Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 21, 1993 TAG: 9308210045
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES ALLEN FLANERY and MARY de ZUTTER OMAHA WORLD-HERALD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For U.S. railroad executives, this summer's floods in the Midwest were a runner's equivalent to hitting the wall. Technology and herculean effort often succumbed to a wall of water the likes of which hadn't been seen in the history of American railroads.
Computers can pinpoint the location of a rail car within three feet and detect a rail break hundreds of miles distant. But the nation's railroads learned this summer that their technology often is no match for water moving so forcibly it washes roadbed out from under rails in seconds, leaving the rails suspended above a gulch and the roadbed a misshapen pile of rock and dirt.
"We would never build railroad tracks along rivers today," said Bill Wimmer, an engineer in charge of repairing damage to Union Pacific's tracks.
Railroads were built in river valleys because the flatter land was easier to build on and because hilly areas require more locomotive power to keep trains moving.
It is important still to have railroads near rivers, said Burlington Northern spokesman Jim Sabourin, because a large amount of grain is transported from railroad to river barge and from barge to rail.
Still, the consequences of decisions a century ago to route railroads through river valleys are now painfully apparent:
More than $200 million of damage to tracks, signals, switches and bridges, plus tens of millions of additional dollars of lost revenue because trains had to detour as much as 1,000 miles to escape marauding rivers.
Nearly 4,000 miles of track out of service at various times. Burlington Northern, the nation's largest railroad, had 400 miles of track under water at one point. Chicago and North Western had 283 miles under water.
More than 2,000 trains diverted to alternate routes to avoid the rampaging Missouri, Mississippi and lesser rivers. Some trains have been delayed two weeks or more.
Between 750 and 1,000 rail cars and locomotives damaged. Norfolk Southern Corp. alone reported damage to 155 cars and locomotives.
More than 80 battered or destroyed bridges. Bridge repairs and replacement alone will cost more than $15 million.
As disasters go for railroads, this one easily ranks No. 1 in the century and probably No. 1 of all time in the United States, according to the files of Trains, a monthly magazine that has chronicled the industry for 53 years.
"But there's been nothing like the floods," said Trains editor Kevin Keefe from his office in Waukesha, Wis.
This summer, for Union Pacific alone the loss is an estimated $50 million, according to railroad analyst Susan Chapman in New York City. That includes damage to facilities, repair costs and reduced operating revenues.
Fortunately for the industry, the flood losses come while railroads are financially strong.
Over the past decade, they have abandoned unprofitable lines, cut their work force in half - to 198,000 employees - and embraced technological advances. Last year, return on investment was 30 percent greater than the average return each of the previous nine years.
The major railroads say they will survive, and the smaller, short-line railroads are being helped by $11 million in federal disaster aid.
But disrupted railroads disrupt other sectors of the economy.
"Our grain distribution system is in turmoil," said Tom Racciati, president of Peavey Co., a division of ConAgra Inc., in Minneapolis. "No one is able to operate normally - either by railroad or barge traffic."
Racciati said grain deliveries to flour mills, feedlots and exporters have been disrupted.
Delayed coal trains prompted utilities throughout the central United States, from Nebraska through Arkansas, to implement contingency plans that took some of the production load off their coal-fired plants. Busy coal routes from the mines in Wyoming through Lincoln and Kansas City, Mo., to points south were out of commission for more than a month, and some remain closed.
"It did affect us, but not in terms of limiting generation because we have a stockpile of coal," said Jerol Garrison, spokesman in Little Rock for Arkansas Power & Light. Many utilities reported using as much as two-thirds of their normal reserves of coal, plus turning to other fuels to generate electricity.
Tom Nagel, an Omaha-based manager of operating practices for Burlington Northern, had to decide what to do about two trains with a wide mix of cargo stranded on their way south from Nebraska to Kansas City. Water had quickly risen to 10 1/2 inches deep on tracks at Waldron, Mo., deep enough to ruin the locomotives' traction motors if he tried to run the trains through the water.
A crowd of about 100 gathered as Nagel decided to try a maneuver that - as far as he knows - hadn't been tried before. He hooked the trains together and used the second train's locomotives to push the first train through the soup. The locomotives on the first train, meanwhile, set their throttles wide open to allow air to be pushed over their motors, keeping them dry.
The crowd cheered as the first train - safely through the water - took over the job of pulling while the second train took action to save its motors.
Today, all that's running on that line are carloads of dirt, gravel and rock, which gangs of workers are using to replace washed-out roadbeds in hopes of opening the line.
For the industry as a whole, the reopening of all lines is weeks or even months away.
by CNB