These are notes that I am writing to help me learn our industrial history. They are my best understanding, but that does not mean they are a correct understanding.
Because NJDOT refused to pay $70,000 in a billion dollar Direct Connect Project to redraw the plans to use a different fill soil after the contractor flagged the planed sand fill as inadequate, NJDOT faces a $92m repair bill. Federal taxpayers are providing $74m to repair the NJDOT $70k savings. And the repair won't be done until 2028.
The I-295 traffic does not have to merge with the I-76+PA-42 traffic, but it does have to slow down to 35mph to negotiate some twisty ramp style roads.
I found just words, no maps, on NJDOT's website about the project. I-295 is supposed to have a new "mainline direct connect" bridge over 76+42, but I can't determine where that bridge would be. Most DOT's recognize that a picture (or color-coded map) is worth 1000 words. But not NJDOT.
After I wrote the above, I came across this 38:00 video.
3:57 video: politicians are asking how can NJDOT be fixed? I'm still trying to figure out why changing I-11 to I-15 fill material would cost $70,000. Most word processing software has a "replace all" function.
Stuart Gardner posted twelve photos with the comment: "Glenwood Canyon got hit again yesterday [July 31, 2021] about 2 hours after I left. I just got back into town and I was checking the radar on my phone and there it was, all red all over the canyon. I hiked up a couple of the draws yesterday, and from the flow evidence I estimate we got 1500 to 2000 cubic feet per second peak flows. I would have predicted about 150 cfs hundred year flowrates. These pictures are from a helicopter flyover this morning. (I did not ride this time) I'll be heading up again tomorrow to see what I can from the ground. I'm glad I didn't waste any money washing my truck from yesterday's trip."
[There are 369 comments. Since the ones presented were basically people tagging other people, I did not dig through the post's comments. Fortunately, there were some meaningful comments on some of the photos.
There was a wildfire last Summer. And it has been raining heavily for days. So they got the double whammy of no vegetation to fight erosion and lots of rain. As Stuart commented above, they got over 10 times the design flood.]
1 Gloria Gallegos: When this road was build they had put certain restrictions on how they could build it without them getting in to blasting big boulders or removing any vegetation! It needed to be as natural as possible! They never though of the future problems! Now they can’t find a way to fix it because of the restrictions!
2 [A comment said that it continues to rain every day. That would explain other comments about concern for the worker's safety.] Julie Coy: You can see that part of the roadbed itself has bees broken off this time, with rebar exposed. And if you look at the photos of the same section from the side it looks like part of the roadbed had dropped down about a foot. You can’t just drive the dozer over that section of highway and remove the rock and mud like they have been able to do in the past. This is gonna take some major repair. Edwin Thompson: Julie Coy actually, that is post tension cable. It was laid criss cross then concrete poured over. When the concrete is cured, they pull the cables to 33,000 psi, cap them, cut the rat tale off and seal them in. All of that concrete is now destoyed. A major rebuild taking months will be required. And, that is assuming the mountain stops sliding down so they can. In my opinion they may get just one lane open to 2-way traffic. And a year to fix the other.
3 Jim Harris: This spot is just west of Grizzly Creek
4 Michael Wilde: No amount of engineering could offset the amount of debris that is coming/will come down from the burn scar... that culvert was more than adequate when vegetation existed in the drainage above.
8 Jacob Shafer: Just wait until next years high water, the highway will be buried. Joe Farrell: Looks like there is a lot of undermining going on at this point. That water is stripping everything away from the support for the roadway. Karla Truxell Schritter: After the first huge debris deposit here a couple weeks ago they had heavy equipment in the alluvial fan to create a channel for the water to flow through the center of the riverbed, but continuing storms have washed more rock and mud down the gulch 2 or 3 more times since then, completely undoing that effort. Mindy Brugman: Karla Truxell Schritter just west of our town a few years ago a big loader was trying to clear debris on the highway and a relatively small debris event came down pushed him off the highway into the nearby lake and he drowned they didn't even pull up the machine as far as I know. It's a very dangerous thing to try to keep these roads cleared and it's very difficult to engineer something to survive such debris torrents and floods. But they do. I like the idea of having some kind of a road sign when there's intense rain falling upstream from an area that the highway is threatened by. And it would just tell people to stop or to not go. I'm not sure if people would listen or we could get the warning there in time but if it's a link to a weather radar we should be able to say how intense the event is. But then of course there could be another event more intense near the radar that's blocking the signal. But there are many ways to check that there's an event going on. I think a forecaster assigned to such things could help more than just automating such warning signs. We do it for avalanches I don't know why we couldn't do it for debris torrents usually just a few hours or a few tens of minutes really. [There are quite a few comments about the "debris fan" shoving the river up against the highway and eroding the foundation. Note the rail in the lower-left corner. Since that debris flowed over the tracks, there is probably a railroad outage there. (Later, I saw the tracks were clear here. But UP had problems in other areas.)]
