NEW YORK — Metro-North Railroad says it will operate a “near-normal schedule” Monday following a mudslide in Scarborough, N.Y., that disrupted its services and those of Amtrak, while Amtrak has announced its operations between New York City and Albany, N.Y., will be “substantially restored.”
Metro-North said service will resume between Tarrytown and Croton-Harmon on the Hudson Line following some 43 hours of around-the-clock work by crews to clear a Saturday morning slide that blocked all four tracks [see “Mudslide disrupts Metro-North, Amtrak …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 21, 2023]. To avoid congestion as work in the slide area continues, four trains of 158 trains will be cancelled and during peak hours, reverse-peak moves will operate express between Tarrytown and Croton-Harmon.
Crews removed some 350 cubic yards of soil and debris and 250 cubic yards of rock and cement walls from two tracks, and are breaking apart the rock walls to help stabilize the area where the slide occurred. Other debris is being used to stabilize the coastline. Work was to continue into Monday morning to rebuild 140 feet of third rail on the two operable tracks; clearing the other two tracks at the site is expected to take days.
“I want to applaud the Metro-North workforce for their quick work recovering from this storm and helping to ensure hundreds of customers could continue their travels via a temporary shuttle bus,” Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi said in a press release. “… A restoration of service this fast also would not have been possible without the support we received from MTA Construction & Development, Westchester County, the Town of Mount Pleasant, regional law enforcement partners including the MTA PD, the Westchester County PD, the Mount Pleasant PD, and also from MTA New York City Transit which didn’t hesitate when we asked for buses to help customers.”
Cancelled will be the 6:42 a.m. departure from Poughkeepsie, the 7:08 a.m. departure from Tarrytown, and the 5:30 p.m. and 6:11 p.m. Poughkeepsie express trains from Grand Central Terminal
An Amtrak advisory says four Empire Service trains — Nos. 233, 235, 238, and 244 — will be cancelled “as equipment is repositioned.” All other trains are scheduled to operate.
I think Charles did not get the sarcasm.
Google Earth shows it all….you can see the crack has formed in the backyard and they filled it in and reseeded it with grass. Too late.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.1242285,-73.8671255,74m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu
The geotechnical ramification are costly. I trust the homeowner had a sign off from a Geotechnical Engineer. I hope the Geotechnical Engineer who green lighted the development has his liability insurance paid up. He /she will never work again, in most jurisdictions a Professional Engineer can not practice without liability insurance.
Home owners on back patio looking at work being done and wondering what the hell is going on and when they can get their back yard back. That’s the least of there problems. Looks like the contractors removing the slide as well as any potential (already loosen soil) slide area of the back yard. Being so close to the house, potential future house/pool foundation problems lurking in future.
The town and/or the county shouldn’t allow them to haul in fill to replace it. Only enough top soil to grow grass. Should also mandate that property owners plant trees with roots that would hold soil in place. Original soil was unstable and any NEW fill will equally be unstable.
Also see potential problems for neighbors who have homes to the North on the edge of the embankment.
As I posted earlier:
This is not the original house or landscaping for the lot. The original house here was demolished in 2004 and replaced with the current one. That is when the landscaping was changed dramatically.
The owners in 2009 had the slope of the terrace changed in order to install a backyard pool which increased the amount of dirt at the top with what appears another layer of stone.
The retaining wall on our condo’s property line collapsed onto our neighbor’s lawn. Looking through the rubble, we found a number of design defects, the only question being how the wall managed to stand upright for two decades.
In my role on the condo board, I watched over the contractor rebuilding the wall. (In fact, I helped with the work.) Properly built, there’s a lot more to a retaining will than piling up concrete blocks.
The homeowner and the contractor are liable. If the plans were developed by an engineer or consultant, good luck to him.
Fortunately there wasn’t a train passing.
I see a yellow pipe in the right side of the photo, yellow is usually NG.
Have to wonder if this is the backwash / drain from the pool, years of drainage causing excessive erosion concentrated in one location weakening the retaining wall. See this happen before.
Good work by the cleanup crew to get the line reopened.
Fast and effective repair work.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Who is going to bear the ultimate financial responsibility for this? The homeowner? The homeowner’s insurance company? Both, in part? Was this an Act of God, perhaps putting it on the railroad’s shoulders? It ain’t gonna be cheap. Last year my (former) heating oil vendor leaked some oil through my basement floor. By the time the State DEC contractor finished excavating and re-filling my front lawn, I was told the tab was about 150k. This one must be multi-million.
There are procedures for emergency repairs. Who says they weren’t followed? Remnants of a wall suggest that the home owner might have built a retaining wall to extend his lawn. Was that permitted?
Where are the U.S Army Corps of Engineers approval and et. al. approvals of every govt and local state, federal, local, agency to move any soil. The environmental impact should be considered and evaluated. Tracks and property this close to the Hudson River should be re-evaluated due to the climate crisis. Ala Caltrain bridge?
How has the so-called “climate crisis” affected the Hudson River shoreline. Please be specific.
Charles Landey, the “Climate Crisis” effects EVERYTHING. It’s why the Uinta Basin line is on hold. It’s why Russia should be fined by the ICC for failing to file Environmental Impact Statements before attacking Ukraine. It’s why nothing can be done until every judge and bureaucrat across America sticks their fingers into it.
Where are the U.S Army Corps of Engineers approval and et. al. approvals of every govt and local state, federal, local, agency to move any soil. The environmental impact should be considered and evaluated. Tracks and property this close to the Hudson River should be re-evaluated due to the climate crisis.