Defensible Space
Yesterday stayed cloudy all day and (relatively) cool. I decided to tackle digging up the growth in the field next to the house, which, once it dries out, is a hazard.
The mostly-bare space here looked more like the area to the left in this photo when I started digging weeds. I worked as long as I could, but even without direct sunlight, it was still warm, and eventually I ran out of steam and headed for the shower and lunch.
I was masked up while doing yard work, mostly against dust and pollen, but also from wildfire smoke that rolled back in. However, late in the evening, light winds cleared some of it out and cooled things off again. Lisa and I sat on the porch under the awning enjoying cooler air and being able to look at things more than a couple of meters away. A few drops of rain started to fall. As more rain fell, the air cleared some more and we mostly stayed dry, but even where we were getting rain falling on us, it seemed to dry quickly, which shows how dry the air is here.
Rain doesn't usually last very long around here, but this storm had some bite to it. There was also quite of bit of lightning in it, mostly cloud-to-cloud, and I hope that anything that hit the ground either didn't cause fires, or left ones that were extinguished by the rapidly increasing rain. After maybe 30 minutes, my phone blew up with a Flash Flood Warning from the National Weather Service. Water started to flow into the field where I had been cleaning brush earlier in the day. I couldn't get pictures, as it was too dark.
We pulled our chairs closer to the wall under the small awning, but after a while the wind also picked up and we had to head inside. Before we did so, we saw several trains passing through Fernley, all moving slowly. That was because Union Pacific had declared condition "FF" (Flash Flood) for the area, so all trains had to move at reduced speed, looking for washouts on the many small culverts along this stretch of track. We also heard a local maintainer in his hi-rail vehicle, when he pulled in behind the train stopped on the main in order to make room for a westbound train creeping from Hazen to Fernley to pass.
The dispatcher was having a terrible time getting trains through the area. Various weather-related delays were causing crews to "die" (reach their maximum of 12 hours of service, requiring them to stop their trains). Normally a relief crew is dispatched by road from Sparks, but some of the places these trains had to stop are very difficult to access by road. I listened to a four-way conversation between two trains, the maintainer, and the crew van, as the van tried to figure out how to get to the stranded train, which was now parked in Parran siding, a place where crews are almost never switched, and for good reason.
It was a four-way radio conversation because of radio reception difficulties between the stranded train (who was talking to the driver the crew van that was on US-95 trying to figure out how to get to Parran, but I couldn't hear her because of the distance), the train sitting on the main in front of the house, and the maintainer in his hi-railer who is responsible for this portion of the Nevada Subdivision. Messages got relayed through this four-way conversation, and eventually the maintainer concluded that the road to Parran, what there is of it, is very difficult to find even in the daytime and in dry weather, and said that he didn't think the road would be passable at night and in this heavy rain. The crew van headed back toward Sparks, leaving a crew (and a train) stuck on an almost-inaccessible desert siding.
I went to bed before hearing the end of this tale, but what I thought I heard the dispatcher trying to do was to have an eastbound freight that was slowly heading toward Parran stop and pick up that crew and take them to Winnemucca. The crew at Parran would need to tie down their train (set hand brakes and secure the locomotive), and they'd figure out a way to get a crew back out there later. He did not like stopping that eastbound train, because that crew was also running short on hours. There was also some complicated moving of relief crews, as a crew that was rescuing a train that had been parked on Fernley siding was told to tie it down at Patrick (near Sparks), where a crew van would collect them and take them to relieve a different train.
On top of all this was the many-hours-late eastbound Amtrak California Zephyr working its way through the area. They had a different set of problems ahead of them. Although I'm having a difficult time finding news about it, apparently the mudslides that closed Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon also blocked the former Denver & Rio Grande Western (now Union Pacific) line, and Amtrak service is disrupted here as well. Amtrak appears to be short-turning trains on both sides of the blockage, but it's unclear to me where they're actually doing the turns. The logical places would be Salt Lake City and Denver, as the stations on both sides of the blockage (Glenwood Springs and Granby CO) make no sense at all to reverse trains. But there's certainly no easy way to get passengers through/around the blockage, either.
One route that might work, and over which Lisa and I have traveled, would be to divert the Zephyr between Salt Lake City and Denver over the Union Pacific's former "City of Everywhere" route that parallels I-80. (This includes a run between Cheyenne WY and Denver.) Passengers would have to be bused to/from the intervening stations (Provo, Helper, Green River, Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs, Granby, and Fraser/Winter Park). If the closure lasts more than a few days, I would think they'd have to try and do something like that unless they just throw up their hands and say, "too hard, all trains canceled." I don't want to sound dismissive; I get why running that diversionary route is hard. UP won't want to do it, and none of the Amtrak engineers are qualified for the diversionary route, so they'd need UP pilot engineers as well. I just hope they don't leave a bunch of people stranded.
Today, the clouds cleared (too bad; it was nice and cool), the smoke started leaking back into town, and the water had soaked into the thirsty lakebed on which Fernley sits.
The pile at left is where I dumped all of the weeds I dug yesterday. (Eventually we will burn yard debris again either this autumn or next spring once it is safe to do so and we buy another residential burn permit.) The area between me and that pile that is mostly clear now was underwater last night. Not a lot of water, but when the rains come, they tend to drop a lot of water very fast, and it accumulates quickly, but also dissipates fairly quickly either by absorption or evaporation.
All in all, we're glad that we did not have to be out in that weather last night (although we would have liked having an enclosed porch from which we could have watched the rain) and that our property is not subject to flooding other than oversize puddles, thanks to the local lay of the land.