9 Wagon Gulch - AKA Flamingo Gulch [There are quite a few comments about the flamingos.]
Stuart Gardner commented on photo 9 I loved those flamingoes. [They are plastic.]
10 Steve Slagter: Better perspective on the depth of the fan coming from Devils Hole... that is a bunch of material, [I can't imagine how the tracks escaped damage here. Some comments indicate the track is covered by rock slides in other areas.]
11 This is the railroad on the other side of the river from the interstate. You can see the tracks on the right. Julie Krelovich Snyder: Looks like they are going to stop construction between Gunnison and Montrose so that traffic can go that way, also.
12
Union Pacific Railroad posted four photos with the comment: "If it’s not fire, it’s floods! A shout out to our crews digging our tracks out from under mudslides in Colorado’s Glenwood Canyon."
1
2 Bruce B. Reynolds: The slide fence being demonstrated.
3
4
The July 31, 2021 closure reported by Stuart Gardner must have been at least the third I-170 closure this Summer due to mudslides because this second one happened June 27, 2021, between exists 87 and 133.
CDOT via ColoradoSun-0626 "The highway was closed in both directions between the West Rifle and Dotsero exits after muddy debris covered an area in Glenwood Canyon more than 80 feet wide and 5 feet deep, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation." [CDOT cleaned this one up in 2 days. [ColoradoSun-0628]]
CDOT via ColoradoSun-0626 Mud as deep as 10 feet covered Interstate 70 in Glenwood Canyon on June 26, 2021. The debris flowed during heavy rains over the Grizzly Creek burn scar. (CDOT) The [weather] service said radar indicated heavy rains over the Grizzly Creek burn area, with as much as 1-inch of rain in an hour.
USGS via ColoradoSun-0626 The U.S. Geological Survey created this landslide hazard map following the Grizzly Creek Fire. The map notes several areas above Interstate 70 near the Grizzly Creek and No Name exits where the likelihood of debris flow following a big rain was 60% to 80%.
It made the news in Florida.
Unacknowledged via FloridaNewsTimes Glenwood Springs, Colorado-More than 100 people, including nearly 30 people evacuated to tunnels, had to spend the night on the highway after rain caused another landslide in a wildfire-burned area of western Colorado. [They do close I-70 if flash floods are predicted. They did predict the first storm cell. But they missed the second one.]
This was one one of the mudslides that happened before the late July big ones.
"I-70 West through Glenwood Canyon has been shut down at least eight days since May 1 due to mudslides." [KDVR, Jul 6, 2021] And there has been a lot more closed days since this report.
CDOT via ColoradorSun-0801 Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon will remain closed for the foreseeable future after Colorado Department of Transportation employees surveyed damage from recent mud and rock slides and found damage “unlike anything they had seen before.”
Screenshot, Aug 02, 2021 [They received twice the normal amount of rain for July in 5 days and more rain is expected. They are now talking weeks to reopen and requesting Federal disaster relief.]
Jared Polis, the governor via CBSlocal “It’s diverting up against the highway in some areas causing more damage. Or against the other side of the river where it could eventually erode the railway,” said Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety Stan Hilkey.
The thin brown rods are rebar. The bigger, silver bars are post tensioning tendons. That means the entire slab is going to have to be removed and rebuilt. At least they can do two-way traffic on the lower road while they repair the upper road.
Jared Polis, the governor via CBSlocal When the road is able to reopen it will likely be one-lane of traffic in each direction. Polis said he expects a fully operation interstate by the winter. “What’s really important is to get it fixed before ski season. There’s more alternatives in summer for safer travel and scenery. It’s absolutely critical to be fully functioning by ski season,” Polis said. Drivers are being detoured up to Steamboat Springs, and truck drivers are urged to take Interstate 80 through Wyoming. They are cancelling scheduled work on other roads in Colorado.
One mudslide broke through a retaining wall. The weather man predicts 3 to 4 inches of more rain in the next few days.
At least the monsoons should help Lake Mead recover. It has been at record lows.
Bentstrider Francesco Nittoni There was also a tunnel that used to exist in the Cajon Pass on the BNSF/UP trackage in that area. The entire tunnel section was "daylighted"/demolished in 2007 or 08 due to the high volume of double stacks running through there.
