(The following story by Matthew Preusch appeared on The Oregonian website on April 6.)
PORTLAND, Ore. — Since the Jan. 19 landslide near Oakridge, trains that carry goods between California and the Northwest have been diverted through Bend and Salt Lake City, causing one- to two-day delays.
Amtrak’s passenger service line, the Coast Starlight, has been replaced by bus shuttles between Sacramento and Portland.
What’s new: Union Pacific officials initially thought repairs might take a couple of weeks, but soon realized the magnitude of the slide and work was more than anticipated.
This weekend the first freight trains were scheduled to roll over the recently patched line.
“We’ve gotten some progress done, but we’re not there 100 percent,” said UP spokeswoman Zoe Richmond.
Richmond said three to seven of the 15 daily trains that have been affected will start traveling the line in the evening while work continues at the site during the day.
She said the railroad did not have an estimate for when all traffic might resume or when Amtrak might start running passenger trains.
“We’ve set so many deadlines for ourselves and the public, that at this point we are not even going to speculate,” she said.
In the meantime, rail passengers’ inconvenience and freight shippers’ losses continue to be Oakridge’s gain.
Hotel rooms and rental homes are full of contract workers, who have been a boon to local businesses during the slow winter season.
Shops are selling work clothes, and diners have a steady flow of customers between shifts on the slide.
As for the slide’s cause, the U.S. Forest Service hasn’t changed its opinion that it was part of the natural instability of Cascade Mountain slopes, and not in part because of an old clear-cut on the slide’s perimeter and area roads.
“No one is saying that harvest on the landscape is not correlated with landslides in some cases, but what we are saying is that it’s not associated with this event,” said Judy McHugh, spokeswoman for the Willamette National Forest.
What’s next: About 200 people continue to work at the site through five contractors. They are pulling away train cars and dump trucks full of loose mud that will be replaced by rock and fill.
“We’ve still got, I’m guessing, another 350,000 cubic yards of material to take off,” said Bill Van Trump, assistant vice president for engineering at UP, who is overseeing the work. By early June, he hopes the rock drains to carry away runoff will be complete and crews can begin replanting the hillside.