Nothing is moving around Richmond on CSX and around Charlottesville on NS. Worse problem is Auto train 52/02 Jan is stalled just short of Lorton 11+ hours due to trees caught under 1 or more cars. 53/03 passengers are stranded outside station with no info. No info from Amtrak.
Cancellations -- As of 2130 = 79 at WASH makeup train at Richmond probably one cancelled there, 89 at RVR, 19 at wash, 89 holding at ALX wonder if it will make Richmond, Expect more to come
20 and 176 holding south of Charlottesville, Holding 92 at Petersburgh, 90 at Richmond, 91 at ALX
Have to wonder if these track problems are due to lack of MOW personnel at both NS and CSX due to furloughs and C-19?
Did a windstorm go thru there?
This was posted 2 hours ago
SERVICE ADVISORY UPDATE: Trains traveling between Washington (WAS) and Richmond (RVR) are still experiencing heavy delays due to ongoing winter weather conditions in the region.
EDIT apparently many trees down?
here are some links
Biggest mid-Atlantic snowstorm in years kicks off the first week of 2022 (msn.com)
WTVR.com | News, Weather and Sports from WTVR Richmond
The second link probably explains that RR personnel cannot get to stalled trains?
EDIT
Home (nbc12.com)
Richmond News & Weather| Richmond, VA| 8News (wric.com)
Spending January and February in Florida is validated yet again.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I-95 jammed no way to rescue the Amtrak trains IMO. Guess those T&E crews will not stop being on duty. Hope the locos have enough fuel.
Amtrak Alerts (@AmtrakAlerts) / Twitter
blue streak 1EDIT apparently many trees down?
Lots n' lotsa trees down! The snow came down like wet concrete starting in the wee hours Monday, but before that there was a massive wind-driven deluge that had rain hammering the side of the house. THEN the snow came.
600+ accidents on the highways here in Virginia plus plenty of power outages. It was a mess yesterday! I cleared the driveway this morning, surprisingly easy, but spent almost two hours clearing packed and semi-frozen snow off the cars. Lady Firestorms Kia Soul still has stuff on the roof but I'm taking a break and letting the sun do some of the work.
You know, I like snow at Christmas time for tradition's sake, but after January 1st, forget it! Although the lights I haven't taken down yet looked pretty last night!
Railfans used to take pride in the fact that the railroads could be relied upon in weather that stopped all other modes of transportation cold. See this photo published in Trains of an FL9 bringing a NH express through a blizzard - one of worst to to hit the East Cost in history - on the Hellgate Bridge in '67;
https://imgur.com/UT9ojeY
What's the matter, NS and CSX don't have plows anymore?
BEAUSABRE What's the matter, NS and CSX don't have plows anymore?
It's probably more like the don't have the personnel anymore. The days are long gone when there were plenty of section crews who lived within walking distance of the job and could be called up a moment's notice to take care of problems of any kind that would arise.
Certainly there's a lot of money saved in labor costs but as we can see there's other prices to be paid.
The days of "The 'Century' MUST get through!" are over.
Flintlock76The days of "The 'Century' MUST get through!" are over.
Which is unfortunately true. But what about freight customers depending on timely delivery of the cargo? Or are they satisfied with "We're unrelaible but cheap" from the railroads?
Not specifically related to the Amtrak disruptions, but I just don't understand the Virginia mindset. Every year they get blasted by at least one major blizzard and they never seem to be prepared. They seem to think that they are in the south and it's always an anomaly. Sorry, you're less than 100 miles south of Pennsylvania and there they know that they're in the north. It's time to buy some snowplows and salt trucks.
Backshop They seem to think that they are in the south
Well, they are south of the Mason-Dixon Line
Which happens to be the southern border of the Keystone State. Heck South Jersey is south of the Mason-Dixon Line, y'all. We just don't grow cotton or tobacco down here. Cranberries, yes. Tomatoes, yes. Whether the bolls are rotten or not, we don't pick much cotton
Mason-dixon-line.gif (438×291) (wikimedia.org)
When I was stationed in Norfolk in the 1970s, whenever it snowed it was a major thing every time as they didn't seem to have plows and people just didn't understand how to drive in the snow, but it snowed every year! It was always an emergency and a time to panic.
BEAUSABRERailfans used to take pride in the fact that the railroads could be relied upon in weather that stopped all other modes of transportation cold. See this photo published in Trains of an FL9 bringing a NH express through a blizzard - one of worst to to hit the East Cost in history - on the Hellgate Bridge in '67; https://imgur.com/UT9ojeY What's the matter, NS and CSX don't have plows anymore?
