Railroad still shut down between Fort Frances and Thunder Bay due to flooding

Ken Johnston
Editor

In addition to so many highways being washed out from the heavy floodwaters two weeks ago, the one thing that so many people who work it call “The Road,” also received heavy damage.
Canadian National Railway’s lines running from Winnipeg to Fort Frances and from there to Thunder Bay were washed out in thirty places with one of them nearly a kilometre in length.
The damage west of Rainy River was repaired by Wednesday, June 12th and trains began running from Winnipeg to Chicago later that day. However the damage to the east of Fort Frances was so extensive that it is still out of service and will likely be until Thursday of this week at the earliest.
Special dump trucks called Air-dumps were brought in to run the rails to the washouts. They are special because they have a swivelling dump box and can turn from side to side to dump rock and other fill where needed; often in places where there is no road access.
CN Spokesman Graham Dallas said that they utilized about 125 people at the height of the repairs. Of those about half were CNR employees the others were private contractors in the vicinity of the washouts. “We received a lot of really good help from local contractors,” said Dallas.
CNR is also very pleased that there was no injuries during the repairs. “We are very happy with the safety record while putting it back in service, touch wood, as it is very dangerous work when water is rushing by,” said Dallas.
As of Friday some 150,000 cubic yards of rock and fill have been dumped to fill the washouts in. CN’s Jim Feeny said Monday that there were only two places left to repair. However they are two of the largest ones and work will continue until Wednesday at the very earliest. “We are watching the weather very closely,” he said. That could hinder the operations and they might see completion a little later in the week.
Fortunately CNR has two lines through the region and has been rerouting traffic along the north line while this one is out of service.