Photo of the Week: Derailment

If you follow the railroad industry news at all, chances are you heard about a major derailment last weekend, in a place called Plevna, MT.  Last Sunday afternoon, a merchandise train, operating on the Hettinger Subdivision, derailed and caught fire.  The derailment occurred about two miles west of the small (pop. 158) town of Plevna, in eastern Montana.  A total of fifteen cars went on the ground, fourteen of which were carrying denatured alcohol, which is a fuel additive more commonly known as ethanol.  The derailment sparked a fire, fueled by the the leaking alcohol and the dry prairie grass.  Eight of the alcohol cars burned, and five of them exploded.  There were no injuries from the derailment or the fire that followed.  No evacuations were necessary, although the highway, which parallels the tracks, was closed for several hours Sunday afternoon and evening while firefighters and railroad personnel worked to contain the fire.

The night when all of this went down, I was working in the Glendive yard.  It was a pretty slow night, because the roundhouse had no power ready for any trains, and they were really backed up.  The only thing we had to do as a result of the derailment was gather up some cars, loaded with prefabricated track panels, and assemble them into a train.  Despite being backed up and busy, the roundhouse did manage to find a couple of SD40-2's for the panel train, so it could be sent down to the derailment site as soon as a crew was rested.  They estimated that 1,100 feet of track had to be replaced.  On Monday afternoon, after I was off work and caught up on sleep, I decided to head down to the derailment site with my sister, who was in town visiting, to see the aftermath.  It was only an hour from Glendive anyway.

When we got to Plevna, we found that the prairie was burned as far as you could see, starting right at the west end of town.  As we continued west, we came over a hill, and all of a sudden, it looked like a war zone.  There were railroad cars and parts of railroad cars scattered all over the hills, and everything, including the cars was black and charred.  One of the cars were still burning, and there were people everywhere trying to get things cleaned up and under control.  The rest of the train had been moved, and was no longer in the area, so all that was there was railroad vehicles, emergency crews, and the remains of smashed and burned railroad cars.  Of course, the black backdrop of the burned prairie made the whole scene look even more dramatic.

I had forgotten my camera in Forsyth, so I snapped a couple of pictures with my phone instead.  The one below shows most of the scene that we saw from the nearby highway.

The rest of the pictures can be found on our Facebook page, and are accessible to people without a Facebook account, by clicking here.  Additionally, someone did manage to be in the area when the whole incident occurred, and took a video of the fourth car exploding, which is on YouTube and can be viewed here.

Prototype Railroading: More on Safety

Last weekend, an incident occurred in Forsyth which reminded me that it has been a while since we talked about staying safe around trains.  Railroads and trains are generally quite safe, but also very unforgiving.  Being careless even just once can have potentially fatal consequences.  This is exactly why the railroads are so insistent that non railroad employees stay off the property and away from the trains.  The railroad tends to be just as insistent on safety with their employees as well, to try to avoid injuries and fatalities on the job.

Most people at most railroads do not have much of a problem with people taking pictures of trains and other railroad equipment.  As a railroader, it can be a little weird to have someone taking pictures or a video of me, while I work, but I usually try to ignore it and go about my work.  Of course, if the railroad requires any sort of photo permit, or something similar, it is important to make sure that you have that before going out to take pictures.  If not, you may have a bit of trouble should a railroad employee or police officer decide to ask what you are up to.  When taking pictures or other recordings of trains and other railroad equipment, be aware of your surroundings.  Always be alert to moving rail equipment, but also be alert to any highway traffic that may be nearby.  This is especially important around grade crossings or station parking lots.  When on railroad property, be sure to stay in areas authorized for use by the public, such as station platforms, parking lots, designated walkways, and crossings.  Be sure to stay clear of the tracks at all times, in case of any unexpected movement, even if there is a grade crossing there.

