Asheville – On April 8, a loud noise was heard in South Asheville. It was familiar yet difficult to identify. It wasn’t an ambulance siren or a car horn; it was a train!
In fact, it was the first train to travel through Asheville since November 27, when Norfolk Southern’s AS Line, which runs from Morristown, Tennessee, to Salisbury, was shut down. Helene had clobbered the tracks with trees, covered them in debris, and floated chunks downstream. The swollen rivers and landslides washed away the earth beneath the remaining tracks. Over 21,000 feet of track broke off, and 50,000 feet were subject to scour, washout, or landslides. Bridges were destroyed, and former Representative Ray Rapp reported that in one location, a long strip of track was left dangling. In Newport, Tennessee, a bridge crossing the Pigeon River collapsed three weeks after the storm.
Three days after the storm, railroad crews managed to remove over 15,000 trees and fill multiple washouts. By October 9, stretches west of Newport and east of Old Fort were ready to open. It took longer to clear paths to the rest of the line and haul in materials for reconstruction that typically arrive by train. In some areas, the railroad had to wait for utility restoration…