- Location
- Grand Junction, CO
Dan, did you hear about Amtrack being delayed at Glenwood Springs on Friday? I think it was about 12 hrs late... 
The track was pulled out of service after we had a huge rockslide in the Glenwood Springs Canyon. I put in a 18 hr day by the time we got the track back in service, which was about midnight. My manager estimated that 500,000 lbs of granite came down on & around the tracks. The slide started when some large rocks fell from a cliff, a few hundred feet above the tracks. This all happened just after 9am, right after a westbound UP train came thru. We got called up to the canyon, got there about 10:30am and there was some amazing destruction. The track had one rock hit it square on, both rails were broken. The south rail had 6 feet missing while the north rail was missing 8 ft. The ties where the rock hit were smashed into toothpicks and there was a 3' hole where they used to be. Also there was about 20' of track that shifted to the north, from the impact. At it's greatest point the track was 4' out from where it was supposed to be!
We had 2 frontend loaders & a Geismar, of which one frontend loader & the Giesmar broke down. The one loader was left on the site, as it couldn't move. They worked the hell out of that machinery to move the rocks. The loaders were struggling to just push the bigger ones.
The scary part was the rock that was still coming down, more than a few times we had to go on an all-out run to clear from falling rocks. And then it got dark... We brought flood lights in so we could see what was going on.
At about 9pm we were able to start on the track repairs. We replaced 40' of track and about 15 ties. The track was surfaced & lined, then we cleared and opened the track back up just after 11:30pm. When I finally got home it was 2:30 am.
Thought you might like to hear it firsthand. Sadly I didn't have my camera.
The track was pulled out of service after we had a huge rockslide in the Glenwood Springs Canyon. I put in a 18 hr day by the time we got the track back in service, which was about midnight. My manager estimated that 500,000 lbs of granite came down on & around the tracks. The slide started when some large rocks fell from a cliff, a few hundred feet above the tracks. This all happened just after 9am, right after a westbound UP train came thru. We got called up to the canyon, got there about 10:30am and there was some amazing destruction. The track had one rock hit it square on, both rails were broken. The south rail had 6 feet missing while the north rail was missing 8 ft. The ties where the rock hit were smashed into toothpicks and there was a 3' hole where they used to be. Also there was about 20' of track that shifted to the north, from the impact. At it's greatest point the track was 4' out from where it was supposed to be!
We had 2 frontend loaders & a Geismar, of which one frontend loader & the Giesmar broke down. The one loader was left on the site, as it couldn't move. They worked the hell out of that machinery to move the rocks. The loaders were struggling to just push the bigger ones.
The scary part was the rock that was still coming down, more than a few times we had to go on an all-out run to clear from falling rocks.
And then it got dark... We brought flood lights in so we could see what was going on. At about 9pm we were able to start on the track repairs. We replaced 40' of track and about 15 ties. The track was surfaced & lined, then we cleared and opened the track back up just after 11:30pm. When I finally got home it was 2:30 am.
Thought you might like to hear it firsthand.
Sadly I didn't have my camera.
