# Raising Amtrak routes above future sea level



## neroden (Dec 30, 2021)

2 foot rise within a few years, 10 foot rise likely to follow.









Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' could meet its doom within 3 years


Thwaites Glacier is roughly the size of Florida, and holds enough ice to raise sea levels over two feet.




www.livescience.com





This will be a problem for every route which goes near the coast, and their yards. (As well as for lots of other infrastructure in the same cities.) I still believe Hialeah Yard in Miami needs to be vacated and relocated somewhere with much higher elevation, further north. (How about Albany NY?) Sunnyside Yard in Queens is at risk too and so is Boston. Perhaps most at risk is the route from Seattle north along the beach, which is pretty much hopeless and will require a completely new route.


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## TrackWalker (Dec 30, 2021)

I believe the BNSF seawall track north of Seattle averages about 15 feet above sea level.

The lowest point is on the Bellingham Subdivision just north of the North South Bellingham switch where during king tides with storms the waters of Bellingham Bay laps the bayside mainline ties.



It actually does get worse than this example.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 30, 2021)

Although Amtrak would feel the effect, it is the host railroads that will have to deal with the problem (except for Amtrak-owned track of course).


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## PVD (Dec 30, 2021)

There are reports available on the Amtrak site that discuss this. Businessweek had an interesting article (2018?) with a graphical representation of the effect on the NEC, it's on the server in the school where I sometimes used it in a class I was teaching for electrical apprentices. If I can find it on a flash drive at home I'll post it later.


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## TrackWalker (Dec 30, 2021)

This it?









Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor


By the middle of this century, climate change may punch a hole through the bottom half of the Northeast Corridor.




www.bloomberg.com


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## PVD (Dec 30, 2021)

Yes, but I had it without the add for subscription.....There is a section of the article where the graphics represent the water levels in different areas over time.....I used the metro NYC area and asked students to raise there hand if they lived in an area expected to be impacted by the sea level rise and greater storm surges.


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## DaveW (Dec 31, 2021)

IF it actually happens. dikes will be made or raised faster than the coast goes under water.


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## Cal (Dec 31, 2021)

neroden said:


> Perhaps most at risk is the route from Seattle north along the beach, which is pretty much hopeless and will require a completely new route.


Would only need a different route to avoid the tracks that skirt Pablo bay. I think the rest in California are safe, but erosion is also a thing so


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## me_little_me (Dec 31, 2021)

Would it really make a difference? The cities and towns will be flooded so unless local transit consists of ferry boats, there would be no need for the train anyway. Moving or raising the tracks is nickel-dime in cost vs moving the cities or even building giant walls around them and their suburbs as they turn into islands off the coast. Unless the fright ships own the waters, Amtak could become Amtrak Ferry Line and not need to be bothered anywhere as much by freight interference and delays.


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## joelkfla (Dec 31, 2021)

me_little_me said:


> Would it really make a difference? The cities and towns will be flooded so unless local transit consists of ferry boats, there would be no need for the train anyway. Moving or raising the tracks is nickel-dime in cost vs moving the cities or even building giant walls around them and their suburbs as they turn into islands off the coast. Unless the fright ships own the waters, Amtak could become Amtrak Ferry Line and not need to be bothered anywhere as much by freight interference and delays.


OK, but if NYC & Wash DC or Philly are still there, Amtrak still needs to get across or around the Jersey wetlands to get between them.

But I'm with you on being disgusted that the global problem is still being ignored for the most part.


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## MARC Rider (Dec 31, 2021)

The real doomsday scenario might well be in South Florida. They can build dikes and stuff to keep the sea away from the NEC and the Capitol Corridor that skirts San Pablo Bay, but South Florida is underlain by very, very porous, permeable reef rock that doesn't allow dikes to be effective. The changing sea level just propagates itself through the rocks under the dikes. Also, a two-foot rise is sea level would wreak havoc with anything that requires gravity drainage, and this is not only for storm sewers, it's also for sanitary sewers. In other words, a lot of South Florida, even places not right by the water will be rendered more or less uninhabitable. Expect a lot of new development in the Orlando-Ocala area as people relocate.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 31, 2021)

Cal said:


> Would only need a different route to avoid the tracks that skirt Pablo bay. I think the rest in California are safe, but erosion is also a thing so


I see potential danger for the Coast Line north of Oxnard and Ventura. Also, the Surfliner route south of San Clemente to Oceanside (already having erosion/settling problems).


