14 March 2007
Slides Close Trans-Canada Through Fraser Canyon
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CP Rail line has been badly damaged, with trains being
rerouted.
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The Trans-Canada Highway could remain closed
through the Fraser Canyon ( Editor's Note: These reported slides are in the Thompson Canyon, not the Fraser Canyon. ) for
another week following a series of mudslides and washouts in the wake of heavy rains.
Traffic is being detoured as crews work between Lytton and Spences Bridge, where several slides have washed out the road.
The freeway between Rosedale to Hope is also closed, buried under tons of rock and mud.
An official with the Ministry of Transportation said it could be a week before some of the more serious slides and washouts are
repaired.
Sherri Eland said major reconstruction is needed on a stretch of the highway known as Tank Hill, 12 kilometres east of Lytton, where a
raging creek washed out the highway and the neighbouring railroad tracks.
"There's going to have to be very large culverts put in, and the area filled back with rock and some retaining structures put
in."
But Eland said the threat to the tiny community of Gladwin - between Lytton and Spences Bridge - is the ministry's top priority.
"We need to clean that debris up and get the water moved away from that little community down there. And then we have to
absolutely get this rock off the road at Nicomen, as there's probably half a kilometre of the highway covered with cobble there."
The main CP Rail line just a few kilometres north of Lytton has been hit in at least two spots by massive washouts and slides.
CBC-TV reporter Eric Rankin, who flew over the area on Tuesday, said the rails were "drooping like old clothes
lines, the rail bed completely gone."
He also noted that a major fibre optic line, which provides access to the internet for much of the Lower Mainland, is "hanging by
a thread."
Trains are being routed on the other side of the river along the CN tracks. CP Rail officials said they are also moving some trains
through southeast B.C. into the United States to ports on the West Coast while the track is repaired.
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