BNSF News

Heavy Rains, Flooding Strike the Springfield Division

2010-07-12

It happens nearly every year.

Employees in the Springfield Division watch the skies, weather forecasts and hydrological charts. Once the rain starts, eyes go to the Mississippi River and other rivers nearby. Will it flood again this year? How bad will the flooding be? How long will the subdivision be impacted? When do we start re-routing, removing signal equipment, inspecting? What will it take to put sub back in service? Have we thought of every item, ensuring safety is at the forefront through these processes?

"We can operate with some water over the rails," said Jason Jenkins, general director, Transportation, on the Springfield Division. "But we slow everything down significantly for speed restrictions and track inspections."

The painstaking attention to detail continues. Train crews watch the rails especially closely, monitoring the depth of the water. Engineering employees focus on clearing debris from the track, as well as ensuring resources are in place to handle tasks needing immediate attention. Engineering crews inspect track three times each day to measure the depth of the water, as well as calculate a real time rate of rise. These readings help BNSF determine when and if train operations must cease.

This year, the Hannibal Subdivision went out of service first, soon followed by the River Subdivision. Little more than a week later, the Hannibal Subdivision was back in business. But not before 35 trains had been rerouted and employees had carefully inspected every inch of track and ballast.

The River Subdivision at one point had water 20 inches above the rails, but was returned to service on July 5. BNSF rerouted 17 trains and detoured 40 trains as a result of the River Sub outage.

But team members are still watching and monitoring. As of July 9, the water had once again risen to 4 inches over the top of rail at Canton on the Hannibal Sub.

BNSF Headquarters

BNSF Railway Company
2650 Lou Menk Dr. 2nd Floor
P.O. Box 961057
Fort Worth, TX 76161-0057
Phone: (817) 352-1000

For more information on the company and its transportation solutions, visit the BNSF Web site at www.bnsf.com