Western Railroad Discussion > Muddy Surprise

A little before 0700 hours on Friday 07/21/17, a westbound BNSF train rounded the corner at Milepost 1170.6 in Martinez, CA and encountered an unexpected mud slide over the rails. This is in the trench leading up to Tunnel #1. The cause appears to have been from a broken water pipe along the edge of the parking lot that saturated the hill and caused a slide about 3-4 feet wide and about 3 feet deep.

These photos were taken about 5 hours later, after the water had been shut off and the excess water had drained away. The speed limit through this section is 45 mph, but the transition down to 35 mph is at the far end of the tunnel. I am told that the lead unit's front pilot was completely covered in mud after the encounter. The lead unit was reportedly a Ferromex unit (although I did not think it could lead, unless it had PTC). The train was probably the ZALTNBY9, or similar.

I did get out of the house early on Friday, but then I still missed being in the area by about 15-20 minutes. But by the time I got out there was no more radio traffic about this, so I had no idea it was there, until much later. The line was essentially shut down until late afternoon, at least. They did walk the westbound ZWSPNBY9 through the mud at about 1330 hours. A couple hours later a back hoe was delivered and they started the bulk of the clean-up.

Gary

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Two more photos.

Gary

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Let's see now. The hillside is washing away so let's park vehicles on the road right above the washout. What might go wrong here?

Simple, the weight of the vehicles will cause the rest of the hill to slide which will cause them to
actually fix the problem!

Out

The small strip of land where they built the small business above the tracks is a terrible location. There are two buildings. I don't recall what the building is partially visible on the far right, but it does the most business. There is a building with three tenants out of sight on the left. Currently there is a dental clinic and a small gym. The third space is vacant and I think for awhile it was a church. The whole building started off as a discount furniture store. It was only built about 4 years ago. So the parking lot is never even close to full. The water line that broke probably went to the building on the right.

Gary

Posted from iPhone

Looks like a lot of standing around to me! :)

Interesting note on perspective. The 1st photo seems to show there is only an inch or two of mud over the rail, but the 2nd photo indicates it is much more than that.

Thanks for posting.

The owner of the property that had the broken pipe will probably get a nice bill from BNSF for the clean up.
Time to lawyer up!