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Atmore’s Traffic Nightmare: Most Railroad Crossings Closed For Another Week
February 12, 2015
Traffic has been a nightmare in Atmore for the past several days, and the delays are set to continue as most of the city’s railroad crossings remain closed.
CSX is currently upgrading and repairing railroad crossings in Atmore, with six of eight crossings closed. According to the Atmore Police Department, railroad crossings are closed at Industrial Drive, Swift Street, Wilson Avenue, Trammell Street, Presley Street and Martin Luther King Drive.
The only crossings currently open are Main Street and Second Avenue, which are slated to close February 18 if all other crossing repairs are completed by that date.
Thursday morning about 8:00 a.m., a three block trip across the tracks at the Main Street intersection took our photographer about 25 minutes. And drivers — or even emergency vehicles — can’t even think about hopping across the tracks at one of the closed crossings because they are physically blocked by piles of asphalt.
NorthEscambia.com has contacted CSX for comment on this story, and we are awaiting a response.
Pictured top and inset: Approaching the Main Street crossing in Atmore Thursday morning, and even waiting on a slow moving train (top). Pictured below: Crossings, like this one at Industrial Drive, are closed and blocked by piles of asphalt. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge
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Comments
27 Responses to “Atmore’s Traffic Nightmare: Most Railroad Crossings Closed For Another Week”
Those tracks have been there a long time.
Many of Atmore’s problems can be defined by the crossing of that land boundary.
This reminds me of back in the day when the Warden left the Deputy Warden in charge of the camp, there was total caousse! Calm down, just kidding there Mr. Rick Hetrick! I passed by there today and it was backed up a bit. I have worked around the RR at I Paper and they have very strenuous guidelines that they have to abide by that may not make much sense to us but I can assure you they are putting safety first! I gave gotten aggravated with them at times at work until I saw first hand what they were doing. I’m not affiliated with them or trying to take up for them, all I’m saying is when all this is over I pray that everyone entering or passing through that area will make it through safe! All we have is time anyway! Just be Safe!
Thank you for the heads up…will go the northern route to make the afternoon movie and be on time!!
I’m sure that no one is more inconvenienced by this that CSX. Can you imagine the money they are losing, not only in maintenance costs, but in downtime? They do not HAVE to coordinate with city officials or anyone else, they own the tracks and the right-of-way around those tracks, They could have closed ALL the intersections if they so wanted. Remember the railroad built Atmore as well as Brewton, Flomaton, and most other small towns in this area, not the other way around.
Everybody calm down. Leave early, take some snacks, put on your fav. tunes and be thankful you don’t live in Atlanta or further north.
>>>Would’ve been nice to see a story like this BEFORE hand so people could make plans for getting to work.
Story was published at 12:05 am Thursday.
Would’ve been nice to see a story like this BEFORE hand so people could make plans for getting to work.
I hope they get these tracks fix because i tore up two of my tires before they closed the tracks in the city is not gone pay to fix my car
Thank you CSX for supporting the safety if our community. I for one am sick of all the complaining about these poor men who are working as hard as they can to improve our towns crossings and making them safer at no charge to Atmore. I agree it is a terrible inconvenience , but would rather deal with that for a short time instead of a train derailment! Keep up the good work CSX!!!
Would you rather have a derailment with damaged tanker cars? Continuous rail replacement does not allow for only night work. Requires crosstie replacement and gravel replacement then replacement of pavement. I don’t work for CSX but I would bet $$$$$$ that they are not replacing these rails for the heck of it. It is a safety related problem, ie: the old rails and ties are wore out and will be unsafe soon.
The tracks that leads to swift and Alto one should be left open so people can get to work and don’t have to go out of the way.
We should all appreciate the upgrades. I wish they could work on the roads as well. The roads in Atmore are some of the worse ones in Escambia County
Well, the crossings were re-worked a few years ago (not sure exactly how long) and prior to that they were awful! Since then they have not been very bad. From past history I can say that after these jobs sometimes the crossing is better (smoother) and sometimes its worse.
So since there is such extreme demolition being done i can only say that I hope when they are replaced this time that they are not worse than before!
Trucks ship more goods than trains ever thought about….tell me the last time you saw a rail yard at walmart? Furthermore most distribution centers ship by truck, and I know this b/c I used to be an owner operator and spent ALOT of time at distribution centers.
Rails are a strategic asset for a nation…there’s no doubt about that…but the rail road needs to be a good neighbor to the communities affected by it’s location….furthermore…how much thought or effort went in to trying to minimize disruptions to local commerce and traffic? Couldn’t they have done the tracks in segments? Half one week, half another?