The mostly-bare space here looked more like the area to the left in this photo when I started digging weeds. I worked as long as I could, but even without direct sunlight, it was still warm, and eventually I ran out of steam and headed for the shower and lunch.
I was masked up while doing yard work, mostly against dust and pollen, but also from wildfire smoke that rolled back in. However, late in the evening, light winds cleared some of it out and cooled things off again. Lisa and I sat on the porch under the awning enjoying cooler air and being able to look at things more than a couple of meters away. A few drops of rain started to fall. As more rain fell, the air cleared some more and we mostly stayed dry, but even where we were getting rain falling on us, it seemed to dry quickly, which shows how dry the air is here.
Rain doesn't usually last very long around here, but this storm had some bite to it. There was also quite of bit of lightning in it, mostly cloud-to-cloud, and I hope that anything that hit the ground either didn't cause fires, or left ones that were extinguished by the rapidly increasing rain. After maybe 30 minutes, my phone blew up with a Flash Flood Warning from the National Weather Service. Water started to flow into the field where I had been cleaning brush earlier in the day. I couldn't get pictures, as it was too dark.
We pulled our chairs closer to the wall under the small awning, but after a while the wind also picked up and we had to head inside. Before we did so, we saw several trains passing through Fernley, all moving slowly. That was because Union Pacific had declared condition "FF" (Flash Flood) for the area, so all trains had to move at reduced speed, looking for washouts on the many small culverts along this stretch of track. We also heard a local maintainer in his hi-rail vehicle, when he pulled in behind the train stopped on the main in order to make room for a westbound train creeping from Hazen to Fernley to pass.
The dispatcher was having a terrible time getting trains through the area. Various weather-related delays were causing crews to "die" (reach their maximum of 12 hours of service, requiring them to stop their trains). Normally a relief crew is dispatched by road from Sparks, but some of the places these trains had to stop are very difficult to access by road. I listened to a four-way conversation between two trains, the maintainer, and the crew van, as the van tried to figure out how to get to the stranded train, which was now parked in Parran siding, a place where crews are almost never switched, and for good reason.
It was a four-way radio conversation because of radio reception difficulties between the stranded train (who was talking to the driver the crew van that was on US-95 trying to figure out how to get to Parran, but I couldn't hear her because of the distance), the train sitting on the main in front of the house, and the maintainer in his hi-railer who is responsible for this portion of the Nevada Subdivision. Messages got relayed through this four-way conversation, and eventually the maintainer concluded that the road to Parran, what there is of it, is very difficult to find even in the daytime and in dry weather, and said that he didn't think the road would be passable at night and in this heavy rain. The crew van headed back toward Sparks, leaving a crew (and a train) stuck on an almost-inaccessible desert siding.
I went to bed before hearing the end of this tale, but what I thought I heard the dispatcher trying to do was to have an eastbound freight that was slowly heading toward Parran stop and pick up that crew and take them to Winnemucca. The crew at Parran would need to tie down their train (set hand brakes and secure the locomotive), and they'd figure out a way to get a crew back out there later. He did not like stopping that eastbound train, because that crew was also running short on hours. There was also some complicated moving of relief crews, as a crew that was rescuing a train that had been parked on Fernley siding was told to tie it down at Patrick (near Sparks), where a crew van would collect them and take them to relieve a different train.
On top of all this was the many-hours-late eastbound Amtrak California Zephyr working its way through the area. They had a different set of problems ahead of them. Although I'm having a difficult time finding news about it, apparently the mudslides that closed Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon also blocked the former Denver & Rio Grande Western (now Union Pacific) line, and Amtrak service is disrupted here as well. Amtrak appears to be short-turning trains on both sides of the blockage, but it's unclear to me where they're actually doing the turns. The logical places would be Salt Lake City and Denver, as the stations on both sides of the blockage (Glenwood Springs and Granby CO) make no sense at all to reverse trains. But there's certainly no easy way to get passengers through/around the blockage, either.
One route that might work, and over which Lisa and I have traveled, would be to divert the Zephyr between Salt Lake City and Denver over the Union Pacific's former "City of Everywhere" route that parallels I-80. (This includes a run between Cheyenne WY and Denver.) Passengers would have to be bused to/from the intervening stations (Provo, Helper, Green River, Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs, Granby, and Fraser/Winter Park). If the closure lasts more than a few days, I would think they'd have to try and do something like that unless they just throw up their hands and say, "too hard, all trains canceled." I don't want to sound dismissive; I get why running that diversionary route is hard. UP won't want to do it, and none of the Amtrak engineers are qualified for the diversionary route, so they'd need UP pilot engineers as well. I just hope they don't leave a bunch of people stranded.
Today, the clouds cleared (too bad; it was nice and cool), the smoke started leaking back into town, and the water had soaked into the thirsty lakebed on which Fernley sits.
The pile at left is where I dumped all of the weeds I dug yesterday. (Eventually we will burn yard debris again either this autumn or next spring once it is safe to do so and we buy another residential burn permit.) The area between me and that pile that is mostly clear now was underwater last night. Not a lot of water, but when the rains come, they tend to drop a lot of water very fast, and it accumulates quickly, but also dissipates fairly quickly either by absorption or evaporation.
All in all, we're glad that we did not have to be out in that weather last night (although we would have liked having an enclosed porch from which we could have watched the rain) and that our property is not subject to flooding other than oversize puddles, thanks to the local lay of the land.