Sunset Limited/Texas Eage bridge fires causing service disruptions

[Todd]

Sunset Limited Train 1 which departed New Orleans (NOL) on 4/6 will now terminate in San Antonio (SAS) due to a bridge fire east of Alpine (ALP). For further assistance please call 1-800-USA-RAIL.

Sunset Limited Train 2 which is scheduled to depart Los Angeles (LAX) on 4/6 is now cancelled due to a bridge fire east of Alpine (ALP). For further assistance please call 1-800-USA-RAIL.

 

[jis]

The bridge in question....

https://www.cbs7.com/2022/04/06/railroad-track-fire-brewster-county/

 

[Brian Battuello]

Ouch! Great picture in the news story. Doesn't look like a huge bridge but will have to be completely rebuilt.

 

[Todd]

I'm doing SL #2 to New Orleans on 4/15; hope this gets resolved or has a workaround available by then.

 

[Brian Battuello]

Unless there is a decent alternate track, which I doubt in that sparsely populated area, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

I wonder if Union Pacific has a standard set of plans and materials standing by for such contingencies.

By the way, it is NOT this fire, but trying to look it up, I found this amazing railroad bridge fire video. Keep watching....

 

[Todd]

They haven't cancelled #1/#2 in either direction except for today. Booking still available for #2 on 4/8.

 

[TinCan782]

I'm doing SL #2 to New Orleans on 4/15; hope this gets resolved or has a workaround available by then.

UP is pretty agressive when it comes to re-opening their lines...they need to keep their freight rolling and the dollars coming in.

 

[Brian Battuello]

I forgot that we're not talking about a government owned bridge used by the general public. It's a single purpose bridge on private property owned by a private company for their own private use in a state that prides itself on limited regulation. Building codes? We don't need no stinking codes...

 

[jis]

I have this odd imression readin multiple books on the development of railroads in the Southwest, that in the first half of the 20th century Santa Fe spent scads of funds to replace the original wood trestles with more modern metal and concrete structures, while SP did much less in the way of keeping its infrastructure modern. Things were bound to catch up eventually.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

By the way, it is NOT this fire, but trying to look it up, I found this amazing railroad bridge fire video. Keep watching....

That's insane (and impressive and amazing)!!

I have this odd imression readin multiple books on the development of railroads in the Southwest, that in the first half of the 20th century Santa Fe spent scads of funds to replace the original wood trestles with more modern metal and concrete structures, while SP did much less in the way of keeping its infrastructure modern. Things were bound to catch up eventually.

Maybe to avoid rebuilding after every brush fire?

 

[GAT]

Well, I wonder how long I should sit tight on my 4/30 #1 departure. It would be nice if Amtrak gives us a status report soon.

 

[George Harris]

Unless they have a reroute plan for the Sunset, I would say this is going to be more like a month or two before things are up and running. Several years ago something similar happened to the Sacramento River bridge just north of Sanfrancisco CA. They were very quick on the replacement. Nothing I saw said so, but I would guess they had most of the materials on hand as part of a system improvement program. With the fire, that bridge got kicked to the top of the list. I suspect it will be much the same here. If I recall correctly, they did it with their own forces, not with a contractor.

For end to end freight, there is a good bypass route by following the old Texas and Pacific route. This diverges from the ex SP route all the way from the west end of the bridge at New Orleans to Sierra Blanca TX. UP is unlikely to be happy with running the passenger train on this because of the extra freights, but it could be done. The Sunset could also stay on the current New Orleans to Houston route and then go up to Dallas from there. Nothing north out of San Antonio would be practical, as the only practical route would be to go north to Ft. Worth, then turn west, which would add considerable time and distance. To think bus from San Antonio to El Paso? Nope, that is a very long haul.

 

[dadonatrain]

The subject of rebuilding the bridge to restore freight traffic brings to mind a similar episode that occurred near my home near Augusta, GA, years ago. (Moderators: the Texas bridge event reminds me of this but this isn’t about the Texas bridge, per se, so move this if you want to. But pls don’t kill it. It’s an interesting story and it IS related to the event behind the current thread.)

A main CSX line out of Augusta runs right along a busy local road and right past a big major manufacturing company and next to their property the tracks cross a small wooden timber bridge like the one in TX. The bridge spans a small creek. It washed out during a torrential rain. CSX needed to rebuild it asap and they decided the right way was to put in a large concrete culvert for the creek and backfill over it instead of a new wooden trestle. But that meant they’d need dirt to backfill over the culvert up to grade so they could lay new track across the gap.

So they asked the mfg company if they’d sell CSX the dirt they’d need. Both parties knew there was plenty of dirt available.

