Anybody been following this story? I’m amazed at all the tracks and trains that are under water. They parked some full hoppers on a bridge over a river to try and keep it place. No such luck! Now they have some hoppers to fish out of the river where the bridge used to be! It seems like every shot on the news has some sort of rail item in the background. This has to be a dispatchers nightmare!
My sympathies go out to anyone living in that area. I know floods suck first hand!
I have not followed the story but hearing the description it sounds like we will have yet another snarl in the rail network.
A news story recently, perhaps linked on this forum, described a forecast for near gridlock on the rail system in about 20 years. With consolidation of carriers, what were duplicate routes have been eliminated. In the future, if rail traffic keeps expanding their won’t be enough track routes to handle the load. Trains can only run so fast…
But for this situation with the floods, it means there are fewer routes to take trains around the problem areas. And, if the few alternate routes are already “full” so to speak, it means more slowdowns, stopped trains, etc…
George V.
Add to that the call from the nitwits who want to re-route anything more hazardous than vinegar around population centers, and you have a real recipe for meltdown.
Lee
Once you get them all parked its not so bad. The shutting down and starting back up are what’s tricky.
Dave H.
I saw on the news video footage of the hoppers loaded with gravel sitting on the bridge but the force of the water was too much and it washed the whole thing away,They are calling this a 500 year flood,It’s sad to see all of the destruction and the people of iowa City and surrounding areas will be cleaning up for quite some time after. Unfortunately Many people have lost their homes and possesions.Very sad indeed!
If You want to help here is the Iowa City area United way site : http://www.unitedwayjc.org/
Great Western-Having received help from them when I was in a flood, I can add that The Red Cross is another worth while charity to give to. They REALLY helped my family out.
The Crandic bridge washed away. The UP double main track bridge is still OK, although under about 5 ft of water. There is a grain train and a ballast train on top of it.
Dave H.
A photo on CNN Friday morning showed a bunch of containers floating away, which must have been empty ones. The text said it was rail cars floating away.
Does anyone remember the big Kankakee River flood? A huge mess. Stayed away from rail lines though. More charitys to give too is Hospise and Childrens merical network
Hi everyone,
I hope I am not hijacking this post but check out the pictures at the Mid Continent Railway Museum here in Wisconsin.
http://www.midcontinent.org/flood_08/
Sean
WOW![:O] THAT SUCKS!! Almost hurts to look at! Gonna take a lot of pressure washing to clean that up. Good thing it’s not salt water. Electronics should dry out OK. Doesn’t look like it got up into any of the rolling stock. Hope they didn’t lose too many displays in the buildings.
Thanks for the link.
FoxNews had some footage this afternoon taken in Cedar Rapids. The footage showed a string of stranded freight cars with water over the trucks.
I understand that Iowa Northern Railway is conducting all its (administrative) business including operations out of Greene, Iowa, a town I am somewhat familiar with it being my pappy’s hometown. In 1954 when we rotated from Germany the Shell Rock river which flows through Greene was threatening to flood and the water did get over its banks but the crest was only a foot or two over flood stage and the flooding did not reach into the downtown area. Nevertheless to see a river ready to burst its banks is really a sight to behold.
It’s been way back in the sixties but some guy modeled a flood scene with his roadbed a ribbon of land in a sea of muddy water.
These pictures were forwarded to me from a friend here in KY who has a friend in IA. It shows the Des Moines river. The loaded grain cars provide stability as the high water strikes the bridge with floating logs and other debris.
some good news out of a disturbing storm system is, the musuem is starting to dry out.
It hurts a steam fan to see those locomotives up to the cab in water. I think that the locos can still run in water. the question is getting air to the fire. Those photos of the bridge remind me of A Thomas And Friends show. Ironically, flood. The folks in Willimington had an ice jam this winter.
Video I found online of Cedar Rapids Crandic bridge collapse.
Short line Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Railway lost its Cedar River crossing as high water swallowed it. C&IC had placed loaded railcars on the bridge to try and weight it down to prevent a collapse; those cars are now in the river. The former Milwaukee Road crossing allows C&IC trains to access customers in downtown Cedar Rapids. Two other railroad bridges, both owned by Union Pacific, also cross the Cedar in this town.
djb39 -It’s amazing to watch a heavy steel bridge “float” down a river like that! I wonder if it would have lasted longer or survived all together without that extra weight on it. Once the water got up to the car bodies, it looks like they acted as a sail in the water and helped push the bridge over.
That’s an interesting idea, but realistically probably not. In a ‘normal’ flood condition, the added weight of the loaded hoppers on the bridge would go a long way in helping to resist the tendency of the bridge piers to overturn in the onrushing waters. Obviously this situation was anything but normal, and once the piers were submerged and the river started flowing against the bridge itself, all bets were off. Flowing river water like that exterts a tremendous force on anything in its path. While the additional exposed area of the cars certainly didn’t help, the bridge’s fate was likely sealed at that point anyway.
The part floating probably wasn’t the steel portions of the bridge, the floating parts were probably wood walkways, etc (notice what looks like railings on them).
The steel portions may be swept along the bottom by the flow and if the bridge is taller or wider than the water is deep parts may stick out of the water, but they aren’t “floating”.
Dave H.
That’s why I put “float” in “quotes”[;)] I wonder if the water flow scoured the pilings out or if it just ripped the bridge off the top of the pilings?