Is not there also an interchange track north of the river to allow Feather River trains to enter Rosville yard. While I am sure this track is not meant for heavy traffic could it not be used during the next few weeks to help clear traffic?
Stan
There is always the old WPRR Feather River route as a alternative until the UPRR rebuilds it
Here is another link
Now that we have them rerouted - who gets to pay for the restoration? Will it all be UP or will the county share in the cost?
UP Could have at least one 300 foot precast concrete on steel piling bridge in place by Monday morning with the other complete by Wednesday. They probably have people, pile drivers, surfacing & track gangs, yellow and the replacement bridge pieces already en-route. The bigger delay problem is going to be dealing with the environmental regulatory wackos in CA that already have been well documented as being out of control with their own agenda. (They could care less that passenger and freight users will be inconvenienced in their narrow view of the world)
Mooks: Uncle Pete buys the bridge unless a culpable party is found.(Sharon Springs , KS revisited)
Mookie - UP could very well get billed for the emergency response too.
The trestle is actually within the city limits of Sacramento–the American River parkway floods every year, so it looks like open countryside but it is surrounded by city on both sides. Because it floods regularly, it would be unlikely to get replaced by fill, so we’ll most likely get a concrete trestle.
Rough week for that neck of the woods: the old interlocking tower at Elvas Junction is due to be razed soon, if it hasn’t been done already.
The plume of smoke looked pretty amazing–I was driving home from work and caught a shot on my digital camera:
One thing I am almost kind of hoping for: While it is relatively easy to use a bus bridge for Capitol Corridor passengers east of Sacramento, there is perhaps an off-hand chance that the California Zephyr will get temporarily rerouted north on the old WP mainline, up through its original route through the Feather River Canyon. There is precedent for this: when UP does tunnel work in Colorado, they reroute the CZ through Wyoming on the original Union Pacific transcontinental route. If they do, I might just have to schedule a weekend trip to Reno and bring a whole lot of film!
I’m a former Amtrak Conductor, are you saying there are no ties north of Haggin? I thought that was the line the Coast Starlight uses, if that part of it is still in service, they can run trains up to Marysville and then back down and there is a wye at Haggin, the trains can continue over to Evlas and south.
…I’m interested to see how soon the UP folks can get train traffic on their new {soon to be built}, trestle.
Noted last evening on one of the news films…Fireman were at the leading edge off the trestle to the steel sections of the bridge structures playing hoses on the stubburn fire trying to get on the wood ties of the steel structures…It looked like they were going to get that stopped.
And one heck of a pump.
NFPA guideline for fire flow: Length times width, divided by three, times number of floors involved.
1000 foot structure, 20 feet high (two stories), 20 feet wide. 13,000 gpm for the whole thing.
But, the idea of sprinklers is to catch it early, so we don’t need that much water. But that is a lot of pipe to maintain, as well as having some form of nozzles. It either has to be pressurized all the time, or you’ve got to have a ready supply of water.
Short answer - probably cheaper in the long run to rebuild than to maintain against a once in 50 years event.
You’re right, Larry–and now it can be rebuilt with nary so much as a splinter of wood in it.
…Is anyone close enough to see and determine what and how much action has started to redo the burned bridge yet.
Is it a “round the clock work action” now…?
Can someone keep us updated…?
I understand that whatever portion of the trestle wasn’t leveled by the fire has been demolished by machinery. They’re talking April 1 for one track to be in service; May 1 for both tracks. They did pretty well when the bridge at Galt, Illinois, was taken out by a wreck; this one is significantly longer, and wouldn’t be easy to build a shoofly around.
I’m sure that UP will get that section of the trestle repaired ASAP, as there is no alternate connection between their main yard (Roseville, to the east) with Sacramento, and the line sees over 50 trains per day into and out of Sacramento. Probably for the time being, their transcontinental Northern California freight trains will be diverted to the old WP line from Sacramento through Oroville and up and down the Feather River Canyon (a single-track line that already is almost to capacity). Except for AMTRAK, UP does not schedule that many freight trains over the original SP Donner Pass line (which is mostly double track, but with heavier grades over the Sierra), perhaps 10-15 a day. However, the Feather River route can see as many as 20-25 trains a day (including at least 8 BNSF, which has trackage rights from Stockton to Keddie, where it diverges north over the old WP “Highline” to Oregon). An already over-taxed line is going to be even MORE overtaxed until UP can rebuild the trestle in Sacramento. Hopefully, they’ll re-build it with concrete and steel, since a fill over the American River floodplain leading to the bridge would not work.
