In January we faced the blizzard of '05. New England set a record for the largest amount of snowfall in the month of January in recorded history. Some cities closed school for the whole week. Suleski Transportation Plow Extra crews worked all day and through the night.
Eventually we had to give up the line when snow overcame the capabilities of our equipment.
We even had to dig a tunnel to get employees out of Rocky Ledge Station.
After two more smaller storms, crews were able to open the line again. Some area required tunneling through the snow. The Town of Amesbury DPW caused an avalanche when they were trying to move some snow. Here MoW crew members in a speeder lead a work train through one of the snow tunnels to the area of the avalanche.
ST #21 follows the speeder carefully.
After coming through the snow tunnel the crew lifted the speeder off the rails and brought ST#21 up as close as the road bed would allow.
Crews surveyed the damage caused by the Town DPW.
The snow just seemed to wash away track and bridge like a glacier.
It may take a few weeks for Crews to repair the damage done to the line. New road bed will need to be graded and new rails and ties. We will also need to build a new bridge and a new station. Rocky Ledge station had been on that site since 1994. It had been through 11 New England winters. So far there is no sign of any of the building. Suleski Transportation will be applying for Federal disaster relief to cover the cost of the damage.
Here is a photo from earlier this fall showing rocky Ledge station and the culvert bridge.
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