Nobody knows when it will blow, 6 months or 10,000 years from now. But what if earthquakes became much more frequent and the ground at the Yellowstone caldera started to rise? Would it be worth it to try to move rolling stock to other parts of the US? Besides millions of people and their health, access to a huge deposit of oil under NW Colorado and Utah, plus PRB coal would probably be cut off.
Forget the coal, it is said that it would cover the western half of the country in volcanic ash, bring down any plane that flies in the ash. It could kill millions if they breath it in. Tracks would be buried, and the air filters on locomotives would get clogged. I would guess that the government would use every Amtrack trains filled as full as possible to evacuate people, and may also use rolling stock like boxcars to evacuate people if the situation would be bad enough. It would be a major disaster. Let’s hope that day won’t come anytime soon.
If that sucker blows it will dramatically alter life as you know it. That said, there are no signs that it is in the near future, and we have other actual problems which need our attention.
What’s so special about Yellowstone vs any of the other US volcanoes. Mt St Helens, which did erupt with lots of economic and some human loss, is a lot closer to Portland and Seattle than I imagine Yellowstone is to any big cities, and somehow we did not experience the Rapture in 1980.
Yellowstone is not your typical volcano on a mountain peak. The entire Yellowstone area is the caldera of a supervolcano, and if it were to erupt it would make Mt. St. Helens look like a pimple. They categorize the damage in a 500-mile radius as “devastation”, within a 100-mile radius as “annihilation”.
If Yellowstone blew… human caused global warming would be irrelevant…
Is that like how when we want a time machine is irrelevant?
In a word size. For a rough comparison St. Helens would be as a fire cracker and Yellowstone would be as a nuclear bomb. Assuming normal winds, most crops between at least the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains would be lost due to ash fall. New Yorkers would experience huge food price increases. Surface transportation would take weeks or months to recover. Removing the ash would be far worse than removing snow.
That said, there are plenty of more probable disasters to be concerned about.
Mac McCulloch
This falls under the “bigger problems” category. IIRC, the ash would block out the sun for a few years.
True, and it would induce several years of global cooling relative to what the trend would have otherwise been.
Mac
I’d put the probability of an eruption as one out of 100,000 to 500,000 per year. Pretty sure that we would have some warning of an imminent eruption as what happened with Mt St Helens.
- Erik
I recently read that they think it could erupt for 10 years and effect the world climate for 100 years. It’s 1000 miles directly west of me.
Tourism would take a big hit. [:-^]
Need to define “erupt” to know if it would be a problem… if it were an equivalent percentage of the total area as what happened Mt. St. Helens, then, yeah… big problem… but volcanoes erupt on Hawaii all the time and all they do is add to the island. More of a tourist attraction than a major catastrophe.
Yogi and Boo Boo would have to move?
With the constant several-years-long winter and ash fall, grain shuttle trains would also take a hit. Of course, that diesel is probably more useful in trying to survive…
On the Big Island, the volcanos slowly release lava which results in lava flows, that don’t move fast. They burn huge stretches of land and turn it all into black lava rock. Most volcanos on the main land don’t have lava flows. Instead the lava and gas is trap inside, an pressure builds until it blows. It is like filling a ballon with a hole versus a ballon without a hole. When you fill them the hole will vent the contents do it would completely fIll while the ballon without the hole will fill until it blows.
Buy stock in an emergency preparedness company 
I imagine the railroads would be more concerned with getting the product moved and shifting what assets could be moved along with the loaded trains. Priority of assets moved would probably be based on value of asset and need. For example MOW equipment might be first to move to outlying(or projected unaffected) ROW of affected railroad before the mass evacuation of locos and rolling stock. This would allow the railroad recovery to take place from less to most affected areas. Plus the employees would be able to actually get to the MOW equipment.
However, as stated, railroads would not be high on the list of concerns immediately after a major eruption. As some have predicted this could be a dinosaur extinction type of experience–not immediately, but a slow, staving type of experience due to the low world wide temps, low light, and ash cover over the major farming areas on the US. Thus my half joking statement about buying stock in emergency preparedness companies, however, for anyone concerned with this type event, the serious comment would be to buy the product of the emergency preparedness company as the long shelf life food and water would be far more valuable than any financial stock.
Jay
It is apparent that several of our members don’t understand the super volcano that is currently powering the Yellowstone Park. However no one seems to believe that an eruption is coming in the near future. Well; no one but the usual conspiracy theorists.
A few of these posts evidence that some have done their homework. B+ for you. Here’s the extra credit:
The dome is always rising, in baby steps. Increased incidence of earthquakes is definitely a concern, irrespective of an eruption. But even in the case of the Yellowstone Supervolcano, earthquakes are quite localized. Mainline railroading hasn’t been interrupted, & isn’t likely to be. It’s too far away.
Now for “Geology 101”. There are 3 types of volcano: “Cinder Cones” which are ~ 400 ft high. These can be found around St George Utah. They are not going to grow into full-size volcanoes. In fact, they’re completely dead.
“Andesite” volcanoes: These are the triangle shaped ones, typified by Mt Shasta, Mt Hood, Mt Fuji, & yes, Mt St Helens. 'Nuff said.
“Rhyolite” volcanoes: The indisputably, irrefutably, most massive of all. & Yellowstone is considered the biggest of the big (as the NPs once were). Make no mistake. If Yellowstone erupts, people on other continents will be too busy with their own survival to feel sorry for North Americans.