Flooding north of Morris, Manitoba.

21 April 2011

Rail Lines Closed

Morris Manitoba - Elevators and processors in parts of the Red River Valley will be without rail service for the next few weeks as Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway were forced to shut down a number of lines due to the closure of dikes at Morris and Emerson.
 
Two CP lines have been closed, the diking at Morris has resulted in the closure of the line that connects Winnipeg with Morden, while the dike at Emerson has forced the company to quit operating on the line running from Winnipeg to Glenwood, Minnesota.
 
"A detour plan has been implemented for trains that would normally run from Winnipeg to Glenwood, but some service delays will result from the detour," says CP spokesperson Mike LoVecchio. "Customers specifically impacted by the Morris line outage, including those in Altona, have been notified and serviced in advance."
 
The Bunge canola processing facility is CP's customer in Altona.
 
LoVecchio notes there will still be trains and CP vehicles operating on the tracks.
 
"Those are being operated to inspect the tracks, even though in places they will be underwater, and in some places we may have to dump some ballast or riffraff to protect the tracks from the high water," he explains.
 
The closure of the ring dikes has also forced CN to close its secondary line running from Winnipeg to Emerson. CN's main line into the U.S. remains open as it runs east from Winnipeg to Chicago.
 
Kelvin Heppner.