You're ordered..

I'm not an engineer, but I do have a background in geology and geography. I would not be overly aggressive with a solution to this particular problem. First of all, this washout doesn't look all that severe. I've seen much worse. This is not a high traffic mainline. The Colorado flooding on the front range a few years ago comes to mind, where the UP faced a much larger problem.

The cause of the washout was severe flooding, not typically seen in this area. However, with warming temps in the northern latitudes, it could become more common going forward. The secret is to balance the solution and its cost with low maintenance and sustainability.

Because the area is subject to severe freeze thaw cycles, I favor a minimalist approach here. That means nothing with a hard foundation. The strongest connection to the earth that I would consider would be the use of wood piles to either form a short trestle with abutments at each end, or perhaps to simply use them to secure some large culverts in place to allow future water to pass. Then just rebuild the right of way with rock and ballast. It survived all those years with no special treatment, until this round of flooding exposed its weakness.

Bottom line, quick and dirty, reopen the railroad. Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.

Litigation and liability is the enemy of the "quick and dirty". This is a fun forum and there is no "correct solution". Requesting different opinions is sometimes known as the "Delphic" method of obtaining a solution.

That being said, in select areas of the NEC where water levels approach track level some rebalasting is required every 14 days. That is documented in the MIT study on a google science search that resulted in internet monitoring probes being installed on the site.

The UP roadbed was of a higher standard and not errected over tundra.

The Chinese experience is definitive. They experimented and found derailments and wrecks the result of not establishing a new cold-weather tundra construction protocol. I would urge reading the article in Nature cited.

In the event of a wreck of a VIA tourist train, failure to use sound modern construction criterion might result in enormous liability. Deaths could result. Anyone for Russian Roulette?

We have no idea how long the high water levels will last. One month? Two months? A year?Two years? And as long as they are high mud-pumping will take place, causing progressive deterioration with every car passing over the line eventually resulting in sudden catastrophic failure and derailment in the middle of nowhere. Oh yeah. Restrict trains to five miles an hour. It could work.

One answer, though not the moral answer (in my opinion) would be for the Canadian government to assume this liability.

My suggestion would not to find a retired "old timer" from the Alaskan railroad but to solicit a bid for an engineering estimate from the outstanding Chinese rail construction entity that built the Quing-Hai line under similar conditions. They have a record of success and the expertise to do the job. They just completed a massive new rail line in Africa.

Circa 2017-2018 there are sound "good practice" standardized engineering solutions to rail construction problems.

Could a "quick-and-dirty" solution produce a viable safe spur?

Maybe.

Frankly at this point I don't believe we have enough engineering information to come to a conclusion.

But other approaches are welcome. How about relieving stress on the roadbed by using skyhooks or tethered hydrogen balloons?

https://www.winnipegfreepress....ilway-442904263.html

I guess this is the latest... some good pics.

This situation does not call for massive expensive improvements, it is a restoration project. The economics of operating this line cannot support the kind of spending required to bring it up to your higher standard. The options are really to repair or abandon given the amount of damage.

The photo originally posted, doesn't really do justice to the pervasive nature of the flooding. This shot explains it better:

The entire line is inundated! Water over the rail heads. Short of raising the entire grade five feet, there is no solution for this. Unfortunately, that solution is not practical.

The surrounding area is flat as a pancake, soft as a sponge, and simply doesn't drain well. This flooding was caused by a weather anomaly, when two blizzards dumped way more than average snow on the area, and the subsequent melting in the spring.

Bottom line, building fancy bridges here doesn't make economic sense. The bridges were never really the problem anyway, the volume of water was. I would simply add more culverts in areas where small washouts occurred in the hopes of mitigating some future damage during the next high water event.

Gregg posted:

https://www.winnipegfreepress....ilway-442904263.html

I guess this is the latest... some good pics.

That 95 page PDF report is fascinating. Most of the damage can be repaired with reballasting and regrading. Of course there are some more serious issues near bridges that will require more effort. It's nice to see that they have a plan of action.

I do stand by my original position of using additional culverts, in the hopes of reducing damage in future events.

Nice photo of problem.    Let  the engineers and contractors do their job.    Probably raising the grade and a total rebuild is in order .  I will read the report after I come home later.   As a retired civil engineer I like to read on recovery projects due to Mother Nature and other events.   I remember well what we did after 9/11/2001 in NYC.      

Some of the areas in Houston and surrounding towns that we visited in April were devasted recently.   I am thankful water is receding and  recovery efforts are beginning.  To our friends in Florida and Gulf Coast our prayers are with you.      

Sorry for going off topic.   

Hey guys, when I first started the topic I was curious just how one would go about filling in the wash-out. As a Conductor/ brakeman I've unloaded hundreds , make that thousands of rail cars of ballast. Everything from blow sand to heavy slag ballast. Air dumps, bottom and side dump hoppers... and even hart cars, Lidgerwood, with  right & left hand plows... Talk about going back in time..

