BNSF action near Willow Springs, IL

Our house is right along the BNSF track between Willow Springs and West Plains. Normally we see 20-30 trains a day but it has been eerily quiet last night and all day today.

I'm wondering if and where the tracks are under water due to the wide-spread flooding in the Ozarks.

Also....

Can anyone tell me what in the world those tent-like things BNSF is hauling past might be?

PomonaMo wrote:Our house is right along the BNSF track between Willow Springs and West Plains. Normally we see 20-30 trains a day but it has been eerily quiet last night and all day today.

I'm wondering if and where the tracks are under water due to the wide-spread flooding in the Ozarks

Not being too familiar with the area, that would be my guess. For instance, I live next to a very active UP mainline in suburban Chicago, and whenever there's an accident, or weather-related issue temporarily taking out a track or a bridge somewhere "down yonder", it usually results in traffic being scaled back for a few days. Have faith, the trains will return...

3:41 PM CDT, we just saw our first train in almost 36 hours. 3 pumpkins pulling carloads of gravel - we're thinking it is road bed gravel to repair a washout somewhere south of us - Hardy, Arkansas, maybe.

These cars had what looked like solar panels on their sides. Are some of these cars self-unloaders, powered by solar electricity???

As you might tell, we are very new to this train watching stuff. Being so close to the track we had two choices - hate 'em and fret everytime one went past or learn to love 'em and enjoy the experience. They don't even wake us up in the morning now.

yes there is a lot of track damage in the area of missouri. the tracks along the river from cape girardeau mo to st louis are shut down with mudslides and the river flooding.

We just heard on the evening news that a huge sink hole, in excess of 100' deep developed under a section of track at Mansfield and that flooding has washed out track near Thayer, Missouri.

This evening, a second maintenance train loaded with gravel passed by. It is so strange as we are used to seeing three to four trains every hour during much of the day.