Interesting idea. There was a rail operation out west that used a horse for pulling one of their railcars (with passengers) but I'm not sure that is still being done.

Les

What is the part that takes 2 months? Getting Baltimore Gas & Electric to restore their connection? When Penn's Landing Trolley had trouble with their "Dial a Volt" generator (now at the Trolley Museum of Kingston, New York), they were able to rent a substation, and have it hooked up to Philadelphia Electric Co. It took much less than a week.

There are a couple of factors involved at the inner-city BSM location, including but not limited to the fact that the right-of-way is still technically city property leased on favorable terms by the BSM, protection of the electrical equipment from vandalism, etc.

The insurers and/or City are reportedly making the BSM seek bids on the proper, professional, up-to-code replacement of the (simple cinder-block) substation shed. Further, there is one broken rail on one of the tracks to be replaced, as well as some tie damage done by the crane/scrap guys. I also suspect a claim may be made by the BSM for "loss of business," as is routine in commercial accidents like this. My impression is that CSX sounds eager to offer a nice donation that will cover that situation as well.

Further, anyone familiar with insurance settlements will tell you about how repairs can drag out to satisfy insurance adjusters' bean-counting.

(I get a lot of mileage out of how I repaired an otherwise "totalled" car for $700 cash while the guy that hit me, when you had to look twice to see any damage to his SUV, filed for $4,500 plus medical bills, and eventually got prosecuted for insurance fraud....... part of the investigation involved me getting a written affidavit from the body shop confirming they repainted my "junkyard" door and adjusted the hinge mount for $700, because we didn't itemize the bill and I just paid $700 cash with only a receipt--and I was back on the road in several days!)

Electricity has already been restored to the Visitors Center and Library, the only other building affected by power outage. I suppose if a lot of jury-rigged wiring were done, the Museum could temporarily restore some power to the overhead, provided the overhead has been properly repaired at a junction to a loop........

This just in:

Construction of the new substation started at 07:00 EDT this morning.........

Heard on the street: Apparently, some of the downed overhead wire got scrapped by accident. So I guess there will be a bit of new wire strung.

Also, as reported elsewhere from someone onsite that talked with a witness, and I'll stress that this is unofficial, the derailment cause was likely stringlining. It appears that the eastbound (geographically north here) stalled coming out of the tunnel when the DPU pushers lost radio contact in the tunnel. Additional units were added to the front and when they pulled and the DPUs didn't shove, a slow-motion stringline of the lightweight cars occurred.

I'll wait for the FRA report for the actual findings if I'm curious enough but the above seems to be the predominant explanation.

Sweet. Nothing like hearing of progress so shortly after the fall.