Amtrak delayed on westward run from Chicago, FBI involved.

[Jackpine Radical]

Something happened on the Amtrak route, apparently between Chicago and Mpls, to cause them to halt the trains. My wife was to be on a train leaving Chicago this afternoon but was diverted onto other transportation. She says that she was told power lines came down onto the tracks, she thinks maybe near Milwaukee or Burlington, WI. Originally blamed on high winds but there were no high winds. She has heard that the FBI was called in. The hot wires are said to have blown a bunch of RR equipment.

Does anybody have any details on what's happening?

[theshadow]

1. A high tension tower...

...came down yesterday late yesterday afternoon in Oak Creek, Wisconsin; that's just outside Milwaukee and Mitchell International Airport (which lost power for a while). The tower fell on an adjacent one, and they both went down. Some of the cable did, indeed, cross a nearby railroad track. Because "some bolts" were missing from the first tower, the FBI was called in to investigate for sabotage.

So I don't get yelled at, here is a link:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/265487.asp

[Pharlo]

9. One other miniscule item they failed to mention in that press release...

John Edwards plane landed at Mitchell International airport approxiamately one hour before the power outage occurred. I am sure that had something to do with the amount of concern at the Federal level.

[warpigs]

2. See this link

<http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/265487.asp>

[Kanary]

8. Hi warpigs!

:hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi:

Welcome to DU!

:toast:

Kanary

[KC21304]

3. Delete

.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Thanks everybody.

You people are amazing.

[WLKjr]

5. If I am not mistaken

FBI is called in on that to check for sabatoge and some people from the FRA might have been called in too.

[allalone]

6. has anyone ever been on a train to Chicago

that DIDN'T get delayed? I haven't. I've spent way too much time stranded in Colorado. Hey wait, also stalled in Washington State, Arizona, California more than once. The last time was in Colorado. It was raining very hard and they put us on buses because the tracks were washed out. You'd think something that runs on a track would be a little more reliable.

[Gore1FL]

7. It is for the most part

Consider this: the longest European train route is the Orient Express. Compared to U.S. routes, it is microscopic.

hundreds of trains run accross those sectiosn of track daily-- that is quite a bit of tonagage.

Feather river is an intersting route on the Union Pacific. A Ford Bronco (designed to ride the rails travels head of each train by a mile to check for recent landslides.

Additionally, AMTRAK, except for a few spots in the NE, runs on frieght tracks, and are at the mercy of each road's freight traffic.

The tracks are reliable, the trains are reliable, but when the quantity and the uncontrollables, weather, for example, come into play, the best of technology cannot compete.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. My expereience is that the westbound trains

tend to be reliable at least as far as MPLS, while the eastbound ones out of Seattle often have something go wrong by way of weather or track problems somewhere between Seattle & MPLS.

[69KV]

11. Try this link

for more:

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=22624