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Firefighters declared victory last night over a railroad tunnel fire they had battled for more than four days, and investigators and engineers began working to determine why the incident occurred and how long it might continue to disrupt life in Baltimore.
The short answers: Weeks of continued headaches on the roads and rails are ahead, and it will take months to determine a cause.
And watch out for this morning's downtown rush hour, transit officials warned.
"The hardest part is definitely over," said Mayor Martin O'Malley, said in an interview last night. "The rest is a headache and inconvenience, but nothing that we won't get through."
Early this morning, firefighters struggled to remove the charred remains of the last car of the 60-car freight train that derailed Wednesday in the Howard Street Tunnel.
The steel cars, burned nearly to ash in some parts and still smoldering, were being shipped to an undisclosed location to be examined by company inspectors and government officials.
"Now we have a whole lot of light at the end of the tunnel," said acting Fire Chief Carl E. McDonald.
Smoke lingered below ground and wisps rose from vents near the derailment site, but after nearly 100 consecutive hours of work, McDonald said, his department's job was all but complete and "we're ready to get some rest."
Investigators and repair crews faced daunting tasks both above and below ground.
The freight cars derailed almost smack in the middle of the 1.7-mile tunnel, unleashing enough smoke, fire and hazardous chemicals to tangle travel in the city for days.
Several cars caught fire and because of their distance from either end of the tunnel, firefighters had difficulty getting to them. Within hours of the derailment, a water main above the tunnel broke, helping to extinguish the fire but also sending millions of gallons of water cascading across streets and seeping into the ground.
Adding another task for repair crews, a storm drain was discovered to have collapsed on Howard Street near Lombard Street. The damage will cause further problems for light rail service.
Authorities said yesterday that they were turning their attention toward determining how badly the tunnel is damaged and whether that stretch of Howard Street is safe for traffic.
Their answers will help determine how many more days or weeks of inconvenience hundreds of downtown businesses and thousands of commuters will have to endure.
The tunnel fire had the effect of creating a mile-long above-ground wall. East-west traffic across Howard Street has been closed from Mount Royal Avenue south to Pratt Street, creating huge traffic snarls in the area.
Officials said roads would almost certainly be closed for this morning's rush hour and likely for the evening commute as well.
The job of bringing the city back to normal falls to the Department of Public Works, which must tear up part of Lombard Street to replace the 40-inch water main and then reconstruct the Howard-Lombard intersection that was damaged when the pipe broke.
O'Malley joined CSX engineers, city and state officials and representatives of the news media yesterday on a tour of the southern stretch of the blackened tunnel.
O'Malley, unshaven and wearing firefighter's pants and boots and a gray T-shirt, rode into the south tunnel entrance about 3:20 p.m. in one of four CSX sport utility vehicles specially equipped to ride on the tracks.
The short answers: Weeks of continued headaches on the roads and rails are ahead, and it will take months to determine a cause.
"The hardest part is definitely over," said Mayor Martin O'Malley, said in an interview last night. "The rest is a headache and inconvenience, but nothing that we won't get through."
Early this morning, firefighters struggled to remove the charred remains of the last car of the 60-car freight train that derailed Wednesday in the Howard Street Tunnel.
The steel cars, burned nearly to ash in some parts and still smoldering, were being shipped to an undisclosed location to be examined by company inspectors and government officials.
"Now we have a whole lot of light at the end of the tunnel," said acting Fire Chief Carl E. McDonald.
Smoke lingered below ground and wisps rose from vents near the derailment site, but after nearly 100 consecutive hours of work, McDonald said, his department's job was all but complete and "we're ready to get some rest."
Investigators and repair crews faced daunting tasks both above and below ground.
The freight cars derailed almost smack in the middle of the 1.7-mile tunnel, unleashing enough smoke, fire and hazardous chemicals to tangle travel in the city for days.
Several cars caught fire and because of their distance from either end of the tunnel, firefighters had difficulty getting to them. Within hours of the derailment, a water main above the tunnel broke, helping to extinguish the fire but also sending millions of gallons of water cascading across streets and seeping into the ground.
Adding another task for repair crews, a storm drain was discovered to have collapsed on Howard Street near Lombard Street. The damage will cause further problems for light rail service.
Authorities said yesterday that they were turning their attention toward determining how badly the tunnel is damaged and whether that stretch of Howard Street is safe for traffic.
Their answers will help determine how many more days or weeks of inconvenience hundreds of downtown businesses and thousands of commuters will have to endure.
The tunnel fire had the effect of creating a mile-long above-ground wall. East-west traffic across Howard Street has been closed from Mount Royal Avenue south to Pratt Street, creating huge traffic snarls in the area.
Officials said roads would almost certainly be closed for this morning's rush hour and likely for the evening commute as well.
The job of bringing the city back to normal falls to the Department of Public Works, which must tear up part of Lombard Street to replace the 40-inch water main and then reconstruct the Howard-Lombard intersection that was damaged when the pipe broke.
O'Malley joined CSX engineers, city and state officials and representatives of the news media yesterday on a tour of the southern stretch of the blackened tunnel.
O'Malley, unshaven and wearing firefighter's pants and boots and a gray T-shirt, rode into the south tunnel entrance about 3:20 p.m. in one of four CSX sport utility vehicles specially equipped to ride on the tracks.