Having said that. I had never run across a wash out with the rails hanging in the air and was curious how are they going to fill this in? No room for anything along the right of way only water.. 

Unfortunately  or fortunately  the picture I posted was  a breach on the Hudson bay line and you guys picked up on it immediately and the thread went  in a little a different direction.

I'm glad it did. We have a saying on the railway.... you can learn something new every day if you're interested.

Time will tell the outcome... Thanks all for posting and keep them coming.

Sort of a modern day remake of the tale of "Atlantis - the Lost Continent"...

Clearly...the God's are angry with us. .   

So here's the deal, after reading the article from the Winnipeg paper including the 95 page PDF damage report and Wikipedia on Churchill, it sounds like the plan is to make the line passable before winter. To do this they need to start ASAP and keep their fingers crossed. The initial bid is for about 43.5 million Canadian, and they might have the money secured. Then the repairs will continue next summer, when they tackle some of the bigger problems.

Wikipedia's contribution to all this comes with the history of the town, CP's original construction of the line and its subsequent sale to OmniTRAX in 1997. The population of Churchill has been shrinking, and is now under 1000 people. The rail service reflects this, as most recently, there is one freight train per WEEK, and just three passenger trains per week. Those numbers tell why funding this restoration project is kind of a sore subject, based on diminishing returns.

Getting back to the original question, how do you repair a washout? Like this!

This is the piece of equipment they want to bring in. It will make short work of a lot of the water damage.

Another possibility:

Hovercraft using the right of way. Russia has many on the surplus market. Much cheaper than aircraft. One tenth the cost. There are 100 passenger models good for 150 miles per hour not much wider than the right of way.

Clear a few trees and you get 365 day passenger access.

Gregg,

Elliot has pointed out the company that can save that line. They already operate in Canada.

Herzog

Now, get the town fathers to innovate and create some new revenue generation.

An interesting thread, that points out how difficult decisions can be with situations like this. I tend to agree with Elliot's approach, I did even before he gave more detail on the line. With a situation like this, there are factors that go beyond 'proper engineering practices' that influence how things are done, because economics are important, too (and this doesn't mean I endorse "sloppy" engineering or substandard practices, while not an engineer my dad was one, my brother is one and my uncle was a PE in civil engineering, and all hate 'sloppiness'. For example, if this had been a high traffic line, there could be considerations about getting it back in service ASAP, and then worry about a long term solution. Obviously a quick fix solution like dumping rip rap, or driving pilings to bedrock to support a small bridge, might not be great long term solutions, but if this was an active line getting it back in service now and then figuring out a long term solution might be the better approach. On the other hand, given the reality of this line, that economically likely exists due to political reality (the need to keep the town supplied), then given the light service, a less than perfect solution might make economic sense. 

From the view of where the track is, and the way it is laid, I think they face some hard choices in the future,up to and including abandoning the service as impractical. They might be able to patch this washout together, but from the looks of it this won't be an isolated incident, they may find themselves doing this a lot going down the road, the region is getting warmer, which means this kind of thing is likely to become more common, and that raises the old question "what is the point of futility?". From what I can see in the aerial view of the track, if they seriously want to keep this branch open the real viable long term solution would be to re-engineer the branch, probably would be to redo the route in parallel on a raised roadbed with proper drainage and culverts and the like while patching together the existing track until this is done, but the cost of that would be quite large. Rebuilding the existing track while maintaining even the limited service on the line would take much longer, and might be more costly than doing the parallel redo. Personally I would be looking at alternatives, given how light traffic is and how small the market is, might be cheaper to find ways to get people and supplies in/out of the place, perhaps trucks and buses (I don't know what the road situation is there, I distantly recall Churchill is way up in the arctic so it may not have road access). A lot of it is going to depend on how they see the long term viability of Churchill, given its decline, they likely will patch the line until such a time as there is so little to be shipped that they can abandon it.

When SP started the first causeway over the Great Salt Lake, they found a big problem.  They started to put pilings in, but when the huge pole was in, it sank into the mud.  The bedrock was not close to the surface.

Different climate and geography.  But is there a real base to place a good roadbed on?  

Plus I was looking at were the port is.  Even if it was a deepwater port oven for over six months, it seems it would take a ship a long time to get there.  It might be faster for ships and cargo to rail or truck stuff to Atlantic or Pacific ports.

Your assessment is on-the-money Bigkid. A parallel new branch could be an answer.

In some areas of such flooding the Chinese used interlocking steel sheets on either side of the roadbed, pumped out the water, and installed dry elevated fill. You will have vertical oscillation of track unless you have a solid base-and mud-pumping. Think "squish-squish". With every squish and passing of a train you lose stability.

AMTRAK produced a study on the degradation of roadbed on tbe NEC corridor due to mix-pumping in selected areas of track producing a predicative model based on weight, speed, and frequency of track use.

