Union Pacific -- February 1, 2008
Letter from Jack Koraleski
To our Customers:
I had hoped that my first customer letter of the New Year would be focused on the capacity and service improvements we implemented in 2007 and how they set the stage for even better things to come in 2008. Unfortunately, I’ve been upstaged by the weather and given the magnitude of the problem, I wanted to share some information about what we’re doing to recover our Railroad in the Pacific Northwest.
Extensive snowfall and several freeze and thaw cycles this winter led to a massive mudslide on January 19 that took out two sections of Union Pacific’s main line track along the I-5 corridor. The slide occurred between Klamath Falls and Eugene, OR, sweeping track, ties and ballast halfway down the mountain and burying over 3,000 feet of main line track in 20 feet of mud, snow and downed trees. I’ve attached a photo and illustration showing how the slide severed our main line in two places.
Crews are working around the clock to clear the debris and restore the track, but the challenge is enormous. Due to the remote location, a road had to be constructed to allow workers and equipment to reach the site. Heavy snowfall has made work conditions more difficult as crews labor to remove an estimated 153,000 truckloads of debris – imagine a debris field equivalent in volume to the size of a football field and the height of the Sears Tower. In cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service, a logging operation is in place to remove the trees, which are hauled out by rail car.
In an effort to minimize delays to traffic in this corridor, we are rerouting northbound and southbound trains operating between Roseville, CA and Portland, OR through Salt Lake City, UT. Unfortunately, the heavy snowfall that is hampering clean-up operations is also impacting train operations between Pocatello, ID and Seattle, WA. These conditions are affecting all eastbound and westbound traffic, as well as the traffic being rerouted through the area due to the mudslide. Customers with shipments moving in this corridor should anticipate 24 to 72-hour delays. We estimate that our restoration efforts in the Eugene area could take another 2-3 weeks, but progress will definitely be influenced by weather conditions.
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Paul Esposito, Senior VP of Logistics for Railex States:
"Priority service with the first unit train will not be affected."
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