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## west point (Dec 31, 2021)

What is the elevation of the Trenton underpass on the NEC?


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## Willbridge (Dec 31, 2021)

When the BN was into selling off chunks of its system, they disposed of their higher elevation line between Puget Sound and British Columbia (see attached flyer). On the other hand, flooding with rainwater got to be a problem at the Sumas/Huntingdon border crossing. I have a grandson who has a knack for technology - I think there'll be lots of opportunities in railway maintenance of way engineering.


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## George Harris (Dec 31, 2021)

neroden said:


> 2 foot rise within a few years, 10 foot rise likely to follow.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Perhaps before we decide the sky is falling, we should do a little arithmetic. 
just for reference, From NOAA: Volumes of the World's Oceans from ETOPO1 | NCEI
Surface area of the oceans, 361,900,000 sq km = 139,700,000 sq mi (to 4 significant figures
which covers approximately 70.9% of the total earth's surface
Area of Florida: 65,758 sq mile from Wiki. = 170,312 sq km, for the sake of keeping all in the same units
However, if we go to ITGC Thwaites Glacier
We get the following:
The area is really larger than Florida. 
The Thwaites glacier basin measures 192,000 sq km, however, note this says basin, so is this the area of the glacier itself or is it more?
The glacier is between 800 meters and 1200 meters thick "at its grounding line"
Then as we go down the info we get to the panic statement: "*If Thwaites Glacier was to collapse entirely, global sea levels would increase by 65 cm (25 in)"*

But wait! Don't stop yet. Go a little further and you find, "Collapse of the glacier would require a few centuries.":

This is stashed in with such information as, that its current rate of net loss is around 50 billion tonnes of ice per year, which is equivalent to about 4% of the net annual sea level rise of 3.5 mm, that is millimeters, folks.

The Glacier site ends on this panic note:

*More about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS)*
*20. WAIS is large! *14 times the size of Great Britain, about the size of India, nearly twice the area of Alaska, or more than 100 times the area of Belgium.

*21. If the WAIS collapsed and melted in its entirety, global sea levels would rise by 3.3 metres*; however, this process would require centuries to millennia. _(Source: Bamber et al., 10.1126/science.1169335)_

When reading it, don't miss, "this process would require centuries to millennia."

Given that all these possibilities are being developed on straight line or even "hockey stick" projections of measurements over relative short periods, 15 to 50 years, at most, much can happen far different from any of these projections. Within my lifetime I have seen the Great Salt Lake going from, "oh no! It's drying up" to "oh no! we are going to have to raise I-80" back to "Oh no, it is drying up"


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## peteypablo (Jan 1, 2022)

I’m willing to put money and/or my reputation where my mouth is. Global sea level will rise, but it will not rise two feet within three years. It might rise two feet by 2100, but I’d happily offer an even odds bet on that, though we’d have to find a committee of teenagers to hold the stakes until the bet matures.


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## 87YJ (Jan 1, 2022)

Take that bet!


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## SwedeC (Jan 1, 2022)

From NOAA:
Global sea level has been rising over the past century, and the rate has increased in recent decades. In 2014, global sea level was *2.6 inches* above the 1993 average—the highest annual average in the satellite record (1993-present). Sea level continues to rise at a rate of *about one-eighth of an inch* per year.


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## George Harris (Jan 1, 2022)

87YJ said:


> Take that bet!


I would see if you would bet with me also, and give you odds up to even 10:1, but for:
1. I don't gamble.
2. I won't be around to collect, and 78 years from now most of my grandchildren probably won't be either.



SwedeC said:


> From NOAA: . . . Sea level continues to rise at a rate of *about one-eighth of an inch* per year.


