Nobody at Union Pacific or Burlington Northern Santa Fe wants a repeat of 1993 or 2008.
The flooding that swept through the Midwest in those years took out railroad bridges and crossing signals, washed out tracks and forced rail lines to suspend service for days at a time, delaying shipments of agricultural and manufacturing products and coal for power plants…
http://www.omaha.com/article/20110608/MONEY/706089877
The Missouri River is rampaging. Should it inundate BNSF & UP mainlines in and near Omaha, what are the alternatives? How big a mess of congestion and delays?
If you can get a copy of October 1993 Trains, it should pretty well answer your question. This flood is supposed to be worse than 1993.
Arggg, I’m riding the SW Chief on June 16 - how is the transcon ROW around Kansas City and the MO river? Is it high enough to stay above the flooding?
The Santa Fe ROW was washed out in 1993 at MP364.4 at the Grand River near Bosworth, Mo. They detoured the long way north.
I don’t think the Missouri River will get that far by June 16th, though. But I’m not guaranteeing anything.
The CN is closed due to a levee opening for the track being closed off on the north end of Council Bluffs. The UP in the same area is raising the track, told by a manager 3 to 5 feet, to keep the track open.
UP west of Mo Valley is also raising track, although not has extreme as near CB. Signal boxes/houses are surrounded by sandbags and some crossing signals have had power to them cut off. There are maintenance curfews of 12 hours alternating between the Blair and Omaha subdivisions for this flood prep work. Some trains are detouring over the Iowa Interstate. Projections for IAIS reroutes have reached 12 to 14 trains a day. Not sure of the duration for the detours. I’ve heard of some trains being rerouted through KC because of problems out around the Kearney area in addition to the Missouri River troubles.
Trains running across the UP have encountered delays as well, requiring re-crews. I worked with a condr who was recalled to service after being furloughed or on reserve status foe a couple of years. He said they had a mandatory recall for everyone furloughed but still on the roster.
Jeff