I do railway work for BNSF, and I don't think people grasp how quickly they can get lines back up and running. If we have a rail switch (turnout) failure you are talking hours to remove and replace it. Modular switches are stockpiled all over the USA for that reason, and the mainline is no different.
That said, the mainline is a different animal, but railways have equipment and supplies ready to move the instant something goes down. I've seen a washed out bridge repaired in a few days, including ballast and track. Granted this was the USA, but I don't feel CP or CN would operate any differently.
I will always be pessimistic and I hope I'm wrong then. But large swathes missing from a line, and odds are in remote areas where one has to be fixed before you get to the next.... it just seems daunting and much worse than just surface rail/switch replacement. Especially when bridge supports are undermined. I think back to the bridge over the bow heading into the Ogden yard that had an undermined pier as a result of the 2013 floods. That took ages to get going before they were running trains over it again.
If they can do it within a week, then I'll be damn impressed. Perhaps the motivation is greater this time since well... there is no profit if you can't run.
I do railway work for BNSF, and I don't think people grasp how quickly they can get lines back up and running. If we have a rail switch (turnout) failure you are talking hours to remove and replace it. Modular switches are stockpiled all over the USA for that reason, and the mainline is no different.
That said, the mainline is a different animal, but railways have equipment and supplies ready to move the instant something goes down. I've seen a washed out bridge (the structure was still generally intact but the rail was toast) repaired in a few days, including ballast and track. Granted this was the USA, but I don't feel CP or CN would operate any differently.
Some of the challenge around these rail issues will come down to road access, too. They need to get there somehow.
I will always be pessimistic and I hope I'm wrong then. But large swathes missing from a line, and odds are in remote areas where one has to be fixed before you get to the next.... it just seems daunting and much worse than just surface rail/switch replacement. Especially when bridge supports are undermined. I think back to the bridge over the bow heading into the Ogden yard that had an undermined pier as a result of the 2013 floods. That took ages to get going before they were running trains over it again.
If they can do it within a week, then I'll be damn impressed. Perhaps the motivation is greater this time since well... there is no profit if you can't run.
CP says that they'll have the route between Kamloops and Vancouver opened tomorrow. You can be pessimistic all you like, but they're not making that kind of a statement if they don't think that they can do it.
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You quite literally just drive equipment down the track, and keep going.
It's really cool to watch this stuff in action.
I was more thinking they can't drive around to fix areas ahead of other damaged areas. So yes, you can use that method, but it's fixing one spot at a time. And I presume repairing that washed out bridge is going to require some vehicle work from the road that doesn't exist, since the foundations look to need repairing/replacing.
CP says that they'll have the route between Kamloops and Vancouver opened tomorrow. You can be pessimistic all you like, but they're not making that kind of a statement if they don't think that they can do it.
edit: Good lord, they really did throw everything they had at it.
To repair the railway infrastructure, CP crews:
Moved 150,000 cubic yards of material to rebuild the damaged areas, equivalent to 10,000 tandem dump truck loads or 30,000 one-ton dump truck loads of earth, riprap (rock) and other construction material
I will always be pessimistic and I hope I'm wrong then. But large swathes missing from a line, and odds are in remote areas where one has to be fixed before you get to the next.... it just seems daunting and much worse than just surface rail/switch replacement. Especially when bridge supports are undermined. I think back to the bridge over the bow heading into the Ogden yard that had an undermined pier as a result of the 2013 floods. That took ages to get going before they were running trains over it again.
If they can do it within a week, then I'll be damn impressed. Perhaps the motivation is greater this time since well... there is no profit if you can't run.
Sure. I doubt bridge work is going to be repaired that quickly, but there's no reason alternate routes can't be opened back up that reroute around those structures.
Getting that line up and running is an absolute PRIORITY for the country, and the railways know it. Canada's busiest port has been choked off, with approx ten thousand sea cans arriving every day behind what is already backlogged.
"The Port of Vancouver is about the same size as the next five largest Canadian ports combined. Home to 29 major terminals, the port is able to handle the most diversified range of cargo in North America: bulk, containers, breakbulk, liquid bulk, automobiles and cruise. As the country’s gateway to over 170 trading economies around the world, the port handles $1 of every $3 of Canada’s trade in goods outside of North America. Enabling the trade of approximately $240 billion in goods, port activities sustain 115,300 jobs, $7 billion in wages, and $11.9 billion in GDP across Canada."
Our company relies on that port, and I'm not worried about it. Yet.
Looks like the coast could get another storm with the same volumes of rain.