What I would like to see is what is called an "engineering economy study" of alternatives.

Can track super-saturated roadbed subject to mud-pumping be safely maintained?

Yes. But only with periodic reballasting. And constant monitoring of the stability. In the case of the high-traffic NEC, every two weeks.

A previous comment on "slow orders" is relevant.

We have to consider that a permanant restriction on train speed and weight and frequency would result in a reconstruction model of significantly less cost. Dedicated freight cars with six-wheel trucks would reduce the wear-and-tear. If there is a temporary repair how about some specially-constructed dedicated consists and engines that would be able to run with extremely light loadings?  Supposing, instead of 80,000 pound cars on conventional trucks we had 30,000 pound cars on multiple trucks or six-wheel trucks? In other words light-weight low-damage trains? 

New extremly light-load low-damage passenger and freight cars designed and built for dedicated service over track that cannot support existing equipment?

What would be the minimum tonnage and traffic that would maintain the viability of the community? Predicting maintenance costs of trackbed is related to this consideration. What minimum use could be projected without "the straw that breaks the camal's back".

You brought out another qualifying factor. The apparant alteration in climate in the area resulting in less cold weather. I am not going to say man-made, but it seems to be happening.

But we don't know how long the water levels will remain high.  A significant unanswered question. Or if the flooded areas will freeze entirely, even with the cold weather coming on. Not to mention planning for future flooding. Installing culverts while you have high water levels on each side of the track is meaningless.

There is access by the port, albeit not for all year. The town could be resupplied with essentials such as propane for a limited lifestyle.

Deferring a decision until water levels recede seems reasonable.

Herzog   Definitely an option and maybe the only one.... Expensive though, I wonder how many cars can be set up as a unit train.  I suppose if one car's belts breaks,  work comes to a stop until fixed or switched out.?.    How many units trains?  We're still going to need the expertise of section crews, bridge and building,  Work equipment and even train crews.  I hope the line gets fixed. I have my doubts though.

Thanks again to all.

BTW Elliot. I'm impressed . never seen anything like that before.

In the end, this really isn't an engineering problem. That part is fairly straight forward and academic. No, this is a geo-political struggle, with about 900 people hanging in the balance.

Is it cost effective to rebuild the railroad?

Would it be cheaper to relocate the people to some sustainable location?

What about the native's cultural interests?

Is rail service the only solution, or is there a better mode?

As far fetched as the hovercraft idea sounds, it might be a very good option. Remove the rails, smooth the right of way, and operate passenger and supply service on a more frequent basis.

We are all railfans here, so when rail lines face closure, we all want a solution to save it, especially when it comes to this unique line. It smacks of the streetcar lines that folded back in the 50's, in favor of bus service. Even though I wasn't born into the streetcar era, I always dreamed about what it must have been like, and wished I had a time machine to go back and experience it first hand.

When the Twin Cities opened its first light rail line, and my wife and I went to the grand opening. There were all kinds of transportation exhibits, as part of the celebration. One such side event was a vintage bus ride, where I got to talking with the driver. I had always thought the buses were the enemy, that it was some kind of conspiracy to rid the streets of rails. He spelled it out for me, that buses were much more flexible in their operation, and far less infrastructure intensive.

This strikes me as one of those situations. Mother nature has stated her position. Maybe it's time to give up the ghost.

Gregg posted:

Herzog   Definitely an option and maybe the only one.... Expensive though, I wonder how many cars can be set up as a unit train.  I suppose if one car's belts breaks,  work comes to a stop until fixed or switched out.?.    How many units trains?  We're still going to need the expertise of section crews, bridge and building,  Work equipment and even train crews.  I hope the line gets fixed. I have my doubts though.

Thanks again to all.

BTW Elliot. I'm impressed . never seen anything like that before.

Gregg, I hadn't either. Herzog just introduced it last year. I think they said they can have up to 32 cars in the train.

I only discovered that thing when I read that 95 page PDF report. There was a picture of it, so I Googled when I couldn't copy the still image, and came up with the Youtube video. If you're really curious about the extent of the damage, all the photos and descriptions are detailed HERE. (page 70 for the A.C.T.)

In some instances the hoover might be better than some of the ice roads.  The hoover could run most of the year.  

http://www.arcticmini.com/fortsevern.htm 

Hey DOMINIC... I'm not sure there even  are Ice roads to Churchill...

I'm curious whether work has started on the repair so I fired off a e-mail to the town asking a few questions . I 'hoping  they can answer my questions and  may be able to put me in contact with another retired railway worker to get his thoughts on the  rail line

Who knows if I'll get a reply but you do bring up an interesting quest about the ice road?. I don't think so. stay tuned.

Very interesting reading.     I hope they have decided to start the work.      Wonder what all the additional geotechnic investigations would entail and cost.   I assume soil borings would be performed and associated info.