Streak,
Think of drumlins as a long sand pile laid parallel to the flow of the glacier, which in the Seattle area was from north to south. My geotech cousin could give a long explanation about their (in)stability. Sand has a very low angle of repose and the sides of the drumlins along the Sound have not got to it yet. I don't think terracing will help, and could hurt. Flattening to the angle of repose would remove a lot of houses on top of the hills. Go to Google Earth and put in Carkeek Park WA. Fly a bit to the south, say to the west end of 125th Street and you can see the problem. 125th runs about 240 foot elevation. The Sound is zero, the railroad is 10 to 15.
Sound Transit's study will give employment to consultants of my cousin's ilk. Any one could tell them for free that there are no cheap solutions, and probably none that could be carried out for figures less than some number of Billions of dollars, which ST does not have.
The old SLS&E, later NP along the north shore of Lake Washington was laregly, if not wholly slide free. It has been gone since about 1970 and is now the Burke-Gillman trail. The tree huggers call it progress.
The former NP from Black River/Tukwilla along the east side of Lake Washington was severed by WSDOT so they could save a few dollars in their 2-3 Billion dollar project to widen I-405 through Bellevue. The line would have been a credible bypass except that it has not been maintained for passenger service for decades, is dark track, and has no sidings that would hold a freight train. The segment through Renton is former MILW with street running and the connection between the former MILW and former NP looks like a couple of industrial tracks that were tied together with two sharp curves back behind the Paccar plant. If WSDOT had not severed the line it would have been useable as an emergency bypass but I do not think such a move has been made since about 1950.
There are no passenger servicing facilities at Everett. I have no idea what ATK does. I guess they go to a yard track at Delta Yard in Everett and bus coach cleaners up from Seattle.
At first glance Stampede Pass as a bypass does not seem like a bad idea. In the day the NCL took about 90 minutes longer than the EB between Seattle and Spokane. That feat is not possible today.
ATK crews are not qualified on the route and BNSF has very few qualified engineers between Seattle and Pasco where they are only running a couple of freights per day. Signals have been removed between Auburn and Pasco, so you are down to 49 mph at best. The NCL went up and down portions of the Yakima Valley at 90 or better if they were late, 79 if they were on time. My first guess is running time would be at least 2 hours longer Seattle to Pasco today than back in the day.
Between Pasco and Spokane you have 145 miles of very congested single track line. This is where the Bressler "management" tore out the SP&S just before traffic came roaring back. In the 1990's the freight crew that made it from Pasco to Yardley (Spokane) counted themselves lucky. I do not have a current source so maybe now they are making it more often than not. I am confident that BNSF has no desire to tie this line segment up with a pair of misplaced passenger trains. Probably figure 2 to 4 hours delay here vs NCL of the late NP time period, at best.
In case of a blockage between Everett and Seattle BNSF has problems. Their entire Northern Corridor is broken. To the best of my knowledge BNSF could run stack trains via Vancouver WA, further congesting Spokane - Pasco as a detour. They could run pure TOFC trains via Stampede in emergency, but if they did would have no crews for passenger trains, which is where we started. Stampede Tunnel has been a resticted clearance location since the 1920's. I know that the NP could never run auto rack cars through it. I do not know if Superliner cars would even clear it.
The bottom line, expect slides between Seattle and Everett, and perhaps between Seattle and Vancouver WA most winters. With luck it will not snow so much as to block Stevens Pass with either snow or rock slide, the Snohohomish River will not flood too bad at Snohomish, and the Wenatchee River will not take out a bridge or two. Winter railorading between Wenatchee and Seattle can be more exciting than anyone involved with it would like and it has been since 1893.
Mac
PNWRMNM Seattle, These hills are glacial drumlins composed of unsorted loose material ranging in size from boulders to clay. When winter comes the material, which has no particular strength to begin with gets wet, which makes it weaker and some time at some place it slides. Slides have been going on in this area since the glaciers retreated some 10 to 15,000 years ago and will probably continue for as long as you I am alive to see it. The BNSF has about 25 miles of this between the Ballard bridge and Everett. Mac McCulloch
Seattle,
These hills are glacial drumlins composed of unsorted loose material ranging in size from boulders to clay. When winter comes the material, which has no particular strength to begin with gets wet, which makes it weaker and some time at some place it slides. Slides have been going on in this area since the glaciers retreated some 10 to 15,000 years ago and will probably continue for as long as you I am alive to see it.