If you chose to photograph or record trains around grade crossings, be aware of any road traffic.  Keep a close watch on the road, and make sure you are aware of any and all oncoming traffic.  Stay behind the gates, if the crossing is so equipped, and be alert for any rail movement as well.  Stay clear of the tracks, and if you do need to cross, do so at the designated crossing, and do not stop fouling the tracks for any reason.  When the crossing is occupied with a train, stay behind any warning devices, such as gates and lights, until the crossing is clear and the warning devices are no longer active.  In a situation where there are multiple tracks, it is very important to stay behind gates or lights until they deactivate, even if it seems to take a long time.  If they do not deactivate right away, it is likely that there is another train on another track, and ignoring the lights could lead to tragic consequences.  If a train stops in the crossing, never try to cross over or under the train, even if it has been stopped for several minutes.  The train can start moving and if you are on or under it, it could be the last thing you see.  Even climbing on the train can be dangerous, because as it starts moving, all the slack must be pulled out of the couplers.  If you are back more than a few cars, this means that the car will very suddenly and violently lurch forward, likely throwing you off of it.  If you are in a vehicle, never drive around lowered crossing gates or run through activated warning lights, even if the track appears to be clear.

If you want to photograph the activities in yards and industries that railroads serve, remember that railroad property is private property, and you must be authorized before being on the property.  Often there are public locations nearby that offer a good view, without compromising safety or requiring trespassing.  Many yards have roads that run nearby, overpasses, or other public property surrounding them.  Smaller yards may even have road or foot crossings.  Some yards have private property around them, but if the railroad will not let you on their property to take pictures, you might consider asking a neighbor who has a good vantage point, if they would mind you taking photos from their property.  This may require talking to a complete stranger, but most people are reasonable and will honor a reasonable request.  If you do manage to obtain permission to be on railroad property, be sure to wear all the required personal protective equipment, and adhere to all safety rules outlined by the railroad.  Should you get permission, it may also be a good idea to get it in writing, just in case anyone questions your presence.

Earlier I mentioned an incident in Forsyth.  For those of you who are dying from curiosity, I'll elaborate.  Those of you that pass out at the mere thought of blood, now would be a good time to stop reading.  In Forsyth, there are two crossings.  One is at the east switch, and one in close to the depot.  Immediately west of the east crossing is CTC East Forsyth.  There is one switch there controller by the dispatcher, which lines either down the main or into the yard.  There is also one switch that is hand lined, for either track one or track two.  Immediately west of the downtown crossing, by the depot, is where the yard widens out.  If I had to guess, I would say that there is about 9,000 feet between the downtown crossing and West Forsyth.  When trains come into Forsyth for a new crew, they are stopped between the west switch and the downtown crossing, on either the main, track one, or track two.  Trains departing eastbound from one or two tracks may or may not have to stop just before the east switch, to line that one hand lined switch.  It just depends where the last train went over it.  When eastbound trains stop for that switch, they momentarily block the downtown crossing, which is 35 to 40 cars behind the engines at that point.  Both crossings are equipped with bells, flashing lights, and gates.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, a coal train was departing from Forsyth, eastbound, and had stopped, as usual, to line the switch.  This process takes as long as it takes the Conductor to climb of the engine, walk 100 feet or so, line the switch, walk back, and get on the engine.  The train is rarely stopped more than a minute.  In the time this departing coal train was stopped, an intoxicated man walked up to the crossing and decided not to wait for the train.  He decided to cross between coal cars, and at the same time, the Conductor got back on the engine and the Engineer began pulling again.  Before this man could get out of the way, the train moved and amputated his legs.  Because of the distance between the downtown crossing and the engines, neither person on the train had any idea what had happened, and they departed.  At that point, the damage had been done anyway.  Even in daylight, the chance of the Engineer or Conductor being aware of that situation would have been less than one in a million.  Fortunately for the pedestrian, there was a vehicle waiting at the crossing, and the driver of the vehicle heard him screaming, and called 911.  He was flown to a hospital in Billings, where he will most likely recover, although he will have to make some big changes to his lifestyle.  Had he crossed over a minute earlier, when the train first stopped, he might have made it across.  But either way, it is a risk that is never worth taking.  He paid a big price to try to save himself a couple of minutes.

Prototype Railroading: Equipment Breakdowns

I realize today is Thursday, which is unusual for this post.  I remembered yesterday morning that it was Wednesday, and I knew what I wanted to write about, but by the time I got home from work, in the evening, I had completely forgotten about it.  So another story comes, but a day late.

At the end of last week, I was called to go to Forsyth again, on an empty coal train.  When I got to work, I met up with my engineer, and we got on the train.  The utility had already put the power on it, so all we had to do was get on the train, untie it, and leave.  As an empty coal train, it had no work to do en route, and there was only one or two trains coming at us from Forsyth, so it looked like it would be a pretty easy and quick trip.  Of course, nothing is definite until it happens on the railroad, but it looked good for us.

