CHICAGO — Flooding is disrupting operation of Amtrak’s City of New Orleans, while Empire Builder departures have been cancelled for a fourth straight day.
Other Amtrak cancellations announced for today (Feb. 18) include both directions of the Borealis between St. Paul and Milwaukee and a Lincoln Service trip from St. Louis to Chicago, according to the Amtrak Alerts social media feed. All were announced shortly before midnight CT on Monday.
The City of New Orleans issues began Monday, Feb. 17, when the southbound train from Chicago was cancelled at Carbondale, Ill., and the northbound train was cancelled between Memphis, Tenn., and Carbondale because of “severe weather causing flooding over the tracks,” according to Amtrak. Bus service was offered between Memphis and Carbondale for northbound train No. 58. Today, the train was slated to be cancelled in both directions between Carbondale and Memphis, but Amtrak has now updated that information to report that the northbound train departing Carbondale will terminate in Kankakee because of a derailment.
Also because of that derailment, train No. 390, the northbound Saluki scheduled to depart Carbondale at 7:30 a.m., has been cancelled. Trains News Wire has contacted Canadian Naitonal seeking more information on the derailment, and on the flooding that led to the initial cancellations.
The small town of Rives, Tenn., on the CN main line about 110 miles northeast of Memphis, sustained major flood damage after a levee break on Sunday, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports. Approximately 60% of the town’s 105 homes have severe water damage, Rives Mayor Lester Burnes told the newspaper.
The Empire Builder cancellations, meanwhile, are again attributed to “impending severe weather conditions,” as are those of the Borealis between St. Paul and Milwaukee. St. Paul is currently under an extreme cold warning predicting wind chills as low as minus-42. Extreme cold warnings currently extend from central Wisconsin to Montana, and as far south as Texas, according to the National Weather Service. Amtrak’s website also shows that Wednesday’s eastbound Builder departures from Seattle and Portland have been cancelled, but still lists Wednesday’s westbound departure from Chicago as operating.
The other current cancellation involves Lincoln Service train No. 302, which was scheduled to depart St. Louis at 6:35 a.m. That follows the late Monday cancellation of Chicago-St. Louis train No. 307 because of “ongoing equipment issues.”
— Updated at 9:50 a.m. CT with additional cancellations because of derailment; updated at 10:52 a.m. with Wednesday Empire Builder status.
The City of New Orleans partial cancellation is obviously totally beyond Amtrak’s control. Same to be said for the freight derailment in Illinois.
I’ll give Amtrak credit for continuing to run Memphis-New Orleans and Chicago-Carbondale (until the freight wreck stopped that.)