Citing this source, wondering if the Builder is being re-routed??

[Brandon V]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_midwest_flooding

looks like their is no way a train could make it through portage, wi? Isnt this the same problem area where a swap regularly floods over? I heard a conductor talking about that area once, when I was on the train to Red Wing from Saint Cloud.

Just wondering if the trains are being rerouted?

 

[Monon81]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_midwest_flooding

looks like their is no way a train could make it through portage, wi? Isnt this the same problem area where a swap regularly floods over? I heard a conductor talking about that area once, when I was on the train to Red Wing from Saint Cloud.

Just wondering if the trains are being rerouted?

The Blackhawk Park neighborhood is a low-lying floodplain area south of and on the opposite side of the Wisconsin River from Portage. It's pretty close to where the Baraboo river flows into the Wisconsin River.

I-94 skirts the southern edge of this floodplain, and I-39 goes through it, crossing the Baraboo and then the Wisconsin in rapid succession. In 2008, I-94 was flooded in this area.

The CP tracks skirt the north edge of Portage on higher ground. Today's 8 (Eastbound Empire Builder) passed through pretty much on time.

Reeseville Marsh, a Rock River wetland between Columbus and Watertown, can sometimes be a problem on the CP. It flooded in 2008, and Amtrak rerouted the EB over the UP (former C&NW) Adams line. CP routed freights through Madison on the WSOR and at one point had an operation where they pushed cars through the marsh, to be received by locomotives at the other end. This year, the nasty rains happened further north, so the Rock River isn't involved.