Amtrak News

[Eris]

Have I missed where someone posted these two pieces of news?

1/20/2008

Slide Cuts Amtrak Line

OAKRIDGE, Ore. - A Sunday mudslide covered railroad tracks in the Cascade mountains, disrupting rail service.

The weekend slide happened in a remote area near Oakridge, about 55 miles southeast of Eugene. The slide area is remote, and rail crews had to build a road just to reach it.

The rail line remained closed Sunday night into Monday morning. It could be another day or two before the Union Pacific line re-opens. Not only does that cut freight service, but it's also the rail line that's used by Amtrak's Coast Starlight.

Amtrak has had to put its Coast Starlight passengers on busses to get them between Portland and Klamath Falls.

1/21/2008

Amtrak reaches tentative pact with eight unions

On Friday, Amtrak and eight rail labor unions reached a tentative agreement, avoiding a Jan. 30 strike.

 

[AlanB]

I don't believe that the mudslide has been reported here, but the settlement of the strike was both reported and discussed in this topic.

 

[Eris]

Oops! Missed that, thanks!

Still, mudslide is news, right?

 

[mikeyas]

What a bummer. I've been eyeing the Amtrak site for the last couple of weeks. I have a trip planned Feb. 13 up to Seattle from LAX and was waiting for a roomette to drop in price from what I paid. Saturday when I checked, they still had roommettes and bedrooms available but when I checked yesterday, the train was full and every train from todays until Feb. 15 is showing as sold out. I really hope this doesn't mean that they're anticipating it taking that long to clean up.

 

[jjrespini]

What a bummer. I've been eyeing the Amtrak site for the last couple of weeks. I have a trip planned Feb. 13 up to Seattle from LAX and was waiting for a roomette to drop in price from what I paid. Saturday when I checked, they still had roommettes and bedrooms available but when I checked yesterday, the train was full and every train from todays until Feb. 15 is showing as sold out. I really hope this doesn't mean that they're anticipating it taking that long to clean up.

It has been 34 days since we arrived to clean up this slide. Most have not stopped working 7 days a week since Jan.19th when this started. There is currently no estimated finish date as the mud continues to slide. Here are a few pictures if you are interested. http://www.budandraven.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2496

 

[George Harris]

It has been 34 days since we arrived to clean up this slide. Most have not stopped working 7 days a week since Jan.19th when this started. There is currently no estimated finish date as the mud continues to slide. Here are a few pictures if you are interested. http://www.budandraven.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2496

Thank you much for the pictures and info. At this point it appears that UP is still saying about beginning of April to their freight customers. Also, for info, this from the National Forest people:

www.fs.fed.us/r6/willamette/newsandevents/news/2008newsarchives/080130landslide.html

Date: January 30, 2008Contact: Judith McHugh 541.225.6305

Oakridge -- “Slope instability is a natural part of the West Cascades ecosystem.” With those words 30 year veteran geologist Doug Shank summed up his preliminary investigation of the 60 acre Frazier slide that closed the Union Pacific Railroad just east of Oakridge, OR. Despite being hampered by snow, Shank spent a day scrambling over the failed slope. “The greatest portion of the slide is in the timbered area, and that is where the slide likely originated” says Shank. “All the standing timber, including the old growth, was straight, indicating that the area has been stable for at least five centuries, and likely longer. Additionally, the depth of the failure zone is deeper than the rooting depth of trees and so loss of root strength is not a likely component in the cause of the failure. ”

The slide has two parts: an upper 20 acres where the failure originated and the 40 acre path the saturated debris and rafted trees made as the slide thundered down the mountain. Approximately 5 acres of the upper portion of the slide was harvested in 1992 and planted in 1995; this portion of the slide did not move as far downslope as did the more heavily timbered portion of the slide. All timbered areas considered for harvest are evaluated for slope stability and other resource concerns prior to harvest. Geologist Shank could find no evidence that suggested the harvested area, or the access road above the harvest unit, caused the slope failure.

Despite the continuing heavy snowfall, lead geologist Mark Leverton has been working closely with the railroad personnel to get the rail line operating, “I’m really impressed by the level of cooperation we’re experiencing during this clean-up. Everyone onsite is doing what is necessary to protect the resources and get the rail running again.” While the mechanism for failure is unclear and may never be determined, further investigation will occur when spring snowmelt allows geologists and engineers to view the site again.

There is an aerial photo of the slide zone in its pre-slide condition with the slide marked on it at:

www.fs.fed.us/r6/willamette/newsanddevents/news/2008newsarchives/080130landslide.pdf

There is also a UP letter with pictures of the slide that you can click on and enlarge at:

www.uprr.com/customers/updates/2008/0201.shtml

As long as "the mud continues to slide" the re-opening date is indefinite. Even after reopening, there may be a slow order for quite a while. After all is settled, probably this summer sometime, the track will need to have a ballast cleaner run to get all the dirt out followed by a good lifting and lining job.

 

[wayman]

There is an aerial photo of the slide zone in its pre-slide condition with the slide marked on it at:www.fs.fed.us/r6/willamette/newsanddevents/news/2008newsarchives/080130landslide.pdf

There is also a UP letter with pictures of the slide that you can click on and enlarge at:

www.uprr.com/customers/updates/2008/0201.shtml

For some reason, the Forest Service and the UPRR like to show the slide moving "down the page", when it actually moved northeast. Here's the area of the slide on Google Maps. (I drew in the area of the slide roughly as on the Forest Service map, with Sites A-D marked as on the UPRR map.)

Google Map of Mudslide