posted
Am planning my rail trip/vacation with the possibility of doing it in the spring.
What happens in April or May when trains go through Tornado Alley? These things can't be predicted but locals in KC when I was there say you can tell when the conditions are right for a tornado. What does the train do when there is a potential somewhere along the route?
Thanks for any insight.
Posts: 64 | From: NYC (NYP) | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
As someone who has lived most of his life in tornado territory (West Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas) plus a few places not in tornado territory, you treat these things as what they are, part of the weather. You listen for the warnings, and also get to recognize weather conditions that make you say, hummm, maybe possible conditions for one.
At least one specialized weather service wrote an article in the trade press a few years ago about the analysis and reporting methodology they used in a contract they had with BNSF to provide warnings and what the responses the company required.
IIRC, part of it amounted to such things as provisions of very specific geographic warnings, and trains in those locations were suppossed to be brought to a stop in the safest possible location, trying to locate the stopping point to avoid blocking road crossings or having any part of the train on a bridge.
Generally, if you inside a train that is about as safe as you are going to be able to be in a tornado.
George
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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several years ago we were returning from Chicago on the Cardinal. We were fairly late, started to make up time and suddenly slowed down to a creep. Sinc we were close to MANASSAS we figured local traffic was getting priority. Then the car attendant told us there was a tornado warning between here and Washington so it was necessary to slow down otherwise the train would be blown off the tracks. We ran at 15mph all the way into Alexandria.Talk about feeling uneasy. So apparently they have plans for weather conditions.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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When I was on the Zephyr last month, there was a storm on the Plains an hour or two after we crossed the Mississippi, and we stopped for some extra time in a station in Iowa because the train had received a FAX from the freight line, with whom they are apparently in constant communication (and which I think is BNSF for that part of the trip) about winds over 55 miles an hour. Then the winds died down and we proceeded.
So, even though this incident was about high winds, not tornadoes, the procedure followed sounds just like what George Harris describes.
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
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Sojourner: If on its normal route, that was definitely BNSF. Same logic. What makes the tornado dangerous to the train is the wind and what it carries around. George
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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