Today's Train of Thought- A Leisurely Run for the Border, Nov 14th 2011

When one thinks of parts of this country that have an abundance of fall colors, one doesn't usually think of Iowa. But the northeast corner of the Hawkeye state features rolling hills and valleys as well as forests along the Mississippi River. And it's through this somewhat un-Iowa-like landscape that the former Milwaukee Road line between Minneapolis-St Paul and Kansas City traverses. There's a line to Chicago that branches off across the Mississippi river at Sabula, IA. Over the last 25 years, the line has seen no fewer than five different owners (Milwaukee Road; Soo Line; I&M Rail Link; Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern and Canadian Pacific) with the most recent change of ownership coming in 2008 when DM&E parent company Cedar American Holdings sold the combined DM&E/IC&E system to Canadian Pacific.

For the most part, CP doesn't seem to be in any particular rush to assert its corporate identity over its latest acquisition. While the blue and yellow EMDs of the IC&E and DM&E have occasionally been showing up on CP Rail's system as far east as the D&H in northern New York state, trains over this recently acquired part of the Canadian Pacific are for the most part powered by second generation standard-cab EMDs from both the IC&E/DM&E fleet as well as similar lease units.

Here, on a clear, gorgeous autumn afternoon in October 2010, railpictures.net contributor FJ Grizel caught a mixed freight decelerating after crossing the mighty Mississippi from Savanna, IL into Sabula, IA. The lead unit- SD40-2 #6367- is no stranger to these parts having started out life as Milwaukee Road #206 and having been dubbed 'City of New Ulm' by the DM&E.

Holy Crap Carp! Startup Illinois Firm Successfully Marketing Invasive Fish Species to China

Ruled an invasive species by the US Fish & Wildlife Service in 2007, the Asian Silver carp was thought to have been introduced into the Midwest's ecosystem after an isolated pond containing them was flooded by the Mississippi River. While the fish doesn't prey on local species, it has a voracious appetite for plankton and no known natural predators in the USA and reproduces quickly, forcing out native species. Moreover, they can grow quite large- up to 20 pounds- and jump out of the water when spooked, knocking over unsuspecting boaters and fishermen.

Wildlife officials have resorted to poison and electrocution to halt the advance of the species to the Great Lakes, where they fear the species could flourish unchecked and force out even more indigenous species and disrupt the food chain.

After a failed attempt to market the fish to markets in China by an Illinois state trade envoy, an American refrigeration supplier selling equipment to Chinese customers named David Shu was approached by a Chinese customer who had heard about the problematic carp in Illinois.

"Why would they kill these great, tasty fish?" the customer asked Shu.

Shu contacted [former Illinois State Trade Director Ross] Harano, who by then was in the private sector. Illinois carp needed a marketing hook, they decided. The "wild-caught" slogan sounded good.

Asian carp have a habit of jumping out of the water, sometimes knocking fishermen from their boats. That nasty habit became a second slogan, "So much energy they jump."

Instead of targeting Chinese housewives, they would target upscale restaurants.

Chinese carp is raised on fish farms and in polluted rivers. It tastes "muddy," says Harano, who says Illinois fish taste better.

Shu and Harano secured a supply from Big River Fish, where both men now work, with Shu representing the company in China.

They interested a Chinese food distributor, who sent a fish expert to the Big River plant in Pearl.

"He pulled a fish out of the package and put the gill in his mouth, Smith said. "'This fish is two days old.' He tasted another one and said, 'This one's fresh — caught today.' He really knew fish."

Fortified by a $2 million grant from the state of Illinois, Smith is now planning to move into an 80,000-square-foot fish processing plant. The number of employees should jump from 12 to 61.

Big River is housed in a small former chicken slaughterhouse. These days, tons of carp arrive at the plant's door, are gutted and sent to a freezer. There, temperatures of 30 below zero and a 20-mile-per-hour wind freeze them solid.

[OK- the $2 million grant going to a former state official for a startup smacks of more than just a little of crony capitalism, but aisde from that, I thought it was a pretty good idea- NANESB!]

The 30 million pound order from Big River Fish co seems to be part of a trend of American companies managing to find a niche to serve Chinese markets and manufacturers after losing ground over the last decade.

Although the invasive Silver Carp seems to be finding a its place among China's noveau riche as a freshly served delicacy, there is no word yet on whether wealthy or famous Chinese such as Gong Li (above, in modified cheongsam at a movie premiere- yay cheongsams!) have given their seal of approval

Mississippi Flooding Update: More Flood Gates Opened at Morganza Spillway; Mississippi River Closed to Shipping

AP Photo

The Army corps of Engineers announced that they had opened a 16th lock on the 125-bay Morganza spillway on Wednesday, sending an estimated 108,000 cubic feet of water per second gushing through the flood control structure.

26 parishes (counties in Louisiana) have been declared disaster areas, with E. Felicicana, LaFourche, Franklin and Richland parishes being added recently. Parts of St. Martin's Parish- just east of Lafayette, LA- are under a mandatory evacuation order on Wednesday in advance of the approaching flood waters.

Further downstream (but north of New Orleans), the Corps of Engineers said they had opened up nearly 330 of the 350 bays on the Bonne Carre spillway, sending water from the Mississippi River rushing through at a rate of 316,000 cubic feet per second into Lake Pontchartrain.

