Norfolk Southern train Q071, a CN detour, rolls west at Northeast, Pa.
Stephan M. Koenig
PORT HURON — In the wake of Friday’s derailment of Canadian National train 383 at the international St. Clair Tunnel, CN began rerouting trains almost immediately following the closure of one of its most important gateways. Canadian Pacific has been handling some trains through Windsor while CSX and Norfolk Southern lines between Buffalo and Toledo became a temporary home to CN trains and likely this will continue through Tuesday.
CN priority intermodal trains such as Chicago and Toronto trains Q148 and Q149 made the trip across CSX between the two cities. They were handed off between railroads at the Buffalo, N.Y./Fort Erie, Ontario, border. Some CN manifests handling time sensitive freight were for the most part diverted to NS and ran as NS 070 and 071 on July 1. CP also handled traffic between for CN at Windsor, as well. CN’s own Northern Ontario Division also handled some necessary traffic reroutes. More trains would have been rerouted but a shortage of crews in part due to Victoria Day in Canada and the upcoming July 4th holiday in the U.S. have limited the number of available crew.
Trains that were not deemed a priority were terminated at several locations awaiting the tunnel to be cleared. This included several east bounds being kept at Battle Creek, Michigan and other locations.
At the wreck site on July 1, a good number of cars had been cleared by Winters Rigging and several CN crews called from as far west as British Columbia. The DPU locomotive in the train was still in the tunnel as of mid-afternoon Monday and cars were still on the ground on either side. One report said cars had stacked themselves in the tunnel 2 across and 3 on top of each other on both sides of the locomotive. A special rig was called to go inside the tunnel to retrieve the unit but that was not expected to be removed until sometime on July 2. Until then, detours are expected to continue.