The trip started out alright.  We got a warrant to West Colgate, which seems to be the typical way to start the day.  Shortly after receiving the warrant, the dispatcher changed his mind and asked us to go in the siding at Colgate instead.  As we were headed towards Colgate, the engineer noticed that the brake cylinder still had one pound of air in it, and even though everything was supposed to be fully released, that one pound would not go away.  Once we got in the siding at Colgate and cleared our track warrant, he decided to notify BNSF mechanical, in Fort Worth, just so they would know about it and it could be checked out next time the locomotive was at a shop.  One pound was not a serious problem.  It is not enough pressure to actually drag the brake shoes, and the engineer had verified that they were released and not touching the wheel.

As we waited in Colgate, two trains went by us to Glendive.  After those two, we only had one more train to meet, and it was still over 100 miles away.  When mechanical finally answered the radio, the engineer explained what was going on.  Their first reaction was to tell us that the second engine should never have left the shop.  That was reassuring!  Then they suggested we check the hoses between engines and make sure none of them got crossed over each other and connected to the wrong one.  That does not happen much, but if the engines were put together in a hurry, it could have happened, and it would make the independent brakes do funny things.  The hoses were connected properly though, so that was not the problem.  The engineer relayed that to the mechanical, and his next suggestion was to cycle the air brake and computer control circuit breakers.  We had to tie the train down first though, because doing so would reset the computer and the air brake system, which would leave the brake system in question for several minutes.  As I walked back to tie down the train, I double checked the hoses between engines, which were still put together right.  When I got back to the cab, we turned the breakers off.  The computer monitors stayed lit but all the information on them was cleared off.  After several minutes we turned the breakers back on, and the computers started back up and the air brake system cycled through its start up procedures.

Once the air brakes and computer had been reset and everything seemed to be back to normal, we tried releasing the brakes to see if the one pound problem had been fixed.  It had not.  The monitor still showed one pound of air in the brake cylinder.  Additionally, we noticed that the air flow was not dropping below about 40, and was flashing back and forth between 40 and zero.  The air flow meter is used to help determine what the brakes are doing, and measures how quickly air is flowing through the brake pipe.  When nothing is going on, it should be at or near zero.  When the brakes are released, it typically goes up as air is pumped back into the brake pipe, but once the brake pipe pressure has stabilized, the flow should go back to zero.  We also noticed another new problem.  When the independent brake was applied, the pressure was only about 45 pounds in the brake cylinder, when it should have been at 72 pounds.  We relayed all this information to mechanical in Fort Worth.  We were instructed to cycle the breakers several more times, although the results were the same every time.  Finally after several tries at correcting the problems, with no success, mechanical decided we needed someone with mechanical knowledge to come take a look at the locomotive.  The contacted the Glendive roundhouse and assured us someone would be there shortly.

By the time the roundhouse had been contacted, we had been sitting in Colgate for nearly three hours, trying to troubleshoot the brake problems.  Two trains were waiting behind us, and we suggested to the dispatcher that they be allowed to go around us, on the main track, since we were likely to be there a while longer.  It was just a few minutes before the shift change at the roundhouse, so we knew it would be a little while before anyone got there.  They would wait until the new shift started, and before they came out to us, they would have to have their meetings and conference calls and job safety brief, so it would probably be close to an hour before anyone even left the roundhouse.

When the mechanical personnel arrived from the roundhouse, they put blue flags on the train, so that they could do any work they needed to on it.  They then came up to the cab and asked us a little about what we had done with mechanical on the radio, so we told them what we had done and what had happened as a result.  They tried a few different things and tried cycling a few different breakers, but the results were the same.  Then they got into the maintenance options on the computer, which allowed them to run diagnostics and tests on the locomotive, which we did not have access to.  After some time of diagnostics and tests, as well as walking around the engine and inspecting it again, they determined that the locomotive had to go back to Glendive for repairs.  It had failed some of the tests they ran, and could not be operated on the road.  We had to use the second engine to tow bring it back to town.  We explained what needed to be done to the dispatcher, got a track warrant, and then cut off the train and headed back to Glendive.  The roundhouse guys had already left, and so the roundhouse knew we were coming and would need a pair of engines to replace the ones we were bringing back to them.

