Another BNSF Mud Slide
Another BNSF Mud Slide
Another very big slide came down across the tracks yesterday L burying the rails & halting Amtrak service for another 48 hours! (see story below). I don’t know about you guys, but this is really starting to make me nervous ... the more this happens the greater the odds that one of these will connect with a moving train & that slide detection fence will not do a darn bit of good. If you play Russian Roulette long enough, sooner or later you will land on a winning – in this case losing – number.
Then there’s the small detail that the slide fence is missing for the 400 ft south of the dead end of Bayview Street. Why has it never been completed??? It’s common knowledge that it’s not there, even though everyone knows that section of the bluff slid very badly once before. The last house on the end of Bayview today is not the original last house – that one ended up at the bottom of the bank on the tracks when the hillside let loose. The property is deemed unbuildable now & has sat vacant since.
What do we need to do to get the City, Mayor & council, our provincial & federal representatives & Transport Canada to wake up to the reality that this is extremely serious & in fact could be life threatening? We need immediate action to mitigate the risk to the people of the potentially affected areas & the environment, not more PR rhetoric from Melonas at BNSF about their so-called safety track record! At the very least, the freights carrying toxic/hazardous goods MUST be stopped from travelling this stretch of track whenever Amtrak service is halted due to slide risk. Maybe a good old fashioned protest with a few hundred angry citizens blocking the tracks would get some attention???
Please ... inform your neighbours & anyone you know in Crescent Beach, Crescent Heights, Ocean Park & surrounding areas – the experts say that a derailment with a ruptured chlorine tanker could impact an area of 8km from the spill site. That’s a lot of residents!!!
Amtrak Cascades to bus riders part way between Seattle and Vancouver B.C.
A Burlington Northern Santa Fe spokesman says BNSF crews cleaned up a mud, rock and tree slide that left a 4-foot-high, 30-foot-long debris pile on the company's railroad tracks between the Washington state border and Vancouver, B.C. The Friday afternoon slide occurred between White Rock and Surrey, B.C. No injuries are reported. The cause is under investigation.
Gus Melonas says the tracks reopened for freight train travel Friday night but Amtrak passenger service through the area will be suspended for 48 hours as a safety precaution. He says if engineering crews agree the area is safe, Amtrak service will resume late Sunday afternoon.
Amtrak spokeswoman Nicole Osborne said until 4:30 p.m. Sunday, trains going from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C., will stop in Bellingham, where passengers will be transferred to buses for the remainder of the trip.
On Sunday, any passengers headed from Vancouver, B.C. to Seattle will be bused for the entire trip, but passengers traveling from Bellingham to Seattle will be on the train