(The following report appeared on the Parsons Sun website on July 12.)
PARSONS, Kan. — Repairs to the Union Pacific Railroad continue today, but traffic is expected to travel normal routes by later this week.
The main line outages in Kansas, resulting from the heavy rain and flooding in late June, were repaired as of Sunday. Trains continued to be re-routed this week while other repairs continued.
The flooding caused track washouts on the U.P.’s north/south main lines connecting Kansas City, Fort Worth, Texas, and North Little Rock, Ark. Portions of the main line reportedly remained under more than 6 feet of water on July 2, and repairs could not begin in some areas until mid-week last week after the flood waters receded.
U.P. officials said that operation in the flooded areas will be slower than normal as more permanent repairs continue following the opening of the routes. Transit times are expected to be close to normal by the end of the week.
Repairs of flood-damaged areas on the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad (SKOL) have progressed and crews continue to work around the clock toward reopening the railroad by the weekend.
The SKOL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Watco Cos. (Watco).
Mostly dry weather for the past few days has allowed crews to access and begin the first phase of repairs for the emergency reopening, with some repairs already completed. However, completed repairs on portions of the railroad do not mean it is ready for full operation. Trains will move at less than 10 miles per hour, probably 5 miles per hour, which makes the railroad not economically sustainable.
“Once we have the main line open, we will begin by moving existing online traffic,” said Pat Cedeno, chief operating officer for Watco’s central region. “It will take some time to move that traffic to its destination and reach a point where we can progress to normal operating procedures, which includes accepting traffic at interchange.”
Years of progress and improvements for SKOL were washed away with the flood waters. The majority of the railroad still remains under an embargo that ceases service to most rail customers because of track conditions.
The interchanges that are open are Pittsburg (KCS), Columbus, (BNSF) and Tulsa (BNSF and U.P.). The major interchanges for the railroad, Winfield (BNSF and U.P.) and Coffeyville (U.P.) remain closed.
“Because of the hard work by our crews, we have expedited the process of opening the railroad,” Cedeno said. “We are doing our best to assist our customers as they recover from the flood and try to meet their customers’ needs. We want to work quickly so that our customers can remain to be profitable, but in this early stage we must focus on moving traffic from point A to point B on our railroad. Interchange traffic will follow.”
The emergency reopening is the beginning of a three-phased plan to: Restore service as soon as possible with emergency repairs; restore the railroad to pre-flood condition; and complete final repairs and clean up affected areas. The goal of the first phase will be to complete repairs that will allow train service to run safely, although train speeds will be restricted. The second-phase goal will be to fine-tune phase one repairs to restore the railroad to conditions that will allow train speeds to be accelerated to the normal 25 mph. The final phase will call for the rehabilitation of bridges and cleaning ditches.