A major Rockslide has blocked CN’s track in the Fraser River Canyon in British Columbia. The slid is reported as 300 ft. wide and 50 ft. deep over the track. CN earlier said that they expected to clear the slide by sometime Wednesday, most people have said that there is no way that is going to happen. CN has a backhoe working from each end. Today they have brought in explosives to break up some large rocks bigger than a Bulldozer. All traffic is squeezing through on CP’s track on the opposite side of the river. EHH had the sidings pulled from CN’s side during his tenure over there, fortunately during his tenure at CP he has only had one siding taken out or they would really be in trouble. One CN train has reportedly detoured via the former BC Railway to Prince George.
FRASER RIVER, not FRAZER or not FRAZIER , always with an ''S"
Slide is at Jackass Mountain on Ashcroft sub, at MP 109.3
Not being familiar with that area, is this on the E/W route to and from the Port of Prince Rupert?
I’ve seen the pictures–it’s a big-un!
There is lots of unstable rock above the tracks yet. One wonders what moving it below the tracks will do–can they do it without interfering with the river?
The ironic thing is that before the track can be reopened, they will have to import some rock to be used as ballast.
Today’s the day the line’s supposed to reopen![(-D]
Dan, this is on the line into Vancouver, west of Kamloops, where the CP and CN run on the opposite sides of the river and and all eastbound trains run on the CP, and all westbound trains run on the CN, between Basque and Mission. Apparently because of the single direction operation Mr. Hunter felt that certain sidings were no longer necessary and had them removed.
Carl, speaking of rock slides, it looked to me that there were many rock sheds along the way, as Ricki and I were running late on our way to Vancouver five and a half years ago. Evidently, the rockfall here was much greater than was expected.
Thanks for the info.
Johnny, from the pictures I saw, there was a rock shed not too far from the slide–the slide covers up more of the tracks than the distance between the slide and the portal of this shed.
In the area, the track is basically blasted into a cliff. They have rock sheds where usual slide paths off the mountain are, but in this case, the entire cliff just came down outside of a gulley.
That area sounds like the Gorge on I-40 into NC when that thing Moves lets just say NCDOT and TNDOT well they call out the Boys with the C4 and D9’s and say Have FUN. I know one time they had a Boulder come down IIRC in 2009 that they estimated weighed about 9K tons and took 4 Months to Remove from the area. Lets just say everyone hated that delay.
The line was reopened today at 10:20 AM