Fwd: 54th Anniversary of Hurricane Camille Tye River Bridge washout, August 20

[NW Mailing List]

Bob,

Your post about the anniversary of Hurricane Camille's damage to to the 
Southern Railway's Tye River bridge reminds me of my experience with the 
aftermath of Camille's damage to the N&W's Shenandoah Division line, 
which suffered extensive damage, but nothing compare to the loss of the 
Southern's Tye River bridge. Consequently, the N&W was able to return 
the Shenandoah line to service before the Southern's Type River bridge, 
providing a detour route for Southern passenger trains.

I received a phone call from my good friend Bruce Sterzing (N&W Law 
Department Solicitor, later president of the D&H Ry) asking if I wanted 
to join him in riding one of the first trains on the Shenandoah line 
since Camille, Southern No. 18, the Birmingham Special on September 5.  
I ready agreed.  We both had passes marked, "Good on engines and freight 
trains," so accessing the cab of the F3a lead unit was no problem, but 
the crowd was a bit of a surprise because in addition to the regular 
crew and Bruce and me there was also John Rehor (who wrote the 
monumental book, The Nickel Plate Story and had been transferred to the 
Safety Department in Roanoke) and a Southern Road Foreman of Engines.

The main flood damage began somewhere around Buffalo Forge and continued 
as we proceeded north (by compass).  The damage was unbelievable.  We 
observed a stream so small that we could barely see it, but it had 
completely devastated the valley that it was in.  The crew pointed out 
the foundation of a house where seven people died.

North of Stanley we got a "stop and proceed" signal, and we eased up to 
some diesel units ahead of us only to discover that a double-barreled 
(crew terminology for a train with a pusher) coal train had buckled some 
hopper cars, blocking us on the single track.  We next backed No. 18 to 
the siding at Stanley where the units were uncoupled and run through the 
siding and coupled to the opposite end of No. 18 for the trip back to 
Waynesboro, where the plan was to switch to the C&O Ry. for a "detour of 
the detour" to get to Washington that way.  We all transferred to the 
FP7a diesel unit at the opposite end of the consist, and the crew set up 
the controls on that unit for our return trip south.  We had gone only a 
couple of miles when the engineer called out, "we don't have any 
brakes."  There was a moment of silence from all of us before he said 
"we are starting down the mountain, and we don't have any brakes."  At 
that the Southern RFE reached over the engineer's shoulder and moved the 
automatic brake valve into the emergency position, stopping the train.  
After determining that the brake valve was indeed inoperative in the 
service application zone, the Southern RFE said to the N&W engineer, 
"let me run it.  I am more experienced in this than you are."  So, the 
Southern guy ran the train and made service applications of the brakes 
by carefully moving the automatic brake valve handle almost into the 
emergency zone, which would bleed off enough air to make a service 
application, but not enough to initiate an emergency application.

When we got back to Shenandoah, and another crew change, Bruce and I 
determined that there was a freight train called for Roanoke that we 
could ride back home.  So, even though the Southern RFE invited us to 
continue on to Washington with the train, Bruce and I decided to return 
to Roanoke on the freight train caboose (remember them?), ending an 
eventful journey.

Gordon Hamilton



-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	54th Anniversary of Hurricane Camille Tye River Bridge 
washout, August 20
Date: 	Fri, 18 Aug 2023 04:16:53 +0000 (UTC)
From: 	Cohen Bob <orl96782 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: 	Cohen Bob <orl96782 at yahoo.com>



A little reminder from 54 years ago ...........

Washington District MP 150.3.  On Facebook.


Coming up on the anniversary of Hurricane Camille on August 20! It 
washed out the Tye River bridge that carried the Southern mainline on 
its way to the Atlantic in 1969 . It took the Southern Engineering 
Department only 19 days to build a new bridge from scratch! During that 
time the Southern detoured over the SCL “S” line through Petersburg and 
up the RF&P to Pot Yard.




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