Amazing the minimal time lapse. If construction projects could be done with such expertise and speed. Yikes! Close your cab window!
It's amazing what a private company can accomplish with initiative, and organization. Like we said down here after Hurricane Katrina, get rid of FEMA and give us Wal-Mart any day. Wal-Mart was here, fully organized within 18 hours of National Hurricane Center declaring it was over.
The washouts have been incredible--the one at Tunnel 2 once was a Denver & Salt Lake wood trestle. Clay siding always has been a problem child with landslides and unstable ground under the siding, so this is no surprise. Coal loads generally are not allowed to hold the siding for that reason. Looks like pretty widespread land/rockslides all over. K3ndawg, any intel on points west of Tunnel 16? I imagine the bridge at MP 36.45 prolly washed out, being so close to the roadbed, and more landslides all along the route to Rollins. Any issues above Rollins?
That little bar in Rollins is one of my favorites around there. I am curious about how that ballast conveyor works. Do they have to pull away and leave each empty ballast car aside on a siding and then return with the next full car to the conveyor?
No. The train has a continuous conveyor under it. They can dump one car, or the entire train as they need. And since the conveyor swings, they can dump what they need right where they need it. Or pile materials for later use. See also: http://www.georgetownrail.com/materialHandling/dump_train.php Can also check the link for additional detail.
I see, that is pretty neat. I suspected there must be something of that nature, otherwise I think you would only push one full car up to the spreader at a time.
A lot different from the days of bottom chute discharges, with someone walking along manually controlling aggregate flow.
Fascinating. CSX didn't use this technique during the rebuild of the New Orleans/Mobile Sub after Hurricane Katrina. Instead they used the "bottom chute discharge" Ken referred to, but the chutes were controlled remotely by a guy with a handheld controller and a radio to the engineer. IIRC he was the ground calling for movements by the engineer, then opening the correct ballast hopper doors with his controller. This was fun to watch, and so was the whole rebuild operation...took months.
They only thing about the continuous conveyors, or Georgetowns as we call them, is they can't deliver materials on much of a curve or the belt that carries ballast/roadbase, binds up under the cars. Which means the UP won't be able to use one at the big washout. Instead, they use them to load side dumps at a straight siding not far away, and shove the side dumps up to the cut. At that point they use bulldozers and excavators to move the fill. In the particular washout between Tunnel 2 and 3, they've cut a road and are using dump trucks to haul material. Should be 2-3 weeks at most before they start running trains across. Hemi - They've fixed everything above Tunnel 3, and yesterday, the 23rd, they sent in a work train from the West side. If I remember right, the managers said that the damage above Crescent siding was minimal, but there were a lot of "spots" that need attention. Now it's all "mostly" fixed (read - slow orders). Above Rollins, there were small rock slides, but those were taken care of quite quickly.
Must be a heck of a road--that's not the flattest territory around... Good to hear things are progressing. I'm quite surprised to hear no other major washouts or bridges disappeared in the higher elevations--many are very close to the water level.
Not that I've ever seen, but that may not mean much. Hemi - The heaviest of the storms parked over the foothills near Boulder. The upper valleys still got a lot of rain, but if you look at a terrain map, the rain that caused the big washout fell on a relatively small area. Same story for the rest of the front range. A big portion of the rain fell within the first 3-5 miles of the mountains. In effect, it was like the rare "up-slope" snow storms that dump 3-4 feet (or more) of snow on the front range, but the ski areas see much less.
So three weeks for sure? I have heard the rumors that it may be through November before Amtrak will return from Wyoming. Just curious is all.
Just got the word. The Moffat Sub is "kinda" open. MoW is continuing to work, but 2 empties have come over the hill and more are lined up for tomorrow and the coming days. Pretty amazing work. I should get some pictures tomorrow when I meet with the local managers.
WOW, I am Very Impressed. It took CSX about six months to reopen the line between New Orleans and Mobile after Hurricane Katrina. OK, I'll admit that CSX was dealing with nearly 150 miles of track with a lot of roadbed and at least 20 bridges totally wiped out, but still, your rapid response is very impressive.
K3ndawg, That's great news! I wonder if they installed a larger culvert? Reported from the D&RGW Yahoo groups: "Well kids, the word on the street is that the track is actually back in place over "the big hole" and they are running the last few work trains over it. I can tell you for sure that 1) the work trains based out of Cliff are terminated. 2) they had removed every individual from the Moffat pool, and they just added 8 turns today. 3) there are trains on the lineup to go west again 4) one of the union reps is saying that they will be running trains starting sometime after midnight tonight. (The first one on the lineup as of right now is for 10 am on 10/2). This is amazing that it's open even earlier than the aggressive estimates of last week. Very impressive!"
