Amtrak Snow Storm Shut Down

With all the massive amount of snow that have fallen all over Erie County. How have the railroads in the area coped? I heard that Buffalo & Pittsburgh and South Buffalo suspended operations this morning as well.

http://www.wkbw.com/news/amtrak-suspend ... om-buffalo

From the TV it looks like BSOR is dead center. Is the Jordan Spreader operational? What do they have available to clear the line with?

With six feet of snow where do you even push it all? Tracks on embankments are one things, but through cuts or other low places is another. A rotary or something like the large snowblower Conrail used to have up here is going to be in order.

Would make sense if CSX and NS deploy empty hoppers to ship snow down south like
Conrail did during Blizzard of '77.

Charlie

charlie6017 wrote:Would make sense if CSX and NS deploy empty hoppers to ship snow down south like
Conrail did during Blizzard of '77.

Charlie

Is there a way to get advance info of special snow clearing activities, so we can take photos? Yesterday I was trackside. The Maple Leaf to Toronto went by. Wonder if it made it? I think it must've been the last westbound Amtrak of the day. And the eastbound LSL was 5.5 hours late! Oddly enough, no snow at all here in CNY yesterday.

Dave

I work about a mile west of MP367 in Rochester and there is an eastbound Amtrak train that has been parked on the tracks since at least 5pm yesterday. It's right at the popular railfan site near the intersection of Blossom and University.

Eastbound? Must be staged for when they are able to bus people in from west of the storm?

The engines are facing east so I assume it's eastbound.

i've heard csx has run a few trains today and some ran last night too. i guess they have dispatched a few snow jets and jordan spreaders out this way if they can get crews to run these trains. i heard a few detours have been planned, but i'd guess most trains will be held.

charlie6017 wrote:Would make sense if CSX and NS deploy empty hoppers to ship snow down south like
Conrail did during Blizzard of '77.

Charlie

I heard at the time that a cold snap accompanied those hoppers south, so the snow didn't melt like they planned...

There was a post on a Yahoo Group this morning that the CSX rotary snow blower that was in Selkirk was WB out of Selkirk around 8am this morning. The assumption was that it was headed for Buffalo. This is the faded MOW green self propelled snow blower SB1000.

John

There are confirmed depths in the 4 - 5+ foot range just east and south of Buffalo. http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php ... &version=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And another 2-3 feet predicted to come starting tonight up to Friday night. I don't care what kind of spreader you have and how powdery it is supposed to be, this is crazy... I can't imagine there won't be lots of trains held up and detours. Maybe close to a week with no Amtrak.
JS

charlie6017 wrote:Would make sense if CSX and NS deploy empty hoppers to ship snow down south like
Conrail did during Blizzard of '77.

Charlie

and they did that again in 1999 with 52" of snow in Rochester or the famous October snowstorm in buffalo - I cant remember which storm..

here's another link...
It does not show the total of snowfall of each storm. This shows the currently measurement of snow depth on the ground...

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/nerfc/graphics/ ... depth.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

sd80mac wrote:

charlie6017 wrote:Would make sense if CSX and NS deploy empty hoppers to ship snow down south like
Conrail did during Blizzard of '77.

Charlie

and they did that again in 1999 with 52" of snow in Rochester or the famous October snowstorm in buffalo - I cant remember which storm..

And going way back, Kachler's book "The Snowflaker" tells of a blizzard in 1945 which paralyzed the NYC in Rochester. They used a Jordan Spreader to push all the snow in the North Yard to Track 5, where it was still melting away in June. Side dumps were loaded with snow and dumped in to the Genesee River, and flat cars were loaded with snow and shipped out to warmer locations. It must have been quite the storm, there are pics of cars derailed and tipped over in the Hump Yard.