The amount of snow that fell did not require the carriers to have plows to move it. What was required was arborists in mass quantities to deal with the trees that the heavy wet snow felled across the tracks.
Today's trains can move a foot or two of snow without much difficulty - moving trees is a whole nother matter.
The one thing railroads need to operate under the worst of Winter conditions is MANPOWER. With PSR the carriers have pared their manpower to the bone, to the point that every man is required just to keep operations moving in good weather. There is no excess manpower to deal with Mother Natures Winter droppings.
BackshopNot specifically related to the Amtrak disruptions, but I just don't understand the Virginia mindset. Every year they get blasted by at least one major blizzard and they never seem to be prepared. They seem to think that they are in the south and it's always an anomaly. Sorry, you're less than 100 miles south of Pennsylvania and there they know that they're in the north. It's time to buy some snowplows and salt trucks.
I can't speak for Virginia. In Maryland, a day or two before the predicted storm, road crews are out spreading a brine solution on the major roadways. There are plows and salt trucks that operate through the storm.
In the Blizzard of 1958 our family got stuck with friends of ours as my Dad's 57 Buick's transmission gave up the ghost in trying to buck snow getting to the friends house. Mom & I stayed with the friends for a week - a week before the bulk of the roads were reopened to traffic. That is no longer the case - main roads are open the day after the storm stops - side streets take a little longer.
Great publicity for Amtrak.
Amtrak passengers have been stuck on a train for nearly two full days in Virginia because of the winter storm (msn.com)
Travelers don't care about excuses. They want RELIABLE transportation. If Joe's Oxcarts are slow, but they get to where they are scheduled to go on time, they'll get business. Twelve hours late because you've stabbed by dispatchers or stalled for days because the railroads don't maintain the their property (and remember, freight, where the money is is, backed up too) doesn't cut it,
BaltACD. What was required was arborists in mass quantities to deal with the trees that the heavy wet snow felled across the tracks. Today's trains can move a foot or two of snow without much difficulty - moving trees is a whole nother matter. The one thing railroads need to operate under the worst of Winter conditions is MANPOWER. With PSR the carriers have pared their manpower to the bone, to the point that every man is required just to keep operations moving in good weather. There is no excess manpower to deal with Mother Natures Winter droppings.
Pacific Gas and Electric has learned a pretty steep lesson in the cost of not maintaining your property due to the fines they has to pay. Time for the STB to step up?
It's a bit difficult to legally trim trees that are growing alongside but not on the right-of-way and belong to somebody else.
CSSHEGEWISCH It's a bit difficult to legally trim trees that are growing alongside but not on the right-of-way and belong to somebody else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG59X7bMDpA
BEAUSABRE Backshop They seem to think that they are in the south Well, they are south of the Mason-Dixon Line Which happens to be the southern border of the Keystone State. Heck South Jersey is south of the Mason-Dixon Line, y'all. We just don't grow cotton or tobacco down here. Cranberries, yes. Tomatoes, yes. Whether the bolls are rotten or not, we don't pick much cotton Mason-dixon-line.gif (438×291) (wikimedia.org)
Quite true. The Mason-Dixon Line never officially went through NJ but as the map shows it very well could have.
In fact, the "line" went through the campus of then Glassboro State College. We students from North Jersey used to joke if you went from Mimosa Hall dorm to the main building of Bunce Hall you were in "enemy" territory!
Backshop CSSHEGEWISCH It's a bit difficult to legally trim trees that are growing alongside but not on the right-of-way and belong to somebody else. Maybe, maybe not. Our local utility (DTE) has contracts with Davey and Asplundh to constantly going on private property and trim trees that endanger power lines.
Maybe, maybe not. Our local utility (DTE) has contracts with Davey and Asplundh to constantly going on private property and trim trees that endanger power lines.
A few years back on a service call I spoke to a gent from Buffalo NY. He told me the power company up there was absolutely ruthless in trimming trees back from electric power lines. They wanted NO outages due to heavy snowfalls or ice storms breaking branches and bringing down lines. They didn't care who owned the trees and the local authorities backed them 100%.
BaltACDI can't speak for Virginia.
I think I can speak for the city of Richmond, they have a very reliable system for dealing with heavy snowfalls.
It's called "Spring." Always works too!
In all fairness though if dirty weather is predicted in the form of snow or ice storms the VA DOT will go out and brine the highways and main roads. That wasn't done this time as heavy rains were predicted ahead of the snow (we got those heavy rains too) so the DOT didn't brine, saying if they did the rain would wash it away before the snow came.
Are heads going to roll over this? I don't know.
