UP cancels embargoes
Union Pacific said Thursday it was canceling embargoes it had imposed on traffic moving across parts of its east/west main line because of flooding in the Midwest that had affected about 20 percent of its daily volume.
“The whole nation has seen the flood impact in Cedar Rapids and those floodwaters made our main line double track impassable in that area,” said Jack Koraleski, executive vice president. “That outage last week made it necessary to put the embargoes in place. With the drop in water levels, our crews were able to replace ballast and make enough repairs to reopen one main track yesterday — allowing for limited operation. With further work by the operating team, the second main track opened this morning and the embargoes are no longer necessary, although operations remain limited.”
“Across the Midwest, repair work will continue and it will be awhile before operations are fully restored to normal. We anticipate continued slow orders throughout the area over the coming weeks to allow for repairs to our track, yards and signal systems,” he said.