JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CSX and its contractors are nearly to the halfway mark of the Howard Street Tunnel clearance project in Baltimore.
In a video update on Tuesday, July 1, CSX said crews have safely lowered 3,400 feet of the flooring in the 8,700-foot former Baltimore & Ohio tunnel beneath downtown Baltimore. The tunnel, which opened in 1895, cannot accommodate double-stack container trains.
Once the floor is lowered about 2 feet, CSX will be able to offer double-stack service in the I-95 Corridor as well as between Baltimore and Midwestern points via the former B&O main line. Since last fall, when clearance work was finished between Baltimore and Philadelphia, the Baltimore-Midwest traffic has been routed the long way around via Selkirk, N.Y., on the former New York Central Water Level Route.
Work inside the tunnel began on Feb. 1 [see “CSX closes Howard Street Tunnel …,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 4, 2025]. CSX expects to complete the tunnel work in September or October. A pair of bridge clearance projects, expected to be completed early next year, will wrap up the $566 million effort to raise clearances at 22 locations between Philadelphia and Baltimore.
For more on the project, see “Digging Deep in Baltimore” in the August 2025 issue of Trains Magazine.
