I have relatives in the small town of Shelton WA. They were reporting traffic back ups in and around of 20 miles this afternoon. Via. Highway 3 through Shelton onto 101 than back on to i5.

I just spoke with someone in Tacoma who plans to take the Shelton route to Olympia. Google Maps is showing that route currently taking 1h 15 min. I doubt that Google Maps is accurate as it does not take into account all of the automobile accidents which will occur.



Asking Google Maps for directions from Tacoma to Olympia "breaks" Google Maps.

Apparently they are in a panic mode and deleting anything about sabotaging trains or rails off their websites.[/quote]

This made me laugh. Idiots, brilliant idiots.

The pictures on the internet are incredible.

I taught Triage today to our recruit class. Review is tomorrow...unfortunate that I will have a case-study to drive the point home.

My daughter and I were caught in the hours-long Southbound backup this morning...got turned around when everyone was routed off the interstate...tried the alternate route of SR7, but that was beyond slammed. Some five or six hours later and still in the vicinity of the accident, we threw in the towel and gave up on on our trip to Oregon.

Interestingly, had we left two hours earlier as we'd originally planned, we would have been uncomfortably close to being under that trestle when it happened, certainly within ten minutes give or take.

Amtrak data recorder shows train was traveling at 80mph in a 30mph zone coming into curve!

https://www.seattletimes.com/s...eed-limit-of-30-mph/

So, another engineer twitfacing on his stupid phone.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
It is worth noting how many trains operate in France, the speeds, the number of people carried, with very, very few injuries or deaths. Switzerland, too, actually.

The trains run on time, too, if you can believe it. I have actually witnessed this on numerous occasions, and do not recall any that weren’t on time.

Having often stood in Eugene train station for four hours, sometimes more, waiting for the train to PDX, I can relate to that.

tac

My memory is not the best, however, I believe @ least the last 3 derailments were caused by excessive speed &/ or engineer negligence.

An example must be made.

SIGforum has now bested ZeroHedge in timely ideas that Antifa might be involved in the derailment of the train http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...-sabotage-near-monda

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
So, another engineer twitfacing on his stupid phone.

Hopefully not, but Amtrak does have phone detectors in the cabs of their locomotives.

The engineer could've just as likely been daydreaming or distracted by the radio and not realize his whereabouts and speed. Certainly wouldn't be the first time.

I would think that the train engineer would be careful on the inaugural run of the train. But still, that happened in "any thing goes" Washington, and we'll have to await the findings of the investigation of NTSB (and FBI).

Washington needs to do something in order to relieve the burgeoning traffic nightmare that I-5, the Seattle area, and everything between Tacoma and Olympia. The roads aren't built to provide the capacity for the demand in the area. Seattle's traffic is progressing worse off, and the commuters aren't helping matters. As they aim to supplant Silicon Valley, they're running into the same system problems.

Thus the push for more mass transit systems, if implemented poorly and impractically. They're trying to plan for the demand tomorrow, looking at the problems of today, and stay elected.

quote:

Originally posted by domcintosh:
Washington needs to do something in order to relieve the burgeoning traffic nightmare that I-5, the Seattle area, and everything between Tacoma and Olympia. The roads aren't built to provide the capacity for the demand in the area. Seattle's traffic is progressing worse off, and the commuters aren't helping matters. As they aim to supplant Silicon Valley, they're running into the same system problems.

Thus the push for more mass transit systems, if implemented poorly and impractically. They're trying to plan for the demand tomorrow, looking at the problems of today, and stay elected.

I go up there once a year for the Labor Day weekend, to Puyallup which is a few miles from Tacoma between it and Mt. Rainier. I've driven under that overpass many times. I leave here usually late Friday morning. A few miles south of Olympia it starts to get slow, and by the time you get up to the JBLM area it's pretty much a crawl. This is by about 2PM. I do not envy the folks who have to drive that mess every day under "normal" conditions. I don't want to imagine what it's like right now, trying to get through that area with I5 closed down.

This train construction project was to save 5-10 minutes of driving time at a cost of $185M.

Can someone provide a glossary of first responder crash site symbols that get painted on vehicles, buildings, etc?

I see "K" and a circled "X" on some of the trains but find no internet explanation.

Look under "FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Symbols."

Understand I have been retired for five years and things have probably changed. X meant the area had been searched. There was lots of information that could go around the X, anything from the amount of dead to a rat infested structure. A circled X meant that a primary and secondary search had been done. The K I'm not sure because when I was working if you had a death it was marked next to the X as a number.

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
I've driven under that overpass many times. I leave here usually late Friday morning. A few miles south east of Olympia it starts to get slow, and by the time you get up to the JBLM area it's pretty much a crawl.

It is difficult for Washington to improve the JBLM traffic mess. A train rail is adjacent north of I-5 there while JBLM is adjacent to the south. An overpass would seem to be the obvious solution, but the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-suburbs area is prone to occasional earthquakes. Still, something should be done about the bottleneck, and in a rare instance, maybe the Federal government can help.

This is what commuters and commercial traffic are now sitting in while trying to bypass the derailment:



ETA: "Traffic" has long been a problem in that area of Washington, even predating the U.S. Civil War. Trigger warning this PDF LINK documenting the construction of Military Road to transverse from Fort Steilacoom to/from Fort Bellingham was created by

UNITED DAUGHTERS
OF THE CONFEDERACY
Robert E. Lee Chapter 885
Seattle, WA USA

Trouble with you is
The trouble with me
Got two good eyes
But we still don't see