Interestingly enough, I do recall double stack intermodals fitting through there. But I'm guessing the railroads didn't want to risk any over clearance strikes. Allan Gilbert Stack trains have been going through the tunnels (plural) for almost 40 years. They were daylighted to accommodate a third track through the pass. In the process of uncovering the longer of the two, the pressure on the sides once the top was uncovered cause the arch of the roof to buckle and crack. The last train through reported concrete and dirt falling on their locomotive.
OVERALL VIEW OF APPROACH TO EAST PORTAL OF TUNNEL, SHOWING ACCESS ROAD AND UNION PACIFIC TRACK AT RIGHT. [5] - Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, Cajon Subdivision, Tunnel No. 2, Between Cajon Summit and Keenbrook, Devore, San Bernardino County, CA
[The track on the right is UP's track.]
BNSF has demonstrated how far earth moving technology has advanced from the early 20th Century to the early 21st Century. Today we can literally move mountains.
This topo map provides some "before" information. The track near the bottom was Santa Fe's original route over the pass. If you look at the grade graph at the bottom of this page, you will see that the ruling grade for eastbound trains was 3%. (Note the "Fun Fact" on the map that it cost BNSF $90m to add the third track, which is why the tunnels were daylighted.) So in 1913 Santa Fe built the track with two tunnels to reduce the ruling grade to 2.2%. Now BNSF/Santa Fe runs their trains left-handed across the pass so that the westbound trains go down the original steeper route while the eastbounds climb the 2.2% grade. Of course, the second track not only reduced the grade that had to be climbed by trains, it increased the capacity. I'm sure that the increased capacity of a second track was important because UP has trackage rights over the Santa Fe route to just past Barstow for their trains headed to Las Vegas and to the East. The top track is UP's track, but it goes to Mojave instead of to the East.
The east tunnel is tunnel #1.
1996 Cajon Quadrangle @ 1:24,000
We can use a contemporary satellite image for an "after" view.
Instead of browsing the HAER photos, I recommend the photos on this page because it shows before and after views of each portal. For example, this is what the above HAER view looked like after daylighting. The page then has many more "before" photos.
Since the Cajon Pass is a popular railfan spot, the construction was well documented.
The instructions are slightly wrong. To access a page of about 100 photos you should click on the link in the middle column. Additional rows link to other albums.
This photo in that collection of 896 photos shows the intermediate stage that reduced the pressure on the top of the arch and allowed it to buckle upwards as mentioned in Allan's comment at the top of this page.
The construction interval of 2007-2008 is in the range of years covered by Global Earth images. These images are looking south so Tunnel #2 is on the right. The reason for not using the normal view to the north is that the mountain peak hid Tunnel #2.
Apr 2007
Jun 2009
The "black spots" are where they used shotcrete to make retaining walls.
Date: 04/25/08 16:04 Re: Cajon Pass Tunnels - Over and Out Author: TopcoatSmith
The material is fairly solid (Cima Scrambler knows a more complete description of it) and since the area doesn't receive a large amount of rain it generally stays put.
It takes a bit of breakout force for the excavators to load the stuff up, dozers with rippers being used to assist in that process.
The actual slope reinforcement involves drilling 40 feet into the slope at a slight downward angle (you can see the two rows of holes in the first pic), a piece of coated rebar is inserted and shotcrete is pumped into the holes and over the wire mesh covering the slope. Drain holes are drilled at an opposite angle and a preforated pipe is installed. There are numerous places along other slopes where water trickles out from the layers or rock and soil (Cozy Dell, the cut between Cajon and Sullivan's) but it's not a large amount, little more than enough to wet the surrounding earth. The shotcreted slope isn't going to fail or fall any time soon, even in an El Nino year.
They're also a substantial distance back from the track centers.
The only slope failure I know of is the minor slipout on the north side of where tunnel 2 was, looks like a lens of clay-like material but I am no expert on that.
Ames is doing some of the Sunset Route double tracking for UPee, that's wher some of them are headed next along with those that have already gone.
TCS - new angles abound, the trick now is to find them with trains in them
short answer: It is actually a soft sandstone that can be subject to becoming a landslide given enough di-hydrogen monoxide. Great dry strength, not so great when it's all wet.
- Kit (I said I was going to see the tunnels, but she said I would not know that from a hole in the ground.) (snigger)
John B Mobley posted Cajon tunnel 1. David ThompsonCajon Tunnel No. 1 379.0 ft. No. 2 467.5 ft. both on a 2.20 grade (Operations Santa Fe by M. Armitage Pg. 161)
Brendon Hilton commented on John's post When i handed the camera to the gang foreman to take this pic, he looked at me like - did these bozos really stop my work train for a photo op? lol...yup
Brian M. Taggart commented on John's post I shot this from my work train on UP's Mojave sub on December 23, 2007.
