JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- In a first-ever maintenance project of this magnitude, CSX Transportation Inc. (CSXT) will suspend rail operations for five days beginning July 2 on nearly 400 miles of track in the southeastern United States to refurbish highway-rail grade crossings, tracks and bridges. The company is mobilizing massive resources, including more than 800 people and 360 pieces of equipment, to accomplish in less than a week a project that ordinarily would take about three months to complete.

"Customarily, we would perform this type of maintenance during narrow work windows over a period of many weeks," said W. Michael Cantrell, senior vice president-engineering and mechanical. "We decided to take a very aggressive approach to accomplish this work to minimize service disruption to our customers and the impact on the general public. While we've used this concept for smaller-scale maintenance jobs in the past, this is the first time CSXT has used the approach for a project of this magnitude."

Beginning July 2, CSXT will suspend train operations on its rail lines that extend from Montgomery, Ala., to New Orleans, La., and from Flomaton, Ala., to Pensacola, Fla., to permit uninterrupted track work. Over the course of five days, about 800 workers will install more than 1 million spikes, replace more than 100,000 crossties, replace 18 miles of rail, rebuild or repair 14 bridges and rehabilitate nearly 50 grade crossing surfaces.

CSXT is coordinating closely with local and state officials to minimize the impact to communities along the route and to assist with traffic control. "We are grateful for the communities' cooperation and patience as we undertake this necessary work," Cantrell said.

More than 200 trains that ordinarily would have traveled these rail corridors will be detoured over other CSXT routes or via other railroads for the project's duration.

CSXT and its 35,000 employees provide rail transportation and distribution services over a 23,000 route-mile network in 23 states, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces. CSXT is a business unit of CSX Corporation (NYSE: CSX), headquartered in Richmond, Va.

CSXT's Track Project - July 2-6 By The Numbers

• Route miles of CSXT's system involved: 365 miles
• Number of employees working on the project: 800+
• Number of pieces of equipment: 360
• Rail spikes to be used: About 1 million
• Crossties to be replaced: About 105,000
• Average number of crossties to be replaced per day: 26,000
• Rail to be replaced: 18 miles
• Bridges to be rebuilt/repaired: 14
• Highway-rail grade crossings to be reworked during the five-day project: 48
• Highway-rail grade crossings along route reworked in advance of the project: 20
• Average number of trains ordinarily operating in this corridor over five days: 200+