Spring 2011: the season of washouts

Illinois lines closing down, MRL lines being repaired, Amtrak redoing it’s Texas Eagle temporarily, and as many reroutes anyone can handle.

It all started when Union Pacifics line to the twin cities flooded. many trains were rerouted on their CNW lines through Milwaukee, Wisconsin, making the line seem almost like the Geneva Sub. then CN and BNSF had problems with Old Man River, causing Amtrak to spit the Texas Eagle (ATSF) and the City of New Orleans (IC). After that, the Ohio River started to rise, which probably caused NS and CSX to reroute trains. Just last week, BNSF and MRL had to deal with water flooding their rails, causing costly delays and reroutes over other lines. Now that they’re cleaning up their mess, CN is starting to have troubles just north of the bayou.

We’v all heard of train lines closing down or limiting operations because of washouts, but this year has been bad. It seems like every week there’s a new washout and a new line closure. WHEN WILL IT END?!

Things here in the east have been problamatic, too…I haven’t heard a wheel turn on the NS SOuthern Tier line west of Binghamton, NY since Thursday afternoon…signals are out west of Campville, NY and trees were across the tracks in some places I hear…but not sure what all is going on yet.

It appears that CSX may be streached as well. A bridge near here that I wrote about a few months ago has had another slow (20 - 25 MPH depending on type loads) order imposed for at least the last 6 weeks. No indication as to when a B&B gang will be sent to fix or replace the bridge.