Amtrak Woes

[kevin_standlee]

Amtrak canceled trains 5/6 (the California Zephyr) west of Salt Lake City due to the severe weather conditions out here. I can see that it would have been pretty difficult for them to get through. Interstate 80 has been closed most of today, and I've not seen many trains of any sort here. Thursday was the last westbound Amtrak coming this way before the cancellations. The westbound train was running more than nine hours late, and we were following its progress on Amtrak's Track Your Train map. The train came to a halt at Darwin siding (east of Fernley), but we did not hear anything on the radio scanner to explain why. Venturing out into the howling windstorm, we could see lots of red blinking lights down the tracks. After maybe an hour, the wind had subsided a bit and Amtrak finally came through, but the blinking lights were still there, so we got in the Astro and drove down to Main Street Park (former home of the Bottlecap Gazebo). We could see lots of fire engines and a bucket truck on the opposite side of the tracks, but no obvious fire. Lisa then noticed that none of the houses in that are were showing any lights. It was too dark to take any photos, but the next morning when I ran out to get some milk, I saw what appears to explain the emergency vehicles, the lack of lights on the houses, and the extra hour of delay that afflicted Amtrak.



The bucket pole truck (which appears to be from NV Energy) appears to be holding up this power pole. There is a power line that stretches over the tracks here. I conclude that the pole failed on Thursday night in the wind and the power line fell onto the railroad tracks. (This might also explain a very brief outage we had at hour house, as power surged.) This would have required the railroad to be closed until they could get the line cleared.



While the wind was much less violent on Friday, we could see that the storm that has been hammering the Sierra Nevada was slowly heading toward us.

Although the Rolling Stone is ready to be collected, we told Big O not to expect us until Monday. There's no sense trying to drive that RV in a wind storm.

Edit, March 3: There had been a bucket truck out there the night before when I couldn't take pictures, but I've had it pointed out to me that there was no bucket on the truck in this picture and it was actually a pole truck designed to hold a pole in position like this pending a proper fix.

Comments

Train Woes

[belak]

I have periodically checked the webcam in downtown Truckee to see the snow accumulation and traffic over the last few days to "watch" the snow.

For about an hour off and on that I was watching while waiting on something else, the rail crossing at Bridge St between Donner Pass Road and East River Street had the guards lowering every 5 minutes or so, staying in the down position for about 30-60 seconds with no train or other vehicle approaching, then lifting, then returning again in a few moments. One poor truck pulled up, waited and then as the arms started to raise, inched forward, only to have the arms come immediately down again, so he stopped and repeated the waiting! I kept watching just to see what would happen really.

Then at one point, the guards came down and did not lift again in the time I watched. There was a plow truck in front of the guards and it was quite clear no trains or other vehicles were traveling the tracks as the snow was barreling down at a good clip and accumulating. Most everyone seemed to know to turn down East River to go around, and a few souls went thru the crossing after looking up and down the tracks. I presume that there was a short in the system or some other foul up as no sane person would be out in that weather and no trains were due through there due to the storm.

I hope you can get someone out to repair the roof quickly and no other damage occurs!

A quick check of the Nev DOT cams shows a little snow in Fernley this am and a check of the CA DOT cameras shows LOT over I-80 at Donner etc. Be safe and stay warm!

Re: Train Woes

[kevin_standlee]

We are staying as warm as we can, as we still have plenty of propane and firewood. Also, I've bought another pallet of firewood that we will pick up in a few days, long before we need it.