When we got to town, we contacted the dispatcher again and got some new track bulletins and talked about the possibility of dog catching us.  We were more than halfway through our allowed work time, and we were back in Glendive, so making it to Forsyth just did not seem likely.  We could still have made it if we had a straight shot, but even then it would have been close!  Once I was done talking with the dispatcher, we got on our new engines, which were ready by then, and headed back out to Colgate.  Once in Colgate, we had to relink the distributed power, on the rear, and then we put the engines on the head end of the train.  We let the dispatcher know when we were ready to go, and he took us to Terry.  We finally pulled out of Colgate, headed west, about seven and a half hours after we had gone on duty.  It is only about that many miles from Glendive!  As we left Colgate, the dispatcher told us they had decided to dog catch us, and that crew would be on duty at 0415, in Glendive.

When we got to Colgate, the train we were meeting, which had been in Forsyth when we had gotten to Colgate, was not quite there yet.  We stopped short of the crossings in town, and figured we would pull in between the siding switches when they got there.  We ended up having almost an hour to kill there while we waited.  When they did finally arrive, the dog catch crew was also nearly there.  We began to pull forward, the DP would not load, and the engineer got an alarm message on his monitor, from the DP.  The message only indicated that there was an alarm, and said nothing about what it was.  The engineer on the train we were meeting offered to take a look at it, and when he called us on the radio from our DP, we could hear bells and alarms in the background.  He was unable to make the bells go away, and the dog catch crew had arrived there in Terry and decided to take a look at it.  They spent several minutes on the DP, and we rang up mechanical again.  The dog catch engineer tried troubleshooting the DP for several minutes before coming up to the front.  When they go to the front, we got off and got in the van to Forsyth.  I do not know how that turned out, because by then I was tired and just wanted to get to Forsyth so I could sleep.  The sun was starting to rise, so I had been at work all night and only gone 40 miles!  By the time we tied up in Forsyth, we were only about 20 minutes short of our 12-hour work limit.

Prototype Railroading: Detours

Occasionally, a rail line goes out of service for one reason or another, and when that happens, usually the important trains get detoured, and the low priority ones get cancelled, or they wait until the line reopens.  Lately this has led to an interesting situation in Montana.

During the spring this year, eastern Montana and North Dakota got a lot of rain.  That caused rivers to rise and trains to be rerouted due to flooding.  It led to mudslides that closed different sections of track for anywhere between a few hours and a few days.  The rivers are about 12 times their normal height, although at this point are not considered flooding anymore.  Western Montana has mountains, which still have snow on them.  Every year, in June, rivers rise as that snow all melts off.  So now we are in the predicament where the rivers are already very high, just a few feet below flooding, and the snow is finally melting, sending more water down the rivers.  On the former Northern Pacific, while the river is very high, we have not had any flooding issues yet.  On the Hi-Line, the former Great Northern, on the other hand, the tracks are under water in some places.  There is significant flooding in the Minot, ND, area.  Because of that flooding, the trains that normally operate on the Hi-Line have to go somewhere else.  The low priority ones are being delayed until the flooding stops.  BNSF estimates that the line will be flooded for 10 to 14 days.  It could be several more weeks until the line is back to full service, depending on the flood damage.

The higher priority trains operating on the Hi-Line cannot simply be cancelled, because customers are paying big money to have those trains arrive on time.  They will not arrive on time, but there is no sense delaying them upwards of a month.  Instead, they are all being rerouted on the former Northern Pacific, or right through the area I work.  Typically the Hi-Line has a lot of intermodal and vehicle trains, which we almost never see here.  We are on a coal route, so we mostly have coal trains.  When things are operating normally, we have exactly one intermodal train, which is usually only five to eight loads.  It goes to Billings.  Yesterday however, I was assigned to a train full of shiny, new Hondas, all bound for Albany, NY, Ayer, MA, and Wilmington, DE.  That train would normally have operated over the Hi-Line.

