Well, for those who haven't heard, CSX closed Haley tower on Friday 10/22 at 07:00 RR time. Since that time a signal suspension has been in effect. What this does is make the railroad manual block territory. Then along came Sunday. Black Sunday! A 12 hour curfew went into effect at 07:00 shutting the entire railroad down through Terre Haute. Track crews were supposed to take out both of the old diamonds, move the old CR tracks east a few feet and remove the C&EI north of the old interlocking to Ash St. #1 track, the east most track, came down as scheduled. There wasn't a whole lot to do. Remove the diamond/slip switch and about 100 ft of rail, insert a new piece and move the entire mess to the east so what was a curve through Haley is now tangent. Like I said this all went as planned and #1 track was in service in time to run the WB mail train. Now, the other track was a different story. The operations dept. would not give up that track until 10:30! due to a EB that had the usual sorts of problems. (3 units pulling truck frames, two units die and the 3rd isn't worth the paint on the side of it) This part of the new configuration, replacing the old diamond with a #20 turnout and basically rebuilding 600ft of what was the old C&EI #1 track years ago, was quite complicated and therefore the delay was not wise. Oh, they(operations) still wanted the track back by 19:00 AND they wanted to run the first train at 25MPH! The track guys cleared and headed for home around 19:15-19:30 and the word was "they have something to run trains on". What they didn't say was the whole mess is restricted to 10MPH. (Pay backs are a bitch) The first SB was Q123 at 20:45. Today is Tuesday and the switch at East Haley is still restricted to 10MPH. It looks as if nothing has been done since Sunday, not that anybody could get time and the track is settling quite well. A little dippy. That's what you get from a rush job. Couple the signal suspension with t he speed restriction and well...you get the picture. If you like to watch trains stack up, back up, run r e a l s l o w, etc. Terre Haute, IN is now the place to be. Where trains once ran 30MPH, they now crawl and most of the time stop and proceed is the rule since the trains are on each others' blocks. What a way to run a railroad... Oh, FWIW, Jacksonville called the signal super about 10AM on Friday and actually asked if we could put the tower back!!! NO JOKE! 73, Bill Foster President Haley Tower Historical & Technical Society www.railcenter.com/haley ------------------------------------------------------ This is the Illiana Railroad Discussion List. For more info visit http://www.railcenter.com/illiana ------------------------------------------------------