This mess needs to done at night! This causes so much trouble for Atmore. Ppl have to take lunch..pay bills etc. And there is only one track open! How crazy!
I could be incorrect about this, but from what I have heard over the years, the local governments have no say in what CSX does to the RR tracks or how/when they do it. I believe that in the past Flomaton may have complained about the way the trains will sometimes block the crossing at College Street (Old Atmore Rd) for hours, but they were “set straight” by CSX on the matter.
From the inside looking out, if everyone only knew the planning and the notices that is required before you close a crossing, you would think differently. The rail is continuous you just can’t put in new here or there, it has to go thru the crossings also, yes I’m sure it a headache now, but how many has complained about the crossings being rough and need fixing? As far as how csx benefits the atmore community?? Csx is the largest shipper east of the Mississippi river, and employs a lot of local people, so next time you go to Wal-Mart or anywhere for that matter it Prolly arrived by truck yes, but the train brought it to the distribution center,,,so don’t be so ignorant with your comments!!!!
They’re replacing ALL of the rails, not just at crossings. This is not for the benefit of motorists, but rather to keep the trains from derailing.
DO ATMORE ALABAMA REALLY CARE ABOUT ATMORE CITIZENS.
If you think it’s bad in your car, try driving a school bus. It is a nightmare in the afternoons especially. I can’t imagine why the city let CSX do this. Should not be allowed to close but 2 crossings at one time.
>>> Atmore has several Rail customers that are served through Car load movements not to mention the taxes (High Taxes) they pay
What Atmore company ships/receives by rail besides Sunbelt? And what high taxes? I doubt CSX pays Atmore anything
“River-rat”
Many towns along the route of CSX became a Town because of the railroads. This to say that the Railroads were there before the Towns. Does that give them any special precedence in the town. Probably not! We should appreciate The railroad as they do give jobs to these communities. Many employees such as track repairmen, Engineers, Conductors and some Officials live in these small towns. Atmore has several Rail customers that are served through Car load movements not to mention the taxes (High Taxes) they pay. Yep! this track work is and has been an inconvenience but just like I65 highway sometimes we are delayed while repairs and upgrades are made. People will be people in their driving habits—always trying to beet the speedometer with the clock on the dash. It will not last for ever, just slow down and smell the roses.
I am very surprised they have closed more than one crossing at a time.
The norm was always to only close one crossing to traffic until it reopened to traffic when completed.
Not do several in one stretch at a time.
P.S.
If a train is going down those tracks every 15 minutes, that is fantastic as that means it is being utilized at a fantastic rate.
And putting hundreds if not thousands of people to work where the commodities are being delivered and picked up.
Oh this is so ridiculous how they have all these crossings closed. I totally agreed with the part that the tracks needed to be fixed but what where they thinking but closing 6 out of the 8 tracks down. Traffic is so backed up its crazy. I live in town and by the tracks I can’t even get out. School buses are late coming and going, what about emergency vehicles and police officers? How are they going to rush to a scene!!?? I obey I red lights and I get people honking and being impatient because I can’t move and driving crazy trying to get around knowing they can’t get threw. What was CSX really thinking? What was really the point of closing so many down at the same time. One lady was late for work and hour and 30 mins and got wrote up. Traffic is so backed up its going to the Florida line! I don’t even want to get out in this mess knowing I’m a house wife and mother and I got to. This is just so RIDICULOUS !!!
Nightmare does not begin to describe that mess in Atmore. I was stuck in traffic at the main light yesterday and witnessed three almost wrecks. People drive like idiot’s. Impatient and careless driving is not worth causing possible harm. That red light is there for a reason and ignoring it is not one of them.
Sort of confused as to why CSX would close six of eight and if the Closings were coordinated with the Mayor’s Office? Why would the Atmore PD not place officers at the two opened crossings to direct traffic to easy up some of the congestion? It appears little planning with City Officials went into this project. Although I do agree that the crossing were in need of repair I feel sure that our “Traffic Nightmare” could have been more like a “Bad Dream” with some coordination between CRX and City Officials
CSX is a pain in all of these small towns….how do we benefit by they being there? Trains pass every 15 minutes on that track….you’re going to get stopped for several minutes by a mega train either coming or going on your trip to town or wherever….and almost certainly those train whistles are louder than they used to be….if you’re anywhere near the tracks your business shuts down when they hit the whistle at the crossings….historically they were important here…but can anyone say how many they employ locally or what their impact is on the local economy?