Just said that above as in "net annual sea level rise of 3.5 mm"
3.5 mm = 0.138 inches, or 1/8 inch if to nearest 1/32 inch
1/8 inch = 3.175 mm exactly, or we could call it 3.2 mm as being more precise in pointless, but suspecting the original was done in metric units, again we get if the original calcs came up with 3.5 mm you would call it 1/8 inch in our more sensible measuring system.


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## DaveW (Jan 1, 2022)

at 1/8" per year, we will be at 2' in hardly no time ....

compounding the issue is the west coast land is rising (sea level has gone down in Alaska)

and according to Bill Nye the science propaganda guy, when salt water increases in temperature, it expands. Sea level rise would not just be added water but also warmer water.


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## west point (Jan 1, 2022)

Where land is rising and sea level dropping means that the sea water displaced has to go around the world rising sea levels just a smidgen.


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## peteypablo (Jan 1, 2022)

DaveW said:


> at 1/8" per year, we will be at 2' in hardly no time ....
> 
> compounding the issue is the west coast land is rising (sea level has gone down in Alaska)
> 
> and according to Bill Nye the science propaganda guy, when salt water increases in temperature, it expands. Sea level rise would not just be added water but also warmer water.



Yes, a mere 192 years.


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## peteypablo (Jan 1, 2022)

87YJ said:


> Take that bet!



Which bet and how much money?


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## peteypablo (Jan 1, 2022)

George Harris said:


> I would see if you would bet with me also, and give you odds up to even 10:1, but for:
> 1. I don't gamble.
> 2. I won't be around to collect, and 78 years from now most of my grandchildren probably won't be either.
> 
> ...



Math is hard. I prefer feelings.


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## pennyk (Jan 1, 2022)

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## George Harris (Jan 2, 2022)

It was not my intent to disparage anybody, but merely to say, hey look a little deeper before concluding this to be a major problem in need of short term mitigation. There are many crying needs out there where short term money would better be spent. From the picture, there are obviously some areas where near term solutions are advisable, but in the case shown, a 12 inch ballast raise would probably solve things for a long time to come. When we look at coastal cities, New Orleans is a prime example of some things that can be done. You can bet when the city was first settled it was NOT five feet below sea level as it is now. It has settled over the years due to underconsolidated ground. Levees have been built, large capacity pumps installed. Recent flooding was due to failure to consider some of the possibilities that should have been considered. When, and it should be when and not if, some of the decrepit fixtures in the Northeast Corridor are rebuilt, better protection from flooding should be part of it, Potential seal level rise should be considered as part of that redesign, but only part of it.


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## Metra Electric Rider (Jan 2, 2022)

The issue is that sea level rises won't be equal everywhere - some places will have less and others more (don't ask me to explain the geophysics of it all). I don't think there's anywhere on Amtrak where there will be rebound (such as we'll see in Greenland and have been seeing since the ice age in Scandinavia - it's why some ports there are now inland). I think that the NEC in CT and that area, along with some of the west coast routes are the places where, from an Amtrak perspective, focus needs to be placed.


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## D&H_FtEdward (Jan 3, 2022)

Interesting to consider this in relation to the proposals for inland NYC-Boston route.


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## west point (Jan 3, 2022)

D&H_FtEdward said:


> Interesting to consider this in relation to the proposals for inland NYC-Boston route.


Hasn't there been high water cancellations east of New Haven in the past?


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## Tlcooper93 (Jan 5, 2022)

Climate resilience construction is a good thing, regardless of whether sea levels are rising or not...

The NYC subway flooded already... The tunnels below the Hudson are vulnerable already... bridges are in danger already. People died and will continue dying unless changes are made.

Spending money on measures to protect vital infrastructure is a good thing whether or not you agree with rising waters due to climate change.


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## MARC Rider (Jan 5, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> Spending money on measures to protect vital infrastructure is a good thing whether or not you agree with rising waters due to climate change.



And the rising waters don't care whether you agree with them or not, they're just going to continue to keep rising.


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## tgstubbs1 (Jan 5, 2022)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> ..sea level rises won't be equal everywhere - some places will have less and others more ....



The sea levels rise a lot when there is a storm surge.


