Crews enlarge tunnels for taller trains

Opening a new rail gateway for double-stacked containers is taking place across southern West Virginia 20 grueling feet at a time, according to the Charleston Daily Mail. Every weekday, Norfolk Southern shuts down a portion of its main line between the East Coast and the Midwest so crews can raise the roofs in the line's tunnels.

It’s part of the $151-million
Heartland Corridor project, which will allow the railroad to ship
double-stacked containers between the port of Hampton Roads and Chicago. The
project will cut 233 miles and more than a day’s travel time for trains moving
between the two locations.

"Big Sandy 1,"
near here, is one of the tunnels where work is under way.

The nearly half-mile-long
tunnel has a concrete liner. The sides and arched roof are smooth and, to the
naked eye, seem perfect. "The workmanship is 104 years old," said
Robert Billingsley, Norfolk Southern’s director of structural projects.
"It’s pretty darned good!"

But the distance from the
top of the rails to the roof is 19 feet, 6 inches. Double-stacked containers
are 20 feet, 3 inches tall. The railroad wants a 9-inch safety margin so it is
having the height raised to 21 feet.

At 2 a.m. each weekday
contractors enter the tunnel on rubber-tired aerial lifts or rail flatcars
loaded with equipment. Wearing facemasks, helmets with lamps and coal-mining
overalls with reflective stripes, the workers maneuver the lifts high above the
tracks and start sawing the liner where the straight, smooth sides begin to
arch

Billingsley said that when
Heartland Corridor work began two years ago, workers didn’t make much progress
in one shift. Now they typically finish a 20-foot section in one shift.

Every time the workers move
equipment, they blow horns to alert everyone. That’s a good precaution because
space between the flatcars and the tunnel walls is tight, it’s pitch dark, and
you can’t easily be heard. The noise made by the equipment is magnified as it
reverberates off the tunnel’s walls.

After the workers saw
through a 20-foot length of liner, they use a machine called a "road
header" – a drum encrusted with drill bits – to rip out the arched portion
of the liner, raising the tunnel’s height. Sometimes it rains grit in the dark.
No wonder road headers have been featured in the Discovery Channel’s
"Dirty Jobs" television show.

A fan is installed at one
end of the tunnel to blow fresh air past the workers.

There aren’t any cave-ins
because another crew preceded the workers, drilling 20-foot-long roof boltholes
in a carefully laid out pattern: six bolts across, six feet apart. The bolts
are installed as soon as the cutting crew passes. The sides don’t collapse
because they’ve already been reinforced with 8- to 16-foot-long bolts.

The shift is finished after
a crew sprays liquid concrete on the freshly cut roof to stabilize it. Instead
of a smooth concrete arch, the heightened roof looks like a moonscape. The roof
must be secured and the tunnel cleared by noon, when the rail line reopens. On
a typical morning trains can be seen idling on tracks near the tunnel, waiting
for the reopening.

Billingsley said a lot of
preparation work is done before crews even begin to raise a roof. Ballast is
spread over the tunnel floor up to the height of the rails so workers don’t
have to stumble over ties or through mud and rubber-tired vehicles as well as
rail equipment can operate.

"Holes are drilled to
determine how thick the liner is, whether there are any voids, and to determine
the quality of rock," he said. "We put a camera up every hole and
document what is found." Usually there’s sandstone behind the liner but
crews have found shale, a few coal seams and, occasionally, a void.

"In the Cooper Tunnel
near Bramwell they discovered a 20-foot void over the roof liner,"
Billingsley said. "They’re building a steel arch liner to secure the
space."

After a roof is raised,
crews spray a thick finishing coat of liquid concrete on it. Then Norfolk
Southern workers replace the ballast, rails and ties.

Some tunnels require
special work. U.S. Route 52 runs atop one end of Big Sandy 1 and an abandoned
portion of Route 52 runs across the top of the other end. Billingsley said both
ends of the tunnel would be reinforced with steel to make sure the roadways
above are secure.

A total of 28 tunnels –
four in Virginia and 24 in West Virginia – are being modified. Workers have
encountered a variety of issues. Two tunnels are lined with brick. One is
natural rock. Most were drilled through sandstone but at least one in Virginia
was drilled through limestone.

In some cases the track has
been lowered instead of raising the roof. But this isn’t common because the job
shuts down the line for an extended period. In some of the tunnels the entire
roof doesn’t need to be raised. Instead, the side of the liner can be notched
to provide adequate clearance.

Billingsley said safety is
the railroad’s top priority and there haven’t been any serious injuries.

"During the two years
there’s been one accident that delayed a train," he said. "That was
due to a rock fall – one rock."

The tunnel work began on
Oct. 20, 2007, at the Cowan Tunnel near Radford, Va. The Williamson (Mingo)
Tunnel was completed in December 2009. Four tunnels in the area are expected to
be finished in 2010: The Cooper Tunnel in January, Big Sandy 4 in June, Big
Sandy 3 in July and Big Sandy 1 in August.

LRL Construction of
Tillamook, Ore., is working on the Cooper Tunnel. Johnson Western Constructors
of San Leandro, Calif., worked on the Williamson (Mingo) Tunnel and is working
on Big Sandy 1 and 3. R.J. Corman Railroad Construction of Nicholasville, Ky.,
is working on Big Sandy 4.

The West Coast companies
brought some managers to the projects but hired mostly local people, including
many with mining experience, Billingsley said. A crew typically consists of 25
to 30 workers.

Robin Chapman, NS manager
of public relations, said the company’s line across southern West Virginia –
"The N Line" – "was built to move coal." It handles less
coal than in the past but also handles mixed freight and, currently, one
single-stack train each day.

"Double stacks will
double our capacity," he said.

Funding for the Heartland
Corridor includes $95 million from the federal government, $51 million from
Norfolk Southern, $5 million from the state of Virginia and $800,000 from the
state of Ohio.

Norfolk Southern donated 78
acres at Prichard in Wayne County for an $18 million terminal that is being
developed by the West Virginia Public Port Authority. Ohio already has a
terminal operating near Columbus.

Proponents say the
Heartland Corridor will provide an efficient alternative to trucks and will
reduce highway congestion.