1986 Washouts
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In early October of 1986 heavy rains caused severe flooding and dozens of washouts between Seward and Healy. Some of the worse damage was the bridge at Montana Creek washing out, as well as the Sheep Creek bridge abutment being undercut north of Kashwitna. Here's a few shots which I took while working with Frank Sheppard and Frank Armstrong on the work train. - Bryan Saul
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There's a scary story behind that pic (I'm in the blue coat/white hard hat) that I will remember all of my life. There was about a 10' deep, by 15' long hole right off the end of the bridge (north end Sheep Creek). It had been cribbed with old ties and the original plan was to walk a bunch of the 14900 series ballast cars over it, dump commercial gravel cars further back in the train almost to the bottom of the ties, then back up and unload the ballast to tamp (thereby saving as much ballast as possible). While standing right next to the track as the first set of trucks went over the cribbed area, I watched as the rail deflected between 1 and 2 feet (even though it was cribbed)! Frank Armstrong was standing next to me controlling the train (green hat/yellow rain pants in pic) and after watching the rail bend further than I thought possible, yelling for everyone to get out of the way (I just knew the rail or the joint/angle bar on this side was going to break)...I told Frank to stop the train. I then proceeded to dump that entire car of precious ballast right there. Keeping in mind that the tracks were open from Anchorage to this point and material/air dumps/ballast/etc. was badly needed north of here for all of the other locations washed out, all I could imagine was the rail breaking and then dealing with a loaded car derailed right off of the end of the bridge. Thanks for this photo Bryan and I hope you don't mind if I save it for myself? I took lots of photos in my ARR career, but was so busy that I didn't get all that many during those ten days to get the track open all the way to Fairbanks. Here's a pic of when they did more work on the bridge later. - Rick Leggett
The ultimate irony of having a car load of ballast in that one short spot, is that B&B had to plow it ALL out...when they did their repairs later. - Rick Leggett
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Anyone that wanted to work was pressed into service. Lots of T&E working section. I remember Lorraine Risch working as the bull cook in the B&B outfit cars spotted at Kashwitna. She tended to use a lot of salt, to the point where her soup was inedible. Once, our work train crew and B&B 6 was "dining" in the dining car. As she made the rounds, asking how the soup was, we all politely nodded our heads and said "good". Next thing we know, a helicopter lands and this handsome young pilot swaggers into the car asking how the soup is. We all answer, "great, best soup ever, I'm ready for seconds, etc." Lorraine, is smitten with the young fly boy and hovers over him as he forces down the soup. In the mean time everyone else starts jettisoning our soup out the window! - Bryan Saul
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