky with this one.” The contractor, Kiewit Corp. of Omaha, Neb., is engaged in an $18 million project to repair a stone retaining wall at McMahon’s Mill, southwest of Hagerstown, and stabilize an adjacent mile-long section of the canal towpath that often is subject to flooding. Kiewit remained on site to monitor the situation and determine its course of recovery. The C&O Canal National Historical Park borders the Potomac River for 184 miles from Washington to Cumberland, Md.
Approximately a dozen trains a day cross NS’s Shepherdstown bridge, many of them priority intermodal trains such as Nos. 201, 202, 203, and 214. The northernmost 60 miles of the H-Line forms a critical centerpiece of NS’s Crescent Corridor, which stretches from Atlanta to the northern New Jersey/metro New York area. The H-Line grew exponentially in importance after Amtrak removed through freight trains off its electrified Northeast Corridor passenger line between Washington and New York.
On the north, the H-Line connects with NS’s Lurgan District, Harrisburg Line, Reading Line, and Lehigh Line to reach the New York metro area. On the south, the Crescent Corridor veers eastward away from the H-Line at Front Royal, Va., onto the former Southern Railway “B-Line” to Manassas, Va., where trains turn south on the former SR Washington-Atlanta main line.
Formerly N&W’s Shenandoah Valley route, the H-Line constituted – before the 1964 merger that brought Wabash, Nickel Plate Road, and others into its orbit – that railroad’s northernmost extension. At Hagerstown, it met three railroads: a Pennsylvania Railroad/Penn Central/Conrail branch; a B&O/Chessie/CSX branch; and the Western Maryland Railway main line.
Spielmaker – perfect name for a spokesperson!