Spring cleanup time for the PE&A

Signs of Spring are rapidly appearing—the croci are in bloom, the lawn is growing fast enough to be mowed regularly, and American Robins are starting to look around for nesting sites. That means it’s time to get trains up and running again on the PE&A!

Springtime along the PE&A right of way. The croci are in bloom and the moss is bright green.

Overall the railroad weathered its first winter well despite all the rain and snow. Meteorological Winter (December 1 to the end of February) was much wetter than usual in the Puget Sound region and cooler than normal as well, in contrast to most of the U.S. which was significantly warmer than normal this winter. The KSEA METAR station received 19.77 inches compared to a normal of 11.59. The result of all this excess rain, heavy at times, was localized erosion of ballast.

A little late season snow just dusting the bridge

Because of the cooler than normal temperatures there was also a bit more snow than usual, almost 12 inches total over the winter (compared to a normal of four), and about eight inches of the total occurred in a single snow event February 5–6. The snow was quickly weighed down as it transitioned to rain and ice, resulting in a few broken branches crashing to the ground. One branch came very close to smashing the elevated track, but fortunately the ground absorbed most of the blow and there is no visible damage to the track.

Croci insisting that the snow should be gone by now.

The ballast settling and erosion isn’t significantly more than what I was expecting, and overall the track is still in place where it should be and level. I think it will take me between two and four hours of work to add new ballast where needed to get the track back up to safety code so trains can start running again.

Differential erosion where unprotected ballast was washed out by rain, leaving miniature buttresses under each tie.

Significant erosion next to one of the bridge approaches. Heavy erosion here was expected—this is a spot where I'm planning to build cribbing to hold the ballast in place.

Detail showing of significant erosion, likely due to runoff from garage roof.