Heavy rains late Sunday afternoon damaged the tracks between Gene Autry and Davis. At 5:15 p.m., the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Carter County. KFOR News 4 reported that the train was held ahead of the washout in Ardmore, until busses arrived at about 10:30 to take passengers to Oklahoma City.
Many of the passengers on the train were returning to Oklahoma City from Dallas after attending the Red River Showdown football game between the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas. Amtrak offers special round trip ticket packages and adds additional coaches to the Heartland Flyer’s consist to handle the swell of game weekend traffic.
KFOR reported that BNSF, which owns the tracks on which the Heartland Flyer operates, confirmed the washout and has dispatched repair crews to the scene.
No injuries were reported in connection to the washout.
Roger did you say you were on the SWC or the Canadian? LOL
Furthermore, in regards to my comments below,the October 4th eastbound Southwest Chief (#4) was also held for another three hours or more at Seligman,AZ for another,but much smaller washout east of Seligman. After the two delays for washouts and further delays due to freight congestion and late arriving crews at Gallup,NM,we finally arrived at our destination station of Lawrence,KS a little over sixteen hours late.
In regards to my comment below;the Southwest Chief that was delayed was due into Kingman,AZ at 1:20am on October 4th and it finally arrived around 10:30 am on that date.
There was also a washout on the BNSF transcon close to Franconia and Yucca,Arizona (between Needles,CA and Kingman,AZ) around midnight October 3rd that delayed the eastbound Southwest Chief for over nine hours. The south main was completely washed out with rails and crossties dangling in the air. The north main was still intact but lost most of its ballast. Some westbound traffic,including the westbound Southwest Chief was allowed on the north main with a 10mph restriction,but all eastbound traffic was at a complete standstill.
Robert, it does sound more like a Canadian delay,doesn’t it? The Chief’s schedule was tightened somewhat in July and they seem to be doing a pretty good job staying close to or on time for most trips. That eastbound trip that I was on, was for the most part unavoidably late due to unfortunate circumstances.