The BNSF has about 25 miles of this between the Ballard bridge and Everett.
Mac McCulloch
MAC: I am not familiar with the actual composition of this Glacial drumlins. Have you seen an analysis of what slope would be needed to mitigate the slide problem? I would think that terracing would not help that much? Sound transit has posted that they are studying the problem so maybe some local source has some ideas? Was the abandoned old NP route Interbay - Snohomish any less prone for slides ? Isn't the Tukwila - Bellevue - Woodinville Jct ( NP ) route out of service or not sutiable for Amtrak ?
These problems the last couple years has really complicated Amtrak service. Both the Cascades service to Bellingham - Vancouver, BC & the Empire builder have had to be terminated at Everett south bound.
I cannot find an old Amtrak timetable for traveling times but has any thought been given to having a standby detour set up through Stampede tunnel? That would be especially true whenever Empire train sets are trapped in Seattle ? I am sure that all BNSF Stampede qualified crews would be used on freights any time that Seattle - Everett is closed? Seems that it would require at the least for Amtrak crews to be qualified over Stampede ? The other alternative is for Empire Builder to operate Seattle - Portland and combine / split at Portland or Vancouver Washington. That would cause a 4:30 delay. How much difficulty does Amtrak have in servicing trains at Everett ?
Slide fences are not designed to, nor will they, hold back a slide. Retaining walls might work if the problem was a cut slope at the toe of the hill. That is not the problem. The line was laid to the water side of the bottom of the hill, see my previous post.
Perhaps the BNSF Rwy can put up slide fences or retaining walls near bad areas for slides to limit the slides during months when the soil is very loose due to rain, that might help limit mudslides.
Here is a summary of last winter's mudslide cancellations.
http://www.soundtransit.org/Search.xml?mode=&opts=&pr=new_www&dropXSL=yes&prox=page&rorder=500&rprox=500&rdfreq=500&rwfreq=500&rlead=500&rdepth=0&sufs=0&order=r&sr=&qu=mudslides&submit=Submit
So now we start another winter of the same problem
Now there has been another mudslide north of Seattle cancelling Sounder and Amtrak Cascades service on the day before Thanksgiving.
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/11/23/2283754/mudslide-suspends-amtrak-cascades.html
I have been on this line several times over the years and know something of its history and geology.
Most of the route is at the base of the hills and the edge of the water. Typically the line is two main tracks built atop a 10 foot high or so wall built of rough cut chunks of granite about 6' wide and 2' tall. I suspect they are at least 4-6 ' deep but do not really know.
The hills are really glacial drumlins composed of mixed sand and gravel with some silt here and there all as deposited by the last continental glacier to come calling about 15,000 years ago. The GN has always suffered from slides in this stretch. In the 1960's one train tried to go over the top of a slide, without success.
At one location, just north of Edmonds as I recall, the GN put in a mile or so long stretch of single track away from the hills in a location that was particularly prone to sliding and where the Puget Sound was shallow enough to support the roadbed.
There are no cheap or easy fixes here. I predict that WSDOT will do nothing. It is not their railroad. Sound Transit runs their commuter trains on it too. Sound Transit is a latecomer having been there maybe a decade. If Sound Transit did not know the history of the line they are way more ignorant than I would give them credit for.
The most reasonable expectation is for slides in the rainy season, which is about 5 months a year. There have been slides here for as long as anyone remembers and the railroad has records for. Any fix would involve filling Puget Sound and the tree huggers, Washington is full of them, would go crazy. The Army would probably not give permits for it either. The one relocation I cited was done in the happy days before fill permits were required.
This winter mudslides on the Seattle - Everette BNSF line has caused at least approximately 40 days of cancellations for Sounder and/or AMTRAK Empire Builders south of Everette. There seems to be no long term work by BNSF and Sounder Rail to permantely eliminate this problem. Everyone is passing the buck stating that it will take too long to do enviromental study to buy extra ROW to dig back from the track.
BNSF has a policy of not allowing any passenger trains on the route for 48 hours after a mudslide. Since the earth on that route is so unstable that seems to be a wise choice. Heard that one BNSF freight went by an earlier slide and got hit (not badly) by another one.
The question becomes what is Washington DOT going to do about this problem.
Also can AMTRAK reroute the Builder over Stampede or is that route un useable because of detoured freight or clearance problems? I realize ther may be some crew qualification problems.
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