To the north, the US Coast Guard had closed down the Mississippi River around Natchez, MS to shipping earlier this week over concerns about additional strain on the levees from barges and river traffic. However, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the Coast Guard was allowing barges loaded with coal, timber, iron and steel to pass through at the minimum speed.

Local officials on both sides of the river from Mississippi town of Natchez breathed a sigh of relief as the Coast Guard and NOAA revised their estimate for the floodwater's crest from 63 feet down to 62 .5 feet. The crest is expected to be reached on Saturday- the previous high water mark dates back to 1937 at 58.4 feet.

Pat over at And So it Goes in Shreveport has much much more.

UPDATED 5/15: US Army Corps of Engineers Opens Up Massive Floodgates Along Mississippi River

UPDATE 5/15: Although residing in a part of Louisiana relatively unaffected by the Morganza floodwall being opened up, blogger Pat Austin of And So it Goes in Shreveport has been updating frequently througout the weekend.

Louisiana reigonal news aggregator The Dead Pelican also came reccomended by a trusted source during the Deepwater Horizon spill last year and should have ample links to local coverage around Baton Rouge and the Morganza floodway.


For the first time in nearly 40 years, the Army Corps of Engineers opened up the first of the 125 massive floodgates of the Morganza spillway to relive pressure on a number of older downriver flood control structures protecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans from a swollen Mississippi River.


The decision to open up the spillway to protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge means that towns throughout the Atchafalaya Basin west of Baton Rouge are bracing for rising floodwaters, with some communities and businesses getting ready to evacuate or erect levees of their own. Elsewhere in the basin, farmers have been working around the clock to harvest their wheat crop before the rising waters from the Morganza Flood wall. There are an estimated 15,256 acres of farmland throughout the basin and another 2,853 acres located in the fore bay area between the floodwall and Mississippi River.

While farmers would be able to harvest some of the wheat, other crops in the basin such as corn, soybeans, sugarcane and rice would be considered a complete writeoff in the floods.

For the past two weeks, the Mississppi River had crested past flood levels as two major storm systems dumped considerable rainfall on the Mississippi and Missouri River headwaters in addition to the melting snow.

Earlier this month, the Army Corps of Engineers blew up an earthen levee in Sikeston, MO to prevent further damage to the town of Cairo, IL. Since then, floodwaters have struck western Kentucky and Tennessee (including Memphis) and Mississippi, surpassing record flood levels set back during 1937.

A Whale of A Gulf Coast Update- Massive Skimmer Moves from Virginia to Gulf; Alex Playing Havoc With Cleanup; What's in a Name?

[AP/Patrick Semansky]

The newest weapon being deployed against the Deepwater Horizon oil spill dropped anchor in Boothville, LA on Wednesday. A massive Taiwanese owned, Liberian-flagged vessel arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi River earlier today that could remove as much as 500,000 barrels of oil per day from the Gulf of Mexico. TMT's A-Whale, which was built in South Korea as an oil tanker and refitted as a skimmer in Portugal earlier this month, was in Norfolk, VA last weekend where it underwent cursory examination by Coast Guard officials and the EPA.

Edward Overton, a professor emeritus from Louisiana State University, was among the visitors at the port where the A Whale was berthed. He called the current cleanup inadequate.

"It is absolutely gigantic. It's unbelievable. We need this ship,” he told TMT executives in Norfolk. “That oil is already contaminating our shoreline.”

The contaminated water is brought in through a dozen slits on the bow, where the oil and contaminants are separated and the cleaner water is discharged back out into the Gulf. However, the EPA has taken issue with the fact that the discharged water won't be 100% clean and needs to sign off on the quality of the treated water going back.

There is also the matter of the Jones Act, which has proven to be a major obstacle for foreign offers of assistance since the Deepwater Horizon sunk, is still in full effect. US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen insisted that the Jones Act wasn't that big an obstacle, since it didn't hinder vessels operating three miles or more offshore. While this is true, this would hinder the foreign-flagged vessel's ability to resupply and return to shore during the cleanup unless there was an explicit waiver of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the original name of the Jones Act).

[By the way, did you know that the A Whale, the Jones Act and the 80,000 or so feet of containment boom from a Maine company are "talking points" of the vast right-wing conspiracy? You see- the president of the Maine company sent Scott Brown a $500 donation back in January, so he's obviously in on it. Oh...and some commentor on a liberal blog says LaPointe's mom gave a few hundred dollars to ultra-right wing zealot Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe over the last decade, so they're in on it. And while Mother Jones concedes that President Bush quickly lifted the Jones act in the wake of Katrina, it was only to help his Big Oil buddies move product out of damaged refineries in Southern Louisiana. Because removing a bunch of volatile and unstable chemicals and materials from industrial facilites damaged by hurricanes benefits nobody but Republicans and oil companies, apparently -NANESB!]

Elsewhere, cleanup efforts were halted because of the approach of Hurricane Alex. While the center of the storm made landfall in Northern Mexico, the outer reaches of the storm were expected to whip through the Deepwater Horizon site along with some of the coastline where cleanup efforts were under way. There was also the chance that Alex could've changed direction and moved closer towards the affected areas of Louisiana, Alabama or Mississippi. Hurricane Alex briefly gained in strength to a Category 2 storm when making landfall in a relatively sparsely area of Tamaulipas state in Northern Mexico, some 130 miles south of Brownsville, TX.

The aftermath of the oil spill took a more partisan turn when House Democrats nixed Republican Congressman Steve Scalise's (LA-1) proposