As for the BC Rail line, it was out of service for an outage that would take 11 days of around the clock work to repair. The pictures show the major damage areas, although there were numerous other sections that also needed some repairs.
Things were starting to show progress by October 20...
17:42 20th Tunnel at the 55 mile on the Squamish sub has been clear. MOW now able to make their way towards Garibaldi.
17:43 20th MOW advise that they are tentatively anticipating line clear for October 31st.
On October 21, BC Rail issued the following service bulletin to its customers:
“Despite the BC Rail line outage between Squamish and Lillooet, BC Rail operations continue and the railway is accepting all traffic from shippers on our network. The BC Rail line is out in several places after over 12 inches of rain fell in Southern BC between Oct 16 and Oct 19. Fortunately there were no injuries on the railway nor were there any derailments or loss of railway equipment.
The rain returned to the region on Monday and is expected to continue until Thursday. BC Rail expects to have our line open in 10 days. Already we’ve made progress and have re-opened a tunnel that had been closed due to a rock slide. BC Rail engineering forces are on site to begin rebuilding a bridge and our tracks. However, trains are moving.
Traffic is currently being detoured over the lines of Canadian National Railway from Prince George to its final destination with CN handling 6 trains per day to ensure shipment fluidity. BC Rail’s Network Operations Centre has changed service in the corridor between Lillooet and Prince George to speed the delivery of affected traffic. Customers should expect delays to traffic of approximately 24 hours.
Empty equipment returning from connecting carriers is being diverted to Prince George to ensure car supply during the line outage. In addition, arrangements have been made with Canadian Pacific Railway and Burlington Northern Santa Fe to intercept and expedite cars affected by the detours to minimize redundant backhauls.”
The repair work continued:
15:31 22nd J. McMillan advises Paradise road to Cheakamus area is open for official railway business only - residents still being held out
2033 22nd Janos Piszar advises at 1700 a further 40 to 50 yards of material came down at mile 55.5 - they are still cleaning it up.
10:00 23rd Report from the field - the crew at Creekside (mile 108.1) will be laying panel track today and ballasting - may have track clear tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest - will take the push power from Pemberton, combine it with the train at Creekside and move it north, during daylight hours only, when track clear. Work proceeding at Garibaldi and Tisdall, still expecting track clear October 31st.
14:34 24th Line clear between Lillooet and Rutherford Creek bridge (Tisdall) was 1000 this morning - problem being worked on at mile 100.5 - necessary to armour grade.
By October 25th, the major effort remaining was the reconstruction of the Rutherford Creek Bridge. Major heavy construction was working to replace the concrete footing that the raging waters had washed out of position, causing the bridge spans to drop. Then, on the 29th came the message that everyone had been waiting for:
20:09 29th Tim Macmillan reports line clear at Rutherford Creek at 2000. (below)
Trains began moving over the BC Rail line once again between Squamish and Lillooet—for the first time in 11 days—the line had been cleared and reopened for traffic two days ahead of projections. Once again the sound of rail traffic passing by the Heritage Park resumed and sounded back to normal, and freight trains were again to be seen passing through West Vancouver as we took our regular walks on the seawall.
The power of nature had been seen in very visible ways. The costs to rebuild enormous—and still being tallied. We just hope that it really was the “once in 200 year rainstorm” - we don’t need another one like that for some time.
Left, Garibaldi Siding at mile 59.2 hangs into the Cheakamus River while the main line is seriously undercut by the river.
The railway bridges at Rutherford Creek were washed out, as was the Highway 99 bridge at the same location (note highway bridge in picture below sitting in the riverbed!)
This was the biggest rebuild of the line restoration, involving construction of new footings. The spans were able to be reused.
Left, the BC Rail mainline hangs over the river at mile 108.2
