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Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Iowa flooding shuts down Canadian Pacific line, other railroads brace for flooding
I did too. This is nowhere near '93. That affected the entire upper Midwest and set records everywhere. The current crests, while high, are isolated and widespread record flooding is not expected.
Been though Flood of 93. I think 500 year floods are coming every 5 years now.
My thoughts and prayers are with those whose homes, businesses, employers, and farms are affected by this flooding as well as by the hurricane in the Carolinas. This includes Burlington Junction and its customers as well as several farm families I know north of Burlington. Both of my parents grew up on farms in this area and I still have friends and relatives there. It also includes Big Muddy’s, a restaurant in the former Rock Island freight station at Burlington. It is next to the Burlington Junction and has been flooded before.
I hope BNSF is able to keep the main line at Burlington open and the California Zephyr rolling. Does anyone know the status of the BNSF river crossings at Ft. Madison, and West Quincy, of the lines between Burlington and St. Louis, the BNSF and CP lines along the Mississippi north of Savannah, or the Iowa Interstate along the Illinois River?
Does anyone know of detour routes? I would guess NS would use their own lines via St. Louis but could use KCS. CP could use UP between Clinton, IA and Polo, MO, but that is just a guess also.
Out here in the far west, we’re experiencing a crippling drought, and yet the upper Mississippi has floods. Feast or famine is the rule, and has always been so. Or is this just another case of “climate disruption?”
At the end of the steam era, steam locomotives sometimes substituted for diesels because they could splash through water that would disable a diesel’s traction motors. Maybe CP could borrow an Iowa Interstate 2-10-2. I would like to watch that!