Alabama
and Tennessee River Railway - (en)
The Alabama and Tennessee River Railway (AAR reporting marks ATN) is a
shortline railway operating (via lease) over trackage formerly operated by
CSX Transportation. The line's western terminus is a junction with the CSX
(former Louisville and Nashville Railroad) main line in Birmingham,
Alabama, near CSX's Boyles Yard. The eastern terminus is Guntersville,
Alabama, near the Tennessee River. The parent comnpany of ATN is Omnitrax,
a major operator of American and Canadian short lines.
The route is a combination of the remnants three former lines: the
Seaboard Air Line Atlanta-Birmingham main line, the Louisville and
Nashville Railroad former Mineral Belt line from Birmingham to Gadsden and
Talladega, and the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway line from
Guntersville to Attalla, which once went further north to Huntsville using
a car ferry over the Tennessee River. All of these lines eventually fell
under the ownership of CSX. CSX and its corporate predecessors abandoned
the L&N line south of Wellington, Alabama, where it crossed over the
SAL main line; later the SAL line was abandoned from Wellington to
Atlanta. The portion of the former L&N line from just north of Attalla
(at its junction the NC&StL line) through Oneonta to Birmingham was
sold to a quarry owner along the line, who intended to operate it as an
independent shortline. Almost all of the line was later abandoned, leaving
an L-shaped line from Birmingham to Guntersville. CSX operated this as the
Alabama Mineral Subdivision.
In 2004, CSX leased the line to Omnitrax, which gave the line its current
name. According to Omnitrax, there are more than three dozen online
customers. The line includes a short branch to Ivalee, Alabama which
serves a Tyson Foods feed plant; this branch is a stub of the former
L&N line to Birmingham. ATN interchanges with CSX at Boyles Yard, and
with Norfolk Southern (former Southern Railway) at Attalla.
The new railroad has gotten off to a rocky start. In July 2005, a
conductor was killed when the car on which he was riding derailed, pinning
him between the car a trackside building. In August 2005, a runaway car on
the line through the east side of Birmingham hit a car at a level crossing;
the car was travelling at a high speed, and the crossing's automatic
barriers had not yet fully descended to street level, as the length of the
train-detection track circuit was relatively short in length, as
appropriate for the normally-slow speed limit on the line. Later that
month, an ATN train heading south from Guntersville had eight to ten empty
grain cars uncouple from the rear, sending the cars rolling back down the
Sand Mountain grade toward Guntersville. Local police were notified to
protect level grossings, but the train was able to reverse course and
recover the runaway cars before any further mishap occurred.
