(The Associated Press circulated the following on January 23.)
OAKRIDGE, Ore. — Railroad and government officials say it’s too soon to tell what caused the landslide that buried train tracks outside of Oakridge, choking off one of Oregon’s major passenger and freight routes.
A broad section of hillside slumped down Saturday morning, obliterating 3,000 feet of Union Pacific-track under a snowy mound of mud and trees more than 20 feet deep.
Part of the slide began in an area clear-cut in 1993 and replanted in 1995, said Willamette National Forest spokesman Judy McHugh, though most of slide occurred on Forest Service land that had not been thinned.
Geologists had yet to visit the site, hampering any discussion of the slide’s cause, she said.
Meanwhile, railroad crews were still trying to get their hands around clearing the slide. The tracks are the main connection between Eugene and California for both Union Pacific and Amtrak. Fifteen trains, carrying 33 million gross tons of freight, use the track daily.
“This is a pretty major thoroughfare,” Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoe Richmond said. “A main track for a railroad company is like a major interstate.”
The area will be closed indefinitely, she said.
“This is serious,” she said. “Our crews are just starting to barely assess the damage.”
Union Pacific has rerouted its trains to lines operated by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway near Bend and is expecting delivery delays of 24 to 48 hours.
Amtrak has been providing bus service to customers on the Coast Starlight, a 1,377-mile route from Los Angeles to Seattle that also uses the Union Pacific line, since the slide occurred.
But the company may cancel the service on Thursday because of the cost, Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham said.
“We are often affected by weather, but never at this magnitude,” she said. “We’re being told by Union Pacific that this is going to be awhile.”
Customers traveling from Eugene to Seattle can use the Cascades route.