At least, using the WP main line through the Feather River Canyon will bring the trains into Sacramento over the old WP bridge to the south of the burned Ex-SP structure, into Sacramento, where a wye will take them onto the original east-west transcontinental route to Oakland and the Bay Area.
This could not be worse for a major Northern California east-west transcontinental line, which is also the main UP line between California and Oregon. Perhaps UP will work out a deal to send their Oregon traffic south along the now privately owned West End line (the old SP passenger line) between Red Bluff and Davis, but since the wye at Davis has been long removed, there is no real way to get northbound traffic onto the old SP West Side Line.
'Tis not a pretty picture,
…Thanks Carl and Tom for update and info…
…From some of the views in the news videos last evening it appeared to me the wooden “legs” of the trestle were standing on a footing of concrete…{not down in the ground}.
But I imagine if they use piling {perhaps steel}, they will be driven right down into the earth if that’s possible there to find a good footing.
And then prestressed concrete top for forming the surface for the ballast, etc…
Word from elsewhere is that the replacement will be a pair of single-track steel pile with concrete deck bridges. Also UP is running SB trains up the valley to a point north of Binney Jct., where the SP East Valley line crosses the old WP, then using the connecting track there to head back south. Also crews are busy replacing the connecting track in the south quadrant at Binney Jct., so that trains won’t need to either run around the train or have power on both ends. Crews are working to get this connecting track reinstalled by Saturday morning, They are lucky they didn’t tear out the grade when they removed it a few years ago. Bridge material for a bridge replacement elsewhere this summer is being diverted to get this job done.
Modelcar–
The land that the trestle is built on is floodplain, which means the soil is pretty deep, so I assume the bottom support for the trestle–either wood or steel–will have to be embedded fairly deep.
On re-reading my original post, I mentioned the old WP crossing of the river as being south of the SP line. Not true, it is actually West. Got my directions mixed up (easy to do in Sacramento, BTW). But the old original SP line curves westerly after crossing the American river, and over-crosses the WP grade in Sacramento. Both lines have affected an interchange wye with each other, so traffic coming down from Oroville can obtain passage on the original SP line west to Oakland. At the same time, traffic coming north from Southern California on the old SP San Joaquin Valley line can access the ex-WP line from Sacramento as far north as Marysville, then join the original Oregon route. But I forsee that single-track Feather River line being stacked up for hours or even days, with the influx of emergency traffic. Ain’t going to be a pretty sight.
However, direct interchange between the yards at Roseville and Sacramento are as of now, impossible. Southbound traffic from Oregon will still be able to come down the main East Side freight route, but will have to be re-routed from the old SP line at Marysville to the WP Feather River crossing for access to Sacramento and the Bay Area.
To put it mildly, it’s a big, fat mess for UP, right now, until they can rebuild that American River trestle!
Tom
Jetrock–
Just between you and me and the gatepost, if the CZ gets re-routed through the Feather river Canyon again, I wouldn’t want to be on it. UP and BNSF schedule anywhere from 20-25 trains a day over that winding, single track railroad, and the last time I was up the canyon on a rail-buff special (last spring) it took us almost fourteen hours to get from Sacramento to Portola. UP isn’t going to give the Zephyr any slack, and especially now, with the extra 10-15 trains it’s going to have to carry from the Donner Pass route, the Zephyr will be lucky if it EVER gets off a siding!
Too bad, too–it’s a gorgeous route, but not if you’re sitting on a siding for hours at a time.
I can guess once the fire is out and UP removes the remains of the old trestle they’ll go on an expedited construction schedule to get the double-track trestle rebuilt. I wouldn’t be surprised it will be an all-steel structure, since it would not require the enormous expense of bringing in pre-cast concrete pieces to put into place for a trestle over 2,000 feet long! Hopefully, they can have the structure fully completed by end of May 2007.
If it takes to the end of May, there will be a lot of openings in the UP’s Engineering Dept. Plan is for one track open April 1st, second track May 1st. It will be two side-by-side single track structures, this is the new standard for redundancy, unless for some reason it is not possible to do it this way.