Lightning Strike Snarls Railroads

June 99

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A lightning strike at a communications center slowed or halted rail traffic - including 11 Amtrak trains - in parts of the East and Midwest. Some 200 trains were affected.  The lightning struck a CSX communications center in Jacksonville, Fla., at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, knocking out the signal system between Chicago and Philadelphia, parts of Michigan and in the Kentucky-West Virginia coal region, CSX Transportation spokesman Adam Hollingsworth said.

Radio communication between crews and dispatchers were also affected.

``It slowed and, in some places, stopped rail traffic until the signal system could be restored,'' Hollingsworth said. ``In some areas, we were able to use portable signal equipment and cellular phones to safely keep the trains running.''

He said about 200 trains were affected by the outage, including 15 passenger trains operated by Amtrak and commuter lines Virginia Railway Express and Maryland Area Rail Commuter. None of the Amtrak trains - all in the Washington, D.C., area - were delayed more than four hours.

CSX runs about 1,300 trains daily through the affected areas.   Amtrak, VRE and MARC operate on CSX-maintained tracks.  David Kerr was among the stranded VRE commuters who were still sitting on a train three hours after leaving Washington.

``A whole bunch of us decided to get off the train and walk,'' said Kerr, who walked about a mile to reach his car. He arrived home a little after 9 p.m. to a cold take-out dinner he ordered from his cellular phone on the train.

CSX restored its signal system about three hours after the strike and expected to fully restore radio communications by today.  CSX, whose corporate headquarters is in Richmond, operates about 22,300 miles of railroad lines in 23 states, the District of Columbia, and Montreal and Ontario, Canada.

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