Norfolk Southern Reopens BL-Line With Coal Train

A Norfolk Southern coal train reopened the 17-mile BL-Line in Tennessee and became the first eastbound revenue movement over the restored Old Fort Loops since Hurricane Helene.

Loaded train 744 carried approximately 110 coal cars from Shire Oaks, Pennsylvania, to Duke Energy’s Marshall Steam Station in Catawba County, North Carolina. The train was led by AC44C6M locomotive No. 4009, with a second locomotive at the front and three distributed power units at the rear.

Regular freight returns to the BL-Line

The train became the first regularly scheduled movement between Bulls Gap and White Pine since approximately 2018. After changing crews at Bulls Gap on Monday, July 20, it travelled southwest over the BL-Line before joining Norfolk Southern’s S-Line at White Pine and continuing to Asheville.

Before the reopening, coal trains serving the Marshall plant followed a longer routing through Roanoke, Greensboro and Salisbury. The restored Tennessee connection therefore returns these movements to their pre-2018 route.

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Norfolk Southern expects the line to handle about five trains per week, primarily coal traffic. When announcing the return of service, the railroad also urged residents to expect trains at crossings after nearly eight years without regular operations. The revived corridor and its safety implications were outlined in the initial local announcement about the BL-Line reopening⁠.

Train 744 completes an eastbound Old Fort descent

Train 744 left Asheville at approximately 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 21. A broken knuckle caused the train to separate near Ridgecrest at the Eastern Continental Divide, but it resumed its journey at about 11:30 a.m.

The movement then became the first eastbound revenue train to descend the Old Fort Loops since Hurricane Helene damaged the Western North Carolina rail corridor in 2024. The route drops about 1,100 feet and uses 13 miles of track to cover a straight-line distance of roughly 3 miles.

The first westbound train crossed the restored section on April 18. According to Norfolk Southern’s account of the reconstruction⁠, crews repaired 103 damaged sites, installed more than 51,500 linear feet of steel piles and used approximately 140,000 tons of aggregate.

After another crew change at Oyama Yard in Hickory, train 744 reached the Marshall Steam Station after 8 p.m. Its journey combined two operational milestones: the return of regular traffic to the BL-Line and the restoration of eastbound revenue service through the Old Fort Loops.