Bruce Johnson posted two photos with the comment: "Picture of an old tunnel in Cajon Pass north of San Bernadino, CA with present-day image after extensive reworking of the grade."
safe_image for Landslide blocks BNSF railway near Miles City
A landslide occurred around 10 p.m. Wednesday covering about 800 feet of railway that’s located 10 miles west of Miles City, according to BNSF public affairs and regional director Maia LaSalle.
The landslide triggered slide fence sensors along the railway located in the company’s Forsyth subdivision along the Yellowstone River and notified BNSF’s network operations center. LaSalle said the railway should be open again Friday morning after crews continue to remove the dirt Thursday evening.
[This article has links to articles about coal train derailments putting 40 and 39 coal cars on the ground. But those derailments happended in Jan 2019 and 2018. (paycount)] Ethan Hall I give it a day - day 1/2 tops they’ll run a train over it. George Johnson This is the fourth day and their still digging...
Rodney J Bollack What is track speed there. Are there any curves before it? I’d sure hate to run around a corner and see that. That would be time to leave your grip and bail out the door and do an outstanding P.L.F. Blake ShawRodney J Bollack That's why they have slide fences to warn a crew if there is a problem before they get there. I believe track speed there is 50 MPH.
Fernando A Gomez Neglecting the maintenance. Mike MonroeFernando A Gomez how so? How can you prevent landslides? Enlighten me. Fernando A GomezMike Monroe I was track inspector, there is always signs that a person can recognize, so be attentive, you can see the slow gradual movement, until it breaks away. Be attentive, observe. Recognize what is taking place, it will prevent a disaster. My opinion from those years of service in that subdivision.
Michael DeckerMike Monroe The way they did it down here in Wyoming was to cut back the slopes so that the Bentonite had someplace to go before it got to the track. Paul Pierson You can have cuts that are stable for decades suddenly break loose with just a bad combination of conditions . Rodger Hartley Looks like there is a lot more there to give way ! Allan MacDonald Problem is "they go cheap" quite often. They will build an embankment that is close to the angle of repose for the material the hillside is made from and not even properly reinforce it. "You can't fool mother nature!"
It looks like that was a slide within a slide. I put a red rectangle around what appears to have been the original slippage.
above safe_image plus Paint
Another title I thought of is "USA is Getting Soggy." Derailments by CSX in Kentucky and BNSF in Idaho and Wisconsin show what can happen when a landslide fence has not been installed along a river bluff. A landslide fence is simply a fence placed between the river bluff and the tracks that is hooked into the railroad's signalling system. If any earth slides down the bluff, it will break the fence, which will turn signals red and stop trains before they reach the landslide. I'm sure a broken fence will also produce a relevant display on a dispatcher's screen. And now days, text messages will probably be sent to the appropriate people.
But how many times do you clear off the tracks before it is cheaper to cut back the top of the hill and/or build a retaining wall? I learned just a couple of weeks ago that BNSF knows how to do both. When they cut through the west bluff of the Missouri River (3D Satellite) to make room for the second track across their second bridge across the river, they built a tall retaining wall and then did a stepped removal of land above that wall.
safe_image for MUD, ROCK, WATER AND SNOW: DETECTORS HELP BNSF RESPOND TO SLIDES AND FLOODS When mud, rock, water and snow find their way onto our tracks, we need to know about it promptly so we can resolve it and get trains moving again. Here’s how we use technology to alert our employees, now in Rail Talk. Russ Huelle: I believe that is the Fallbridge sub in the Columbia River Gorge between Wishram and Pasco. Nikki Granum-Yothers: Russ west of Roosevelt. Kevin Agarpao: Shows how important signal maintainers are and you should finish our new agreement.
This is a high-water detector. Given the induction coils at the bottom, I assume the water changes the impedance when the coils become submerged in water. Judging by the size of the conductors, it must use a lot of current, but very little voltage. Although their article says water shorts out the electrical current.
Another detector measures track slump if an embankment becomes saturated with water. "We use ground-movement detectors, similar to a level, that measure the cross-level of the rail."
Snow slide detectors generate an alarm when heavy snow tilts the poles. These help mitigate the damage caused by avalanches. Are they also used to measure the impact of blizzards?
"Fiber optics are also being tested, by installing buried fiber along the tracks. When a rock falls, it causes an imperfection in the system to be detected, providing an exact location of the event." [BNSF]
Sometimes they had a fence, and sometimes they didn't.
