Barge hits train trestle

By David Snow (Contact) | Demopolis Times

Published Saturday, September 27, 2008

The railroad trestle spanning the Black Warrior River on the border of Marengo and Greene counties was damaged when a dredge and service boat collided with a support on the north (Greene County) side of the river early Friday.

The boat was northbound, and was believed to be heading towards Seldon Lock and Dam on the border of Greene and Hale counties.

The collision jarred a guide wire loose, allowing the counterweight on the south (Marengo County) side of the trestle to go completely down, coming to rest on the railroad tracks, instead of remaining several inches above the tracks, like the counterweight on the north side.

Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway uses the trestle on its run from Pensacola, Fla., to Columbus, Miss. The trestle is an important part of this line that runs from Demopolis through Linden past Magnolia in Marengo County.

“I don’t know if they hit it this morning or late last night,” said Lonnie Watson, who lives along the river in Greene County near the trestle. “The concrete counterweight is sitting on the railroad track itself, and the cables are broken. It was a huge boat, the big dredge boat.

“You can see where the cables have gone slack (following the accident). There’s another one that goes across the top, and that one’s broken.” Watson added that a railroad official told him that the trestle would be shut down for a considerable amount of time, and that trains cross the trestle two or three times a day, on average.”

Watson said that he had lived there for 22 years, and had never seen an accident like that before. He said that the trestle was built in 1927.

“I’m sure that this will shut down the river traffic also,” Watson said, “because of the railroad liability. If one of the cables were to break, the entire stretch of that center section would drop down to the tracks.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and officials with Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway did not respond for comment.

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