Prototype Railroading: Eastbound Railroad

Some of you may have heard, there has been some serious flooding in Minot, ND. Steven mentioned it, because it caused suspension of Amtrak's Empire Builder, which meant he needed to make changes to his travel plans. It has also have quite an effect on operations in Glendive. No trains were able to run on the former Great Northern across most of North Dakota, although Minot had the worst of the flooding. The trains still needed to move though, so the railroad completely changed how trains were travelling. All eastbound trains that normally operated on the former Great Northern were diverted south at Shelby, MT. They traveled to Laurel, MT, and then headed east on the former Northern Pacific, through this area. Westbound trains were diverted through Nebraska, and then northwest across Wyoming, to Laurel, MT. They went to Shelby, where they resumed normal westward movement. Low priority merchandise trains were diverted by way of the southern transcontinental line to California, and then ran north up the west coast to the Pacific Northwest.

Out of all these diversions and detours, we just saw eastbound trains. We have been driven to Forsyth for almost every shift lately, where we would catch a train back to Glendive. There would be no meets on the way, as there were no westbound trains, and the entire trip would take about six hours. It was actually really nice, because we were home almost every day! At the beginning of last week, they began running trains over the former Great Northern again, but this has not yet ended for us. The line is still primarily an eastbound railroad. It takes some time for trains to get back into the normal operating patterns. It will likely be several more days before the flow of westbound trains returns to normal. Over the last few trips, we have had a few meets. Last night we had four, which was the most we had seen in several weeks. Over the next few days to a week, the normal flow of traffic will return to normal, and we will be riding a train in both directions again.