While we get some more unusual trains through this way when the Hi-Line is closed, it leads to some operational problems.  The Hi-Line is all controlled by Centralized Traffic Control, or CTC, it has high speed switches, and it is mostly two main tracks.  Trains are able to operate at a higher speed on the Hi-Line, and the line has a capacity for more trains and longer trains.  When all those trains come here, they have to operate slower, and fewer of them can operate at a time.  Because of this, dispatch has chosen to make the railroad an eastbound railroad.  We take a van or bus to Forsyth, and then we catch a train back to Glendive.  They can operate more trains if they are all going in the same direction.  They only run what westbound trains have to run, and for the crew that gets that, it is a very long day, because they meet dozens of eastbound trains.  Part of the reasoning behind this is that the trains that normally operate on the Hi-Line are longer than most of the sidings we have here.  When a train is 8,000 feet long, and only one siding every 150 miles can hold it, it really makes arranging meets difficult.  There is simply nowhere to put the train.  Having most of the trains going the same direction also makes that less of a problem.  The few westbound trains can meet the really long ones just about anywhere.

When the Hi-Line was closed, there was one high priority train that did not get detoured.  That was Amtrak's Empire Builder.  There were rumors that it would be detoured, but it just does not make sense.  The detours are effective from Spokane, WA, to Fargo, ND.  It could be shortened to Shelby, MT, on the west end, but that still would mean Amtrak would miss a lot of the normal stops, and be making stops nowhere near the regular ones.  Instead, Amtrak chose to run the train near the ends, with a gap in the middle, and no alternate transportation.  Even if Amtrak chose to detour on this route, the speed limit is lower, and the switches are mostly limited to 10 mph, so Amtrak would incur huge delays, again making it impractical.  So Amtrak will be canceled until water levels drop and the track gets inspected and repaired.  The important freight trains will continue to run, but on this line, the old Northern Pacific, and we will all spend less time in Forsyth as a result. I'm okay with that!

On a side note, here is a bit of trivia for you.  The Great Northern Railway was built by James J. Hill, who was known for being fiercely independent.  The rail line was built from Minneapolis to Seattle, and as a result of Mr. Hill's independence, it was the only western railroad completed with no federal subsidy.

Prototype Railroading: Rain, Rain, Go Away

Lately, eastern Montana has had a lot of rain, and that has lead to a few unusual problems around the railroad.  The railroad yard is usually somewhat wet and muddy, and there have been standing puddles for quite some time.  However, the rain that we have gotten in the last week or so has changed the situation quite a bit.  At times it has been raining several inches each day, with few to no breaks.  Besides the yard being wet and muddy, everyone who works in it has been wet and muddy.  The Yellowstone River, which flows through town has risen significantly, and has begun to occupy parts of the flood plain in town.  Culverts, creeks, and streams are all full.  Last weekend, while I was working in the yard, some of the consequences of all this rain began to make themselves apparent.

On the east side of town there are some hills.  Between them and the river is the railroad, and most of Glendive.  Many years ago, as the railroad was built and the town was developed, some very long culverts were built to carry runoff water from the hills, under the town and the railroad, to the river.  Those culverts are  quite large, some of them being eight feet in diameter and over a mile long.  Some of the older guys have told me about when they were kids, how they and their friends would dare each other to run through the culverts, across town.  To a kid, that was pretty scary, because it gets so dark in the middle of them.  All of those culverts run under the railroad yard and most of the developed parts of town before they get to the river.  Most of the time, there is no evidence that they are there, unless you happen to know where the ends are.

Last week, while working on an evening Utility shift, in the Glendive Yard, I discovered some evidence of the rain.  At the west end of the yard, there is a bridge over a creek.  The main track and the yard lead  cross the creek at the same place, although technically they are on two different bridges.  Normally, from the tracks, you cannot tell that because there is gravel on the bridge decks, and it is easy to walk from one to the other without ever noticing.  All the rain however had started to wash the gravel down between the bridges in a relatively small gap.  The Conductor I was working with took a step off the locomotive and actually stumbled into one of the holes that was left behind.  There was still gravel, and he did not fall through the bridge, but once he found that, we looked at it for a minute and discovered that we could see the side of the bridge the main track is on.  That was not good, so we called the dispatcher to put out a notice.

The next day, and several inches of rain later, we discovered a much bigger problem.  Once again, I was working on the evening Utility shift, with the same Conductor.  We were putting locomotives on a coal train.  The Conductor and I were standing on the rear platform of the rear locomotive, protecting as we moved the locomotives backwards to the rear end of the train.  As we neared the switch at the east end of three track, we noticed we could see the sides of the ties between the rails on three track.  Usually the gravel and ballast is piled up to the top of the ties, so this was unusual.  As we got closer, we saw more of the sides, indicating that some gravel was missing.  We gave the engineer the signal to stop the engines before we got to the missing ballast, and we stepped off to investigate.  We were not expecting what we found.

