NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. — BNSF Railway says it has not determined a timeline for replacing the bridge between North Sioux City and Sioux City, Iowa, that collapsed June 23 as a result of flooding, and continues to re-route traffic through Creston, Iowa.
KTIV-TV reports that railroad spokeswoman Kendall Sloan said the railroad is coordinating with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local levee sponsors on next steps. “We currently have a contractor on site that will mobilize material and heavy equipment to access the river and remove the spans,” Sloan said in a statement. “We also have a consultant engineer and bridge engineers on site to monitor the bridge closely for any changes, so we can react if needed.”
The bridge, used by both BNSF and the D&I Railroad, collapsed after the Big Sioux River reached a record height during recent storms [see “BNSF bridge on South Dakota-Iowa state line collapses,” Trains News Wire, June 24, 2024].
“BNSF Railway says it has not determined a timeline for replacing the bridge between North Sioux City and Sioux City, Iowa, that collapsed June 23 as a result of flooding, and continues to re-route traffic through Creston, Iowa.”
Of course, anyone with a map knows that routing “traffic” through Creston, Iowa would be meaningless for a bridge outage between Sioux City, Iowa and North Sioux City, South Dakota. Yes, that’s what the reporter said, but back in the day, the staff at TRAINS would know better and not reprinted the error.
So, what we have here is NOT “News” in the News Wire. It is a report about a report on KTIV-TV.
In the initial News Wire article about the collapse, it was a BNSF Spokesperson, not a local news reporter, who said that trains were being rerouted through Creston, IA. Which, if the train continues east to Galesburg and north to St. Paul, will eventually reach Sioux Falls from Sioux City. Very roundabout, but that’s how detours are sometimes.
Notice that reports says spans. All pictures earlier only showed 1 span off piers. That l.eaves some questions to be answered as to what BNSF might be planned?.
The last picture I saw actually did show two spans in the river.