Flintlock76A few years back on a service call I spoke to a gent from Buffalo NY. He told me the power company up there was absolutely ruthless in trimming trees back from electric power lines. They wanted NO outages due to heavy snowfalls or ice storms breaking branches and bringing down lines. They didn't care who owned the trees and the local authorities backed them 100%.
Our power company out here is the same. If you have trees in their easement, they will cut them so no falling branches will hit a wire, whether you like it or not.
York1 John
I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer? He said, "No, but it will seem longer."
York1 Flintlock76 A few years back on a service call I spoke to a gent from Buffalo NY. He told me the power company up there was absolutely ruthless in trimming trees back from electric power lines. They wanted NO outages due to heavy snowfalls or ice storms breaking branches and bringing down lines. They didn't care who owned the trees and the local authorities backed them 100%. Our power company out here is the same. If you have trees in their easement, they will cut them so no falling branches will hit a wire, whether you like it or not.
Flintlock76 A few years back on a service call I spoke to a gent from Buffalo NY. He told me the power company up there was absolutely ruthless in trimming trees back from electric power lines. They wanted NO outages due to heavy snowfalls or ice storms breaking branches and bringing down lines. They didn't care who owned the trees and the local authorities backed them 100%.
Ditto with ComEd around Chicago. They must have all learned the same techniques for butchering trees.
charlie hebdoDitto with ComEd around Chicago. They must have all learned the same techniques for butchering trees.
Obviously I can't speak for Buffalo NY or Chicago, or for where York1 lives, but when we lived in the New Jersey Skylands and the JCP&L crews came through trimming trees (We got some SERIOUS snow up there!) they were very professional, made clean cuts and didn't leave a mess behind. We never lost a tree on the property due to sloppy trimming.
We never lost power in the five years we lived there either.
Just came upon a Wenatchee report of Empire Builder passengers geting to Seattle 3 days late. At least Amtrak treated them better than those in Virginia.
Beyond Wenatchee school buses | Amtrak journey takes several turns over 3 days | News | wenatcheeworld.com
When you get into this situation and need to back the train, I'm not surprised at 'delays'.
Leads me to wonder if some sort of coupler-mounted snowblower arrangement connected to run off HEP would work as a partial solution or alternative?
There's a difference between "snow" and what we get down here in Virginia, "ice and packing wet snow." Ask anyone who's shoveled both, and they'll tell you that anyone can plow and drive through snow, but wet snow that turns to ice overnight, when the termperatures drop, is something else entirely.Because most snow in Virginia begins as sleet or freezing rain, salting and treating roads with chemicals BEFORE a storm is ill advised and done usually when it is known that precipitation will begin as snow. Otherwise, the rain simply washes away the salt and chemicals.With the exception of the mountainous western spine of of the state, there are many years when Virginia receives no snow at all--sometimes for a couple of years consecutively. All state highway dump trucks are equipped to have plows attached to the front of the vehicle in a matter of minutes, and a device to spread chemicals and sand is attached to the rear, so that sand and chemicals are applied to the roadway immediately as it is cleared, so it does the most good. Nine months out of the year, those plows and sanding devices sit rusting in equipment yards, waiting to be used. Virginia is prepared for the usual amounts of snow. It is not accustomed to blizards, especially those for which the weather forecast models indicate 2-3 inches of total precipitation until just before it starts falling, and then, over a foot falls, and does so at the rate of 2-3 inches per hour. Hawaii has snow storms in the higher elevations of some islands, but I don't think they're going to rush out and buy snow plows. Unseasonalbly warm temperatures and an abundance of rain meant that the ground was soft when this storm hit. So soft that the weight of the wet snow and ice, throttled by near hurricane force winds, brought down over 250 trees on the 110-mile long RF&P Subdivison between Richmond and Washington alone. The only way to clear a railroad in a storm like this is with chain saws and front end loaders. If the highways are at a complete standstill, as was the case here, it is near next to impossible to get that equipment to the points where it is needed. The tracks were blocked with standing trains that could not move forward or backward due to the fallen trees.And lastly, every control point between Richmond and Washington has some form of standby electrical generator to press into service should commercial power fail in addition to switch point heaters. After they have been operating for a certain length of time, they run out of fuel, and witih no way to get to them to fuel them, they freeze up.Could CSX (and to a lesser extent, NS) have done something different that might have lessened the damage? Yes. Keeping your railroad clear of vegitation back to the tree line is important in cold weather as well as during the summer hurricane season. Some CSX rights of way look like tunnels through the forest. That's the price you pay, gambling that doing minimal right of way clearing (or none at all), will not hurt you, and will enhance the corporate bottom line.This was a very unusual situation with a set of circumstances that would have challenged highway departments in many other states that are used to wintry weather.
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