Just got wind of a BNSF derailment in Gold Bar, Washington. It is unknown how bad the accident may be at this time. It is known to be a intermodal/container train bound for Tacoma, Washington.
This occurred on the Stevens Pass route, about 32 miles Northeast of Seattle. This will most likely affect Amtrak’s Empire Builder trains 7 and 8 depending on the location and severity of the derailment. It is unknown if Amtrak will bus passengers or detour the train if it is blocking the main line.
More details to come as I get them.
UPDATE 4:50pm: Train was the S-LPCTAC with one, maybe two cars on the ground.
Gold Bar is two words.
S-train? Nice, big heavy one coming down the hill.
“S-LPCTAC” what does that mean?
http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?train_id=BNSF%20S-LPCTAC
http://www.webshots.com/search?query=S-LPCTAC+8-20
Looks like they have cargo containers stacked two-high with a car having 4-5 stacks.
Its the name, or symbol, of a BNSF train. Each train on each railroad has a different symbol. Each symbol reflects what kind of train it is, origin, destination, date it left, and other important information. Each railroad has a different method of assigning trains symbols.
In this case, “S” represents an intermodal double stack service train, or the lowest priority of container trains on BNSF. Next is “LPC” which means its origin was Logistics Park Chicago. “TAC” is for Tacoma. Usually, this train has goods from Europe bound for Asia and can have locomotives on both ends due to its massive weight.
http://www.qstation.org/bnsf/bnsfsymbols.html
I’ve read before that after a track is clear do to a slide that there is a 24 hour waiting period before passenger service can use the line. Does this apply to other track closures like derailments, floods, etc?
I believe it’s actually a 48 hour waiting period.
I don’t think a derailment counts, though.
Keep us posted, my wife and I took the Empire Builder on Sunday evening to Leavenworth and are due to return on Thursday. Hope everything is ready to go by then!
Yay, looks like things will be ok. Not sure how this effects passenger service, but seems like good news. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_train_derailment.html
heard about this today while putting the empire builder back together in the yard (had to swap the 2 coach cars and cut the baggage car back in. there was talk of whether to wait in seattle if it was real bad. bnsf informed us that it was 1 car that was on the ground and that the siding would be clear so the decision was made to let the train go as soon as it was ready (which was just about 2 hours late).
I was at Golden Gardens Park for a bonfire when I was surprised to see the Empire Builder go past the park quite late–must have been around 7 PM or thereabouts.
yeah not a good day for the builder, or the coast starlight. that left 2 hours late as well due to a bad baggage car.
Yep that order for new baggage cars can’t come soon enough!
Ooh, you get new ones? Good news. I didn’t know that.
Wasn’t it an RFP for Viewliner cars? Are those used on trains with Superliners?
http://trains4america.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/amtrak-seeks-bids-for-130-new-viewliner-2-cars
the same exact thing happened a week ago. the starlight had a bad baggage car so they took it off to fix it but didn’t have the parts for it so they waited for the builder to come in so they could steal that baggage car for the starlight.
this time they were actually able to fix the car and add it to the builder. last week they went with no baggage car and instead used the baggage coach car.
what a mess. 2 hour delays for the starlight both times.