CN 2726 East at Burlington Rd in Burlington, IL and CN 8942 West at Eleroy, IL both on 8-2-11

The story behind these two trains starts back on the night of July 27th. That evening, forecasters and meterologists were predicting a big event. The ingredients were just right in the Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin area to produce a huge storm system that would reek havic onto that area. Starting about 8:30 pm, the rain fell in buckets which was enough to flood just about any low lying area even washed some highways right off the map in some locations and low lying towns were flooded out like Pearl City, IL. Lightening was vivid enough to knock power out to thousands of ComEd customers along the Stateline. The biggest event was a tornado that stayed on the ground for several miles and finally disappated north of Freeport, IL.

With this all going on, the railroad systems in Northern Illinois got very damaged by rainfall that flooded out most of the right-a-ways in some spots to the point that the tracks were completely washed away. Near Blanding Landing, IL, a 30 car section of a southbound "flood detoured" coal train derailed and tore out a good mile section of the Aurora Sub's Mississippi River Route just south of E Dubuque, IL. Whilst that was happening, levees broke and flooded out the DME yard in Savanna and the Mississippi rose to start flooding a portion of the BNSF yard as well. The CN took a major brunt of the storm damage as well too. (1) A 800 foot section of track was completely washed away near a railroad location called Rockdale. (2) The track through Galena which sustained moderate damage were under about 2 or 3 feet of water, if not more. (3) Multiple miniature washouts were reported between Freeport and Dyersville, IA.

The railroads responded quickly starting that night with check ups on track and then into the morning hours at first light, the MOW crews got a good look at what Mother Nature had done. With all the closures, BNSF took Canadian Pacific rails across Wisconsin and Minnesota from St Paul over to Milwaukee and down. DME ceased their services from Chicago to the west. The CN closed down their line from Waterloo to Chicago, a vital portion of the corn line that it is.

And with all that said, this video shows the first eastbound M33891 from the previous Wednesday on this Tuesday morning highballing through Burlington, IL about 20 miles from Chicago. Chased from Freeport. The next train is an M33791 from a previous time also. He is coming west near Eleroy having just flew through Freeport just minutes before. Enjoy!

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• CN
• Canadian
• National
• IC
• Illinois
• Central
• Burlington
• Elroy
• Freeport
• Galena
• Savanna
• Blanding
• Landing
• Chicago
• Flood
• 2011

[basicbill1]

Well done, Andrew. Nice narrative, too.