As we got off the engines and walked closer to the missing ballast, we realized that the rails and ties also did not have any ballast under them.  They were floating over a sink hole that had mysteriously opened up under the tracks.  The hole, at the top was about eight feet around.  As it got deeper, it also got wider.  At the bottom of the hole, at least six feet below the ground, the hole was at least ten feet around.  The rails and ties were simply floating in the air over this hole.  As we looked in the hole, we could see more gravel and dirt falling over the sides and into the hole.  Once again, we called the dispatcher and explained the situation to him and told him that the entire east yard lead and all track above and including three track had to be put out of service.  Chances are if we had taken the locomotive over that hole, we would have had a disaster.  The one rail of the lead that went over the hole would have sank and broken under the weight of the engine, one side would have had no support, and the locomotive would have likely gone on its side.

Someone from Maintenance of Way arrived shortly after we called the dispatcher about the sink hole.  They were there to fix another sink hole, which had appeared on a driveway into the yard.  We also explained the situation to him, and showed him the hole.  He was the one who explained that there was a culvert under the yard, and the rest of town, which ran right under the hole he was fixing, and the one we had just discovered.  Once we showed the problem to him, we called the roundhouse, because we could not put the locomotives on their train, and we needed to know where the roundhouse wanted them stored in the meantime.  They ended up going back to the track where we had picked them up.  As we were headed back there, we noticed another, much smaller sink hole developing under the runaround track, right near the fuel storage tanks.  While that was not serious yet, we figured it would be safe to report it before it did get large.  A little more rain would be all it would take to make that hole as large as the one we had just found.  Once the locomotives were put away, we went back to the larger sink hole, and discovered that the gravel under one track and the main track was also beginning to sink and give way under the tracks.  A hole had not developed, but there were several sags in the road bed, and it was obvious that the ground was going somewhere.  From there we went back to the depot and reported all our findings to the dispatcher.  That gave him just two track which he could use.  The only problem with two track is that there was a coal train on it with no locomotives.  That was the train we had been powering up before we found the holes.  So no trains could come into the yard until the holes were fixed.

Less than a minute after we got off the phone with the dispatcher, the Switch Crew radioed us.  They were out at a local industry and had encountered a rain related problem.  They made it to the industry just fine, but once they got there, a small hill near the tracks on that line gave way, and a mudslide occurred, burying the tracks in several feet of mud.  Because of the slide, they were unable to bring the train back to the yard.  They gave us the location and approximate length and depth of the slide, and asked us to send the crew van out to them.  We called the dispatcher back and relayed the message.  A stressful night for him was only getting worse.  What we did not realize is that this was only the beginning.

Several hours later that night, after I was off work and asleep, a much more serious mudslide occurred.  About 85 miles west of Glendive, the railroad runs along the Yellowstone River, and along some small hills.  The railroad occupies a fairly small shelf above the river, right up against the hills.  Because of all the rain, and the overall softness of the ground, one of those hills collapsed.  When that happened, it came down on the main line between Glendive and points west.  The railroad tracks and the shelf it sat on were swept away, into the Yellowstone River.  An entire mile of railroad track and right of way is completely gone.  This completely shut down all rail traffic west of Glendive.  Trains were stopped at the next siding, and vans were dispatched to bring the crews home.  Maintenance of Way was dispatched to the scene of the slide, and train loads of rocks and ballast were called.  The small mudslide on a branch in Glendive suddenly became a low priority.  Within hours, 40 cars of rock had been dumped in the area of the slide, in order to rebuild the right of way and get tracks back in place and in service.  While 40 cars is a lot of rock, hundreds will be needed to get everything back in service and to get the track up to normal operating speed.  While the railroad can have trains moving again in just a couple of days, it takes an army of track maintainers working around the clock to make that happen, and it takes weeks to get the track back to the condition it was before the slide.

The rain has made life interesting in the past week.  It has given everyone a few unexpected days off, although it has caused some serious service disruptions.  As if we have not had enough, the weather forecasters are telling us more rain is still to come.  I suppose this will lead to a very green summer, that is if summer ever gets here!