Who'll stop the rain: Flooding along Old Man River causes operation screw ups.

[Mr. Railman]

      In the North, Union Pacific and CP had to reroute their trains, UP over their Milwaukee lines, then CP on the UP lines a few weeks after UP flodout. UP had floods in the twin cities, while CP had flooding in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin. Now BNSF and UP has to deal with flooding in the southern midwest region. Amtrak's Texas Eagle and City of New Orleans has to cut it's full trains into two different trains for each route. If this continues, the BNSF line North of Savannah, IL and the CP EX ICE route could be put out of service as well. It's almost like 2009 all over again 

[wjstix]

Here in the Twin Cities area it wasn't as bad as expected (although my normal route to work in DT St.Paul just re-opened yesterday after being closed for a month) since the melt came in spurts rather than one massive one like 1965. The water came pretty close to the tracks but didn't actually get over them in any areas I could see. Still it's pretty impressive to see water 20' feet from a train line when it's supposed to be 200' away!!

[beaulieu]

The BNSF line north of Savanna, IL is past flood problems now, CP is still out in downtown Davenport, IA but otherwise is no longer threatened. The problems have moved further south.

[Altafest]

I was out between Savanna and Dubuque this past weekend to check things out.  Everyone seemed to be running as I caught ICE train 271-23 going through DBQ, and shortly after he passed CN train 337 came across the river.  BN was their usual busy Saturday.
I have been watching the flood gauges on the NOAA site, and the water is dropping very rapidly now. I wanted to get over to Sabula, but didnt feel like driving down to Clinton, IA or DBQ then down (or up) and then all the way back around. I run the E-W main and one of the guys showed me a pic he got sent to him of the engineering building by the Clinton bridge, it was about half under water when the pic was taken last Thursday, which was about the peak. 
At Savanna, Marquette park was submerged.  The Lazy River Marina at the north end of Savanna on 84 where the BN main peels away from  84 was under water and the bait shop was about half submerged. The camping grounds there were completely under but judging by the water marks on the trees the level had already gone down almost a foot by Saturday.  Even more interesting was just north of there, there is a farmers field between 84 and the tracks, about a 1/4 mile apart or so.  His field was completely under water.  Looked like 100 acre lake. 
Gears Ferry at Galena had water right up to the right of way although not threating it at all.  E. Dubuque had some flooding on the west side of the tracks in town. 
Only thing in town on the ICE was a pair of SD40-2s (local power?), one of which was and EMD leaser which I am pretty sure was a MILW unit before that. I did see, however, a westbound ICE train near Kittredge, but was not sure which way that one was headed, Up the river or down when the line opens. 

[Pistol Pete]

 the BNSF line North of Savannah, IL

  Savanna, Il.......................... NOT  Savannah, Il.

[rvos1979]

CN main is still out at Cairo, IL, Army Corps blew up levees last night or night before to try to save the city, worst flooding since the Great 1937 flood......

[Victrola1]

http://www.archive.org/details/mississippi_flood_1927

04:38 - Unloading relief supplies from box cars.

05:10 - Levee work along the railroad tracks.

10:10 - Sec. of Commerce Herbert Hoover with G. E. Patterson, General Manager Illinois Central R. R.

What did this flood cost the railroads in today's dollars?

 

[blue streak 1]

Cario, Il has shut down rail.

CN is already announcing that Memphis service may be curtailed in the future.

A more important question is:: Is it possible that any of the Mississippi river RR bridges may suffer damage??  I seem to remember that the KCS bridge at Vicksburg had a major scoring problem a few years ago that required work and the problem occurred during a not so high river?? If I were KCS or NS I would be cooncerned. Anyone know of any other bridges that may be in danger? . .