We’re about half way through the ice storm of the quarter-century here. About a quarter of all the trees and branches around town are already on the ground. Everything is covered with a couple of inches of ice. It’s now raining / snowing. Outside, I can hear trees falling all around the neighborhood. Right now, I have enough timber in the yard to build Abe Lincoln a log cabin. After the expected 6-10 inches of wet snow and the high winds tonight, I figure I could build Abe a condominium.
And yet, train traffic doesn’t seemed to have slowed down. How’s that work? On the line near my house, that passes by my office, I have never seen a hi-railer. Today, four trains came through. At a time when trees are dropping all over the place and blocking streets, how does a railroad keep ahead of the game?
To give away to a good home: Free firewood- you haul.
You should be able to see the forest after all the trees are broken,
I’m sorry to hear of the damage. You people east of here are certainly having horrible weather. We had two days of high winds, Monday and Tuesday, but I do not know how much damage was done by the winds. I thought that spring was coming, but our lows stay in the forty degree range, and we have not had a really warm day yet.
If your’e an Eastern railroad with the initials"CSX", you don’t. (I think it is a plot to prevent railfans to get a good view of passing trains or keep Amtrak passengers from seeing the country side). Nothing like a hurricane to fix that.
The bear still takes a crap in the shattered woods and life goes on.
I guarantee you that the track and signal departments are out there verifying everything is as advertised. They must have hi-railed by when you weren’t looking.
Good practice says they are. (backed-up by FRA inspection criteria about dealing with extrordinary weather events)…If you had a scanner, there most likely is also additional chatter out there between the train crews and the DS (or somebody else close by) on conditions found.
*to back up Jay’s comments, FRA got into CSX’s “bizness” after complaints from Amthrax and the commuter agencies about storm response and recovery. CSX got dinged on sloppy reporting, but not failure to react. Also, railroads record communications in and out of the dispatchers offices - which doesn’t help much when communications systems fail due to weather. (facts, not hearsay, is what would determine a Code 1)
Track crews are not taking care of business. They have taken care of business. They have cut back and trimmed trees and brush so it won’t fall on the tracks. We don’t do that with streets for aesthetic reasons but in an ice storm we pay the price.
Uh Murphy, could you do me favor? Pack up some of that cold and send it to Richmond Va. We had temperatures in the 80’s on Tuesday, the 90’s on Wednesday, and the 80’s again today. I’m dying with the heat!
If this keeps up I’m going to have to put a “Toy Trains and Christmas” DVD in the player in a cool-down effort!
We occasionally have problems with trees across the tracks, despite an excellent effort by our track forces to keep it to a minumum. When a 100’ tree growing just outside the ROW decides to fall onto the tracks, there isn’t much you can do about it but hope it doesn’t get under the wheels.
Ice Storm '98 here was a similar event to what you’re getting - a day and a half of freezing rain that eventually required the replacement of between 8,000 and 10,000 utility poles.
Chain link fences turned into “glass block walls.”
Power was out for upwards of 10 days for most folks, and much longer for those who live way out in the woods. Fire departments from all over NY state sent “strike teams” to help us out.
The storm ran from northern NY into Canada. One memorable video from the storm was that of a steel power transmission tower collapsing under the weight. A local radio station lost their 300 foot tower, and a Canadian TV station lost their 1000 foot tower.
No doubt despite the best efforts of a railroad or any other land owner a sever storm can cause serious damage. Yet I don’t think we disagree that it is important, very important, to make the “excellent effort” you describe to keep the right of way clear.
Our challenge is how much we can cut due to being in the Adirondack Park, which has restrictions that make a homeowners association look like a free-for-all.
Naahh - that’s more like raw material for lumber that hasn’t happened yet ! [swg]
Up in the Pocono mountain region of northeastern PA, after 2 years of late October major storms (Halloween Ice Storm in 2011, Hurricane Sandy 2012), there’s still so much fallen timber that almost every day I see fully loaded log trucks - and there’s still lots more where that came from !
Adirondack Park is a special situation. I suppose the best you can do is to try to know where the trees are which are ultimately going to fall in a storm.
My son and I cut and dragged branches and trees all day long. If we can get them to the curb, the city will haul them. I can honestly say, that today we piled up enough trees and branches to fill a two car garage. We are about half done. [xx(]
Last night, I treated myself to dinner. A new Pepperjax Grill opened, and it’s supposed to have yummy Phillies. (sp?) (It was yummy!) As I waited in line, I started looking at old-time photos on the walls. Like a lot of national chains, Pepperjax Grill likes to have a lot of local flavored, old-timey junk on the walls. In looking at framed, old-timey photos on the walls, I laughed so loud that I startled an elderly woman in line behind me. When I explained why, she laughed as well. Among the photos was a picutre of an 1860’s vintage steam engine, complete with baloon stack, pulling two flatcars. Each flatcar had 2 logs on it, each about 4 to 5 feet in diameter. The caption read “Logging train in Sioux Falls, S.D.”. I bet I’d have to drive a thousand miles to find trees that big.[(-D]