A flooding Platte River took out the Platte River bridges of the Union Pacific’s Fall River Subdivision, and the BNSF Omaha subdivision. The bridges are within 30 yards of each other.
Spans of both bridges were washed away on Saturday, March 16. Union Pacific sources tell Trains the flooding came while the ground was still frozen, with rain and ice jams, along with trees and debris taking out the bridges. Other outages on Union Pacific are on the main line bewteen Columbus and Fremont, Neb., but one track was opened Monday afternoon.
Other outages on the UP were at Blair, Valley and Elkhorn in Nebraska, while Logan, Iowa, also had a service outage. The Canadian National’s Council Bluffs subdivision at Logan has also suffered damage.
On Tuesday, March 26, a light rain was falling as Union Pacific Railroad senior special agent Cayl England and UP Senior Manager for Public Safety Larry Wenko launched unmanned aerial vehicles to survey and document damage.
”Its another set of eyes,” England says.
Nearby, a Union Pacific crane was working on pulling away debris from the upstream side of the damaged bridge.
Further south, at LaPlatte, Neb., BNSF crews were staging semi-trailer loads of rock as the railroad rebuilt the approach of the bridge from the south.
A rain and snow mix are in the forecast for the end of the week.
good work UP and BNSF on restoring service.
Eric, that actually isn’t all that big of a crane. Can’t see its reporting marks but the largest one of the Ohio cranes like that is rated at 55 tons without outriggers. The bigger ones made back when they were steam powered were up to 250 tons with outriggers out. And the often worked without them out.
This is where the railroads have a competitive disadvantage with the trucking industry. All of this work is done at the expense of the railroad. No public resources or funding used.
That is a big crane balanced on relatively narrow tracks. There’s a bit of skill to operate that safely
Looks like Warren Buffett gets to see one of his companies go into crisis response right at his front door since he lives in Omaha. Wouldn’t be shocked if he drove out to the failed Platte River bridge to observe it himself.
How about more pictures, videos, etc. There has been lots of news coverage and some of it may show RR impact. And the map idea is an excellent suggestion
The loss of a bridge has put many a small railroad out of business. All the while the highway bridge is built back free of charge for the trucking industry.
Nice coverage Smeds.
Thanks for the update, Steve Smedley. What a mess.
A railroad map would be most helpful as the lines are intermingled getting thru the Omaha area.