Howard Street Tunnel Fire - Impact On East Coast Rail Traffic

Impact On East Coast Rail Traffic

The Howard Street Tunnel is on the only direct rail link on the CSX rail line from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. The only other direct rail link is the Amtrak Northeast Corridor, a passenger line with only limited freight operations performed by Norfolk Southern Railway. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) report on the incident, officials had long known that the possibility existed for a fire or other disaster to cause a significant problem in the Howard Street Tunnel. An article published in the Baltimore Sun on July 19, 2001, contains a 1985 quote from an unidentified federal transportation safety official who observed, "... the problem would be getting in there to fight the fire... If you had an explosion, fire would shoot out of both ends like a bazooka." However, freight traffic on the line had been increasing for years as CSX and Conrail diverted traffic away from Amtrak lines to avoid Amtrak/Conrail crashes like the one in Chase, Maryland in 1987. Estimates from railway publications put the freight traffic through the Howard Street Tunnel at 28 to 32 trains per day.

According to a November 2005 report to Congress:

The tunnel closing caused major disruption to CSXT freight traffic, Maryland Rail Commuter (MARC) commuter trains, and to Central Light Rail Line trains and bus lines that traversed Howard Street. To avoid the Howard Street Tunnel, CSXT had to send freight trains west to Cleveland, north to Albany, New York, and then south to Baltimore, incurring a three- to four-day delay. Some CSXT trains were rerouted via the busy NS line through Manassas, Virginia, Hagerstown, Maryland, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

At one point during the fire, eight CSXT trains that would have used the tunnel were detouring through Cumberland, Maryland, and Youngstown Ohio; five through Hagerstown and Harrisburg; five through Cleveland and Albany, New York; and 12 trains were stopping in various yards.

According to the DOT report on the incident, firefighting efforts could not begin until the exact location of the fire within the tunnel could be found, which finally occurred at 5:00 a.m. (Eastern Daylight Time, 10:00 UTC) on July 19, 2001. Work on repairing the break in the water main enabled the firemen to find a manhole cover on Howard Street through which they could gain access to both the broken water main and the tunnel itself, and firefighting efforts began in earnest. Three rail cars (boxcars of paper and plywood) were removed from the tunnel and their flaming contents were extinguished the morning of July 22, 2001. Once the water main break was finally stopped on the same day, tunnel inspectors could enter the area. Amazingly, there were no significant structural damages, and the tunnel was officially reopened to traffic at 7:45 a.m. on July 23, 2001.