Isn't this one targeting a little further north, along the mid coast of BC. Watch, now Hwy 16 and CN's other mainline will get hammered cutting off Prince Rupert.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
CP says that they'll have the route between Kamloops and Vancouver opened tomorrow. You can be pessimistic all you like, but they're not making that kind of a statement if they don't think that they can do it.
This is extremely impressive and I don't mean to belittle the effort but rail capacity is still cut in half (probably more) until CN's line is open again. The two companies share trackage through the Fraser valley for efficiency sake - running southbound trains on one line and northbound trains on the other.
Still, color me impressed with the progress CP has made so far.
Isn't this one targeting a little further north, along the mid coast of BC. Watch, now Hwy 16 and CN's other mainline will get hammered cutting off Prince Rupert.....
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Perhaps, I just saw a screen shot of this tweet with has floating around my company chat.
Two more atmospheric rivers are going to hit on Thursday and Saturday this week. There is some worry that even if the total rain amount is less than the one 2 weeks ago, it could combine with snow melt is some areas.
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Two more atmospheric rivers are going to hit on Thursday and Saturday this week. There is some worry that even if the total rain amount is less than the one 2 weeks ago, it could combine with snow melt is some areas.
Yah couple that with the freeze eventually coming to Merritt and that place could be frozen solid for a while.
I heard around 700 homes plus commercial properties are still under water.
The freeze can't hold off forever.
Stay safe FlamesAddiction
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CP says that they'll have the route between Kamloops and Vancouver opened tomorrow. You can be pessimistic all you like, but they're not making that kind of a statement if they don't think that they can do it.
I mean in 2005 CN (or CP? Can’t remember) fixed their rail after the derailment at wabamun while there was still oil flowing into the lake… they can work real quick.
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This is extremely impressive and I don't mean to belittle the effort but rail capacity is still cut in half (probably more) until CN's line is open again. The two companies share trackage through the Fraser valley for efficiency sake - running southbound trains on one line and northbound trains on the other.
Won't be half. Trains are going south at Winnipeg and taking BNSF to Seattle and then to Vancouver. Takes longer, but will reduce the traffic on the newly repaired section.
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Not only is BC looking at more rain in the forecast but NFLD is bracing for a big storm that sounds like it could be pretty devastating. If there is a bright side for the NFLD it is not expected to be that bad for the populous eastern coast although if the smaller communities in the SW get cut off it could be devastating to them.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Environmental studies need to take a while to understand conditions. Of course real studies take a long time. You need data and data takes time to collect, and analyzed. Then, it needs to go into report form which undergoes multiple rounds of comments by various geologists, hydrologists, and from the Provincial Environmental arm. Time is not on their side, but it’s not their fault. There’s no real way to speed things up on the environmental side. Hell, consultants working for developers, those reviews tend to go out yearly with a whole years worth of data. It’s not a small task.
It seems pretty unlikely that they'll be doing environmental assessments in these emergency conditions. A simple risk analysis will tell you the economic impact of doing things the usual or even the expedited way for enviro stuff will excessively impact the entire BC economy more than any impacts their work would have on any flora and fauna there, especially considering we're into the winter months.
I say this in general and not to you specifically, but some of the speculation of how long things take to repair on social media is really leading to some panic and hysteria from those who don't know enough about the situation. Trying to quash the disinformation about how these emergency repairs usually go would go a long way in calming some nerves out there, but that's probably a full time job at this point.
There's nothing wrong with discussing it here in a sensible manner, but as an example I was chatting with my parents who were getting concerned they wouldn't be able to travel from the Okanagan to the Lower Mainland for general travel "until late 2022" which apparently someone had claimed on Facebook. This is the telephone game in action: one person says it's hard to fix these things, another person takes that and says it'll be months before anyone can drive there, another sees a couple pictures out of context and says years, and so on, and suddenly the story morphs into a beast that causes panic or despair.
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Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
Highway 3 is out again... seems like this is just going to keep happening.
The same story says the road reopened 4 hours later, which is really good. This will probably be a regular issue for the immediate future and probably not unexpected.
I say this in general and not to you specifically, but some of the speculation of how long things take to repair on social media is really leading to some panic and hysteria from those who don't know enough about the situation. Trying to quash the disinformation about how these emergency repairs usually go would go a long way in calming some nerves out there, but that's probably a full time job at this point.
Quite frankly it's because we've seen how long other repairs take, or how long it takes to build something in North America. I'm still shocked we were able to get this done that fast. Now imagine building an overpass that requires the same amount of dirt moved on flat prairie, but told it has to take 1.5 years.
