Weather Almanac for March 2006
WEATHER AND TRAINS
It was snowing and I was determined to go nowhere this day. I have a great desire to stay put when weather turnsnasty. And with snow or freezing rain, that feeling is amplified. Partof the reason is that I always want to look at the weather and not theroad or traffic. Call me a wimp, but having had a car accident in anice storm and spent 8 hours on the road in a snowstorm trying to make aone-hour trip, I have my experiences that tell me to stay close tohome. Not that I hide away during bad weather, it is just that I let myfeet be the mode of transportation during excursions at these times. Ilove to walk in a snowstorm and see the magic of winter weather firsthand, even if it freezes my nose and messes my glasses.
We know how weather can disrupt transportation ? just watch the tvnews when winter and spring storms rush across the continent. As winterflows along, those trying to drive cars and trucks on snowy or icyroads know full well the hazards of weather. And storms in any seasoncan play havoc with air travel, often making a mess of holiday travels.Devastating weather impacts on ships ? the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Princess Sophia, and the Venture to name but a few ? have gone down in legend and memory.
The final major means of transportation has always been myfavourite: railroading. I grew up outside Chicago, the rail hub ofAmerica in the last days when steam dominated railroading. I rememberthe lonely wail of the whistles as trains rumbled across the Illinoiscountryside late at night, and they always sounded more emotional wheninterspersed between rips and rumbles of thunder. However, I thenthought that weather had limited impacts on train travel unless trackswere washed out by flood or mountain passes closed by snow. But itturns out I was mistaken in my belief in the power of the locomotive.
American Railroad Scene. Snow Bound
by Currier & Ives, 1871
March marks the anniversary of the greatest weather-related rail disastersin Canada and the United States. Both resulted from avalanches. But indoing my research I was surprised to see that moving trains have beenhit by tornadoes, and not just once or twice in North American history.An extensive list of these encounters is given in the Tornadoes and Trainsarticle associated with this piece. Of course, even straight-line windscan blow a train from the tracks as I reported in my piece onNewfoundland's Wreckhouse winds.
Temperature extremes can play havoc with rails, causing them toseparate and buckle through contraction and expansion of the metal,such movements can cause derailments. Fog was the culprit on 4 December1957 in St. John's, England when one commuter train crashed intoanother leaving 92 dead and 187 injured. Flash flooding has also causedrailroad accidents, particularly when they undermine or wash outbridges and trestles. Among the most deadly of these in the UnitedStates occurred on 7 August 1904 near Eden, Colorado when a trainderailed during a flash flood and killed 96 aboard.
Louisiana: the Heavy Floods in the South
-Scene on the Jackson Railroad near North Pass
from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, New York, February 26, 1881
Snow and Trains
Snowand ice always worried early railroaders, particularly in the mountainsof the American West. It perhaps is not surprising that the first snow plows to be used with railroads were developed in North America.
The building of the North American transcontinental railroads wasgreatly hampered by heavy snows in the mountains from the Rockies tothe Pacific Coast. In Canada, the mountains of British Columbia, theRockies and western chains, proved daunting to the builders andoperators of the transcontinental railroad. Similar problems arose inthe United States, particularly in the construction of the firsttranscontinental link as it moved through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.There, very heavy, wet snows are common and depths often reach dauntingaccumulations.
 | Cleared train tracks in the Sierra Nevada
at Blue Canyon, California, after 1917 snowstorm.
Courtesy of the Historic National Weather Service Collection,
originally published in
Monthly Weather Review October 1919 |
Particularly bad for the construction of the Central Pacific linewas the Winter 1866-1867, which brought forty-four separate storms andmore than 40 feet (12.2 m) of snow fell, surpassing the record wetwinter of the previous year in central California. The snow packaveraged eighteen feet (5.5 m) at the summit and filled many of thecanyons and cuts through which the track was to move. The Chineselabourers were forced to dig snow tunnels 50 to 500 feet (15 to 150m)long just to reach the rock surfaces they were to tunnel through. Theblasting of the rock often caused huge avalanches to roll down themountains, burying workers alive.
The heaviest storm rolled in on 18 February 1867 and continued until22 February. In its wake, powerful winds continued the blizzardconditions as the powder swirled in the air. On the heels of thisstorm, a second arose on 27 February and blew unabated until 2 March.Total snowfall was estimated at six feet (1.8 m) from the first stormand four feet (1.2 m) from the second. Huge drifts deposited by thestorm winds clogged entrances to every tunnel being cut. On the easternapproach to the Summit Tunnel, workers were forced to extend their snowtunnel fifty feet (fifteen metres) in order to reach their camp. It isknown that twenty Chinese labourers died in one avalanche, but thetotal number lost during the winter will never be known.
During heavy snowfalls it has been almost impossible for the railroads
to maintain their schedules as illustrated by the appearance
of this train has just arrived at Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Photograph from February 26, 1910 issue of Harpers Weekly
Completion of tracks was only the first battle of thetranscontinental railroads with winter weather. Once trains beganrunning, the fight became to keep the tracks open during the succeedingwinters. The railroads build snowsheds to protect the more vulnerablesections of rail and in some cases, were forced to tunnel through thehard mountain sides to bypass particular section of right of way. Theneed for two of the longest North American tunnels became imperativewithin days of each other in the snowy Winter of 1910 in the PacificNorthwest when tragedy showed the vulnerability of sections of track toavalanches.
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Chosen by The Weather Doctor
Written by
Keith C. Heidorn, PhD, THE WEATHER DOCTOR,
March 1, 2006
The Weather Doctor's Weather Almanac Weather and Trains
©2006, Keith C. Heidorn, PhD. All Rights Reserved.
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