Flooding in St. Louis

[B_Kosanda]

We're gettin' our butts kicked over here in St. Louis. We've had many torrential downpours, most with hail, some with tornados.

I caught these two trains at Louisiana, Missouri today. The first set is a CSX (KCS) train coming out of Illinois crossing the swing bridge at Louisiana.

Bill

 

[B_Kosanda]

This second set is a BNSF train on the Hannibal sub at the same location. This is not an optical illusion. The only part of the tracks showing is the railhead. In several locations it's just an inch or two above the waterline. The train crosses the diamond and moves at a crawl due to the high water.

Bill

 

[stlgevo51]

I heard Clarksville was supposed to be near flood stage soon. With all of the rain, I heard it is supposed to be even worse. Apparently we are going to have more rain tomorrow and another large thunderstorm on Monday (maybe tornadoes again). I can't wait for the sun to pop back out.

I kind of want to go up to Clarksville and shoot some of the flooding in the next week or so, but I don't think I will be able to.

 

[B_Kosanda]

Clarksville has pallets of sandbags lining the streets and large piles of sand at the end of most of the streets ready for sandbagging.

 

[Midsouth fan]

Looks like a new diamond will be going in there soon.

 

[B_Kosanda]

Looks like a new diamond will be going in there soon.

Standing there watching trains roll over that diamond, it's a wonder that it can stand up at all to the tremendous pounding it takes every time a train rolls over it. I've seen crews welding it on several occasions.

 

[kskcsfan]

You can bring some of that rain out here to Kansas, it'd be real nice.

 

[Abilene Ks Railfan]

You can bring some of that rain out here to Kansas, it'd be real nice.

We'll be getting some tomorrow............

 

[Midsouth fan]

We got one of those new high speed/low speed diamonds put in at our KCS interlocker at Gibsland last year. Of course, we have the low speed side of the diamond... 10 mph is max speed, 5 mph is the optimum long-life speed.

 

[B_Kosanda]

We got one of those new high speed/low speed diamonds put in at our KCS interlocker at Gibsland last year. Of course, we have the low speed side of the diamond... 10 mph is max speed, 5 mph is the optimum long-life speed.

I don't think I've ever seen a train go over 5 mph on this diamond. If you take a close look at it, you can see it is very beat up.

 

[Midsouth fan]

Our old diamond was just as bad...the KCS would send their welding truck to Gibsland at any hour of the day or night just to add a little more life to it. It finally flatlined and they had to straight-rail it, separating us from our locomotive shop for several months.