Well, the mfg firm had always had only one grade crossing across the CSX tracks into their huge employee parking lot and they had always wanted another and CSX had always refused to build one. So they told CSX they could have all the dirt they wanted for free if CSX would please build them a second crossing into their parking lot.

CSX said no. It was apparently a better business decision for CSX to buy dirt than to take on the risk and potential liability associated with another vehicle crossing over their tracks!

 

[Railspike]

Haven't seen any modifications to the SL/TE schedule yet other than the day of the fire.

 

[dadonatrain]

2 seems to be running only btwn San Antonio and New Orleans.
Anyone have new news about the fire itself? Or bridge rework?

 

[Todd]

#2 is scheduled from LAX at 10pm tonight...

 

[jis]

According to posts in a few other rail related sites the trestle has been fixed as of early morning of 4/9/22. So there should be no further impact on schedules due to the outage of this trestle.

 

[GAT]

That is good to hear. Thanks for the update.

 

[joelkfla]

According to posts in a few other rail related sites the trestle has been fixed as of early morning of 4/9/22. So there should be no further impact on schedules due to the outage of this trestle.

Kudos to UP for the fast action.

 

[dadonatrain]

Kudos, yes, but I’m curious. The video of the fire itself that appeared in the OP that starts this thread made it appear the entire trestle was on fire. I don’t believe for a moment anyone could replace all those timbers in a couple days. So what did they do? One thing that occurs to me is that the fire was mostly the creosote in the wood, and if they did extinguish it quickly enough (news articles said they did) perhaps they could be certain the structural integrity of the timbers, rails, ties, etc., was all still intact and safe to use. I’m still not sure I’d like to be on the first train to ride across it, though!

Anyone know more? Can anyone patch links to articles from other sources? I have googled it and found nothing instructive as of last night.

As you can pbly tell, I’m a retired engineer. So I’ll shut up now!

 

[Dakota 400]

I’m still not sure I’d like to be on the first train to ride across it, though!

Me neither! From what I saw, how could there not be structural damage that would compromise the integrity of the bridge?

 

[PaTrainFan]

Kudos, yes, but I’m curious. The video of the fire itself that appeared in the OP that starts this thread made it appear the entire trestle was on fire. I don’t believe for a moment anyone could replace all those timbers in a couple days. So what did they do? One thing that occurs to me is that the fire was mostly the creosote in the wood, and if they did extinguish it quickly enough (news articles said they did) perhaps they could be certain the structural integrity of the timbers, rails, ties, etc., was all still intact and safe to use. I’m still not sure I’d like to be on the first train to ride across it, though!

Anyone know more? Can anyone patch links to articles from other sources? I have googled it and found nothing instructive as of last night.

As you can pbly tell, I’m a retired engineer. So I’ll shut up now!

Not an engineer, retired or otherwise, but I am also most curious about this.

 

[dadonatrain]

According to posts in a few other rail related sites the trestle has been fixed as of early morning of 4/9/22. So there should be no further impact on schedules due to the outage of this trestle.

jis, could you pls paste links to other rail related sites that have posted new news about the repairs? I’ve googled every phrase I can think of about the event and I can’t find anything newer than three local newspaper or tv station blurbs right at the time of the fire. The engineer in me (not the train kind; the kind that built things for a living for 40 years) is dying to know more!

thx.

 

[Brian Battuello]

Add me to the curious list. Hmm, maybe we could add a "Curious" icon to the like options...

 

[John Santos]

#2 is currently in NM heading toward El Paso. It is an hour or two behind schedule, but is scheduled to arrive in Alpine and the stops farther east without further delay, according to "Track Your Train" and transitdocs.com, gradually catching up and back on schedule by SAS.

Looking at Google Earth, east of Alpine (Brewster County is HUGE), I only see a few candidate bridges that might match the picture. Most of the bridges are either way to short or clearly NOT trestles. There are a pair about 19 and 20 miles east of Alpine (almost to Marathon) and another pair 65 and 70 miles east, almost in the next county, Pecos. The first one looks to be the best match for terrain, but doesn't really look like a trestle, more like a concrete bridge. It is hard to tell from above, but most trestles have no ballast; the ties are directly anchored to the bridge structure, so you can see through them, but other types of bridges have a pan that holds ballast with the ties embedded in it. The bridge in the picture is clearly a trestle and doesn't appear to have a pan. I'm wondering if the picture is actually a file photo of A burning railroad bridge in Brewster County, rather than a photo of THIS burning railroad bridge.

There are lots of much smaller bridges, many of them trestles. Smaller bridges are much easier to repair or replace. Also, there are a number of bridges on double-tracked sections. Some of them have separate bridges for the two tracks, or at least in one case, one track goes over a trestle and the other track, maybe 50' away has what appears to be a culvert. If the fire was on a double-track section, it would be easy (though perhaps time-consuming) to route around it.