Heavy rains in Union,IL caused cancellation for Day Out With Thomas.
Check out the Spaulding tower web cam.
Saved a image from the web cam. The standing water should be grass.
That is some flooding. It wasn’t nearly that bad up in Milwaukee last night, but the wind was toying with the tents at Irishfest.
I live about 15 miles east of Union and it has been a steady to heavy rain since about 2AM. Add that to the fact that it has rained here everyday this last week except Friday and you have a flooding problem. I also read that the BNSF and CP are shut down in La Crosse WI do to flooding.
There is lots of flooding in Minnesota west of Winona. Details are comming in, but some trackage is washed out, and drownings have occured. More rain is on the way.
I,ve been watching the Winona,Mn area. I have relatives there. From what I have read some of Winona has been evacuated and a mudslide on the Wisconsin side of the river in Vernon county forced a house onto highway 35.
I’ve been listening to Railroadradio.net on my computer this afternoon and have heard that the siding at Davis Junction on the IC&E is half under water. Anybody else have any track under water this afternoon?
As I type this, it’s only 96 in Nashville, high may be 99. Back to 100’s this week. how about sending some of that rain this way? The state appears to be drying up. We NEED the rain!
The worst part may be the poor school bus drivers that don’t have AC on the school bus. Temps rose to 115 on the bus. Not good for drivers or school agers.
They say the same in Little Rock. We got a bit of rain yesterday, a 1 hour monsoon and it instantly flooded then turn the ground into mud.
Thier solution is to shorten the bus ride. As far as I am concerned they are too cheap to install and maintain A/C on those buses. It is needed.
We dont expect rain again anytime soon. The leaves are dropping off the trees a month early at least.
From reading some of the other forums it sounds like the CP line is out of service and may have lost a bridge at Minnesota City, which is sits alongside Lake Pepin on the Mississippi River. I saw a picture of what I believe “was” a DM&E bridge in Minnesota. Also BNSF had a derailment and may have trains on line with tracks washing out underneath the trains. Amtrak #7 and #8 are being held outside of the area. I checked the amtrak webpage and got the “service interuption” message.
I have relatives in Wabasha, MN and they got 5 inches of rain, apparently no problems there. However Highway 61 the major highway between La Crosse and Twin Cities was closed in the area of Winona. Plus Highway 35 on the Wisconsin side apparently had a house pushed into it.
Keith Schmidt
I just checked the webcam, and the water’s almost up to the rail now.
if you look at the mainline webcam they have a lot of equipment out on the mainline, something they don’t do too often. I hope that none of the barns have water in them.
Look at the far upper left on the mainline cam. The tracks going to the shops are under water. The water is right up to the shop building.
From the IRM yahoo group:
"For the first time since we began hosting the Thomas event, the Museum
was forced to close today with all operations annulled. We underwent
a lot of rain and flooding two weeks ago and the ground was saturated
before another 2-4 inches of precipitation by noon today. Many areas
are under water, equipment being moved to higher ground, and a
generally frustrating attempt to prevent water damage.
At this point we are hoping to offer a rain date of operating the
event next Friday, but the extent of the flooding, conditions, and
continued rain forecast the next four days, necessairly preclude a
final decision from this point in time.
But we will surely need extra help for next Friday, either to run the
event, or to help with what promises to be a massive cleanup.
Bob Kutella"
I was in Woodstock for my 50th high school reunion. A little tyke was with his family in the breakfast room at the motel today when the downpour started. The parents kinda knew Thomas would be rained out. Very heavy rains as we drove by IRM. The rain let up just a little for me to catch a stack train leaving Rochelle E/B.
It is really too bad that this happened. IRM has already had enough bad luck with steam and the Nebraska Zephyr being out of service. I really hate to see such a great museum get one bad break after another. Hopefully nothing will get damaged and the museum will be able to get back to normal operation soon. Right now on the mainline webcam it looks like they are getting ready to move a long line of diesels including the UP DDA-40X, MARC E9, and the MN&S centercab out of the museum to higher ground.
Well, I hope things aren’t getting too bad out there. I am starting my first day of work at a new job tomorrow and I have to drive down IL176 past Union. The webcam still shows a light on. I wonder if they are still shuffling equipment.
I drove past Union today. The Kishwaukee river was a raging rapid across about 50-100 feet of the highway. I called the McHenry Country Sheriff’s Department and all they could tell me was that water was on the pavement. With the amount of water rushing across the road, I imagine that Union will be waterlogged for at least a week.
Looking at the webcam today it looks as if the water has receded enough where they didn’t have to move the equipment out of the museum. Parts of the rails were covered yesterday and it looked as if the rails at least on the webcams were above the water today. We didn’t get near as much rain as they expected here in Joliet and hopefully that was the same for Union. The museum was closed again today and I wouldn’t be surprized if it was closed at least until next weekend judging by all the water still covering the walkways and platforms, but at least the water is off the rails.
More rain coming… The kishwaukee is already expected to exceed the 1994 flood stage by at least a foot. It forms the eastern border of the museum grounds, so I expect the museum will be covered for a while.
From What I seen today during lunch on the web cam. They were using a pump to get rid of the water. I have tickets for this Sunday. I’m going to bring my 6 year old son and my 1 year old son for his first train experience.