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## neroden (Jan 6, 2022)

Thanks to the people who pointed out specific areas of track which are more at risk than others and which should be considered in future planning. That's what I was looking for.


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## George Harris (Jan 7, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> Climate resilience construction is a good thing, regardless of whether sea levels are rising or not...
> 
> The NYC subway flooded already... The tunnels below the Hudson are vulnerable already... bridges are in danger already. People died and will continue dying unless changes are made.
> 
> Spending money on measures to protect vital infrastructure is a good thing whether or not you agree with rising waters due to climate change.


Reality is most engineers are not as dumb as we may look. There is a list of standards to be considered in designing for water flow and flooding. Usually they are expressed in year intervals of likely occurrence. Like 10, 25, 50, 100 year interval. Usually you don't go beyond 100 because reality is that you don't have enough money to do everything. Reality is that designing for a 100 year storm does not mean that it will only occur once in 100 years. It means that every year you have a 1% change of having a storm of that intensity. As an example, quite a few years ago, in the 70's I think, Richmond VA had a 100+ year flood 6 times in 10 years. They have not had any that has gotten anywhere close since. Generally subdivision and other street inlets and storm sewers are designed for 25 year floods, BUT it is also a requirement that overflows not impact buildings. Never done that sort of thing, so I cannot say what that overflow design return period is. Generally for major highways it is 50 or 100, but again, that is nominal ditch and culvert and bridge capacity. It does not mean if you exceed it the world ends. 

During the period I was in Taiwan the Taiwan Railway had been placed below ground and the first portion of the Mass Rapid Transit system completed. The downtown MRT station on the Red line was below the TRA station. The city / national government was well on its way to completing a set of 500 year storm walls and levees around the city. All that was left was a relatively short section of levees designed to hold back the design 200+ year river flow. And Then:!! We had Typhoon Nari. While most Pacific Typhoons follow a relatively predictable path, this one did not. It made landfall and then stalled. The area covered by the typhoon was almost identical to that of the Keelung River basin which is the river flowing by Taipei city. We had three days of hard rain falling on the entire river basin. The 500 year walls and levees had water quite a ways up them, but were not near to being overtopped. However, the 200 year levees were overtopped. As a result we had 3 to 5 feet of water in many streets and water into the TRA and MRT tunnels. There was a picture taken from the top of one of the escalators to the railway platform that showed about 5 feet of water over the platform, and obviously more over the track. What that really meant was that the MRT station was full to the ceiling. Although there was quite a bit of political uproar, it was ultimately recognized that you cannot protect everything against everything. However, the remaining system of levees to 500 year flooding was completed post haste. 

Back to the subject at hand, yes, anything new should be based on the possibility of a two foot seal level rise, but I really consider that overkill. Who knows what the climatic trends will be over the next 100 years. More consideration should be given to storm surges that appears to currently be the case. That consideration should probably appease the 2 foot panic people. What I would do, is for every coastal line along the west coast any section needing rebuilding should be about 25 feet above sea level. This is not for sea level rise, but for tsunamis.


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## neroden (Jan 9, 2022)

Basically, what global warming has done to flood risk (the primary mechanism is sea level rise, the secondary mechanism is the intensification of hurricanes and similar storms due to more heat in the ocean and atmosphere), is to require the redesign of all the flood risk maps to raise the risks. It's not so much the threat of being permanently underwater; more that the risk of storm flooding has gone up a lot in many of these locations.

In some places, based on the new data, former 100-year floods are now 20-year floods; former 1000-year floods are now 100-year floods; all the percentages just went up. Unfortunately the work to complete updating the flood maps has not actually been done and the maps have not been updated in a lot of places, which means that engineers should add a safety margin based on where scientists guess the new flood maps are likely to be. Better if the new flood maps were all ready but they aren't.


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## John from RI (Jan 10, 2022)

west point said:


> Hasn't there been high water cancellations east of New Haven in the past?


During hurricanes in 1938 and 1954 portions of the New Haven's Shoreline Tracks were washed out. Long Island buffers much of the Connecticut coast from storms but north of New London there is no buffer. 

In Providence the water was about 5 feet deep during the storms. However, the tracks were elevated well above the water. Then under Mayor Vincent Cianci a new stations was built and a deep cut through the city was made. That's where the tracks run now. They are in or near land that was part of a tidal basin but was filled in many years ago.


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## Willbridge (Jan 10, 2022)

The flooding of the Portland<>Seattle line has happened randomly since it was built. When I was a kid, the NP was able to get Pool Train 408, ancestor of Amtrak Train 11, through by assigning a steam engine ("the mail must go through!"). However, the problem this month was deep enough to keep trains from wading through it.


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## George Harris (Jan 10, 2022)

neroden said:


> In some places, based on the new data, former 100-year floods are now 20-year floods; former 1000-year floods are now 100-year floods; all the percentages just went up. Unfortunately the work to complete updating the flood maps has not actually been done and the maps have not been updated in a lot of places, which means that engineers should add a safety margin based on where scientists guess the new flood maps are likely to be. Better if the new flood maps were all ready but they aren't.


Visit fema.gov/flood-maps and you will see:


> Flood maps help mortgage lenders determine insurance requirements and help communities develop strategies for reducing their risk. The mapping process helps you and your community understand your flood risk and make more informed decisions about how to reduce or manage your risk.


Nothing here about engineering design. There is a discussion on this page about the updating process, which says in essence it won't be fast.


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## neroden (Jan 10, 2022)

You may accuse me of thinking like a financial guy (which, well,... I am) but I'm all about building things which won't require filing insurance claims to replace them after storms!


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## Metra Electric Rider (Jan 11, 2022)

Willbridge said:


> The flooding of the Portland<>Seattle line has happened randomly since it was built. When I was a kid, the NP was able to get Pool Train 408, ancestor of Amtrak Train 11, through by assigning a steam engine ("the mail must go through!"). However, the problem this month was deep enough to keep trains from wading through it.


Was this flooding on the Sound or from rivers elsewhere on that stretch?

FEMA's flood maps are causing a lot of problems along Lake Michigan and may bankrupt a few moderate income condominium buildings on the lake in Chicago unfortunately, due to the massive insurance increases they are causing (like 6 figure increases


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## George Harris (Jan 11, 2022)

After this, I will say no more about any of this stuff unless asked.

This entire thing about flooding is not a simple subject with easy answers. As to the flooding along the tracks parallel to the Sound,


> Was this flooding on the Sound or from rivers elsewhere on that stretch?


Good question: Not enough information seen to answer, but the solutions could differ significantly based on the source.

As to: 


> FEMA's flood maps are causing a lot of problems along Lake Michigan and may bankrupt a few moderate income condominium buildings on the lake in Chicago unfortunately, due to the massive insurance increases they are causing (like 6 figure increases


Again, much more information needed. Blaming the flood mapping may be shooting the messenger. Could be there are deficiencies that the flood studies are simply highlighting. If the maps are in error, then this issue needs to be raised by engineers competent in the field of flood analysis and management, and structures in/near flood prone areas. 

My general thought as an engineer has always been to consider the data on the FEMA maps as the lowest elevation to consider and go up from there to get to a reasonable elevation. If in flood prone areas, do not even consider having a building floor elevation below the nearby road elevation.


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## Willbridge (Jan 12, 2022)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> Was this flooding on the Sound or from rivers elsewhere on that stretch?



On the 6th and 7th service between Seattle and Portland was disrupted by river flooding around Chehalis. The "new" line used by passenger trains between Tacoma and Lacey is higher than the line along the Sound. This is related to the record snowfalls that messed up Trains 7/8. 

Washington flooding, snow closes roads, rain breaks records (usatoday.com)


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## cirdan (Jan 12, 2022)

Cal said:


> Would only need a different route to avoid the tracks that skirt Pablo bay. I think the rest in California are safe, but erosion is also a thing so



Where the value of the land is high enough, money will be found to protect the land, be it against erosion or rising sea levels. Nobody wants to lose high value land and as long as the costs of protection are less than the costs of losing the land, that is the logical thing to do.

It's the low value land that is most at risk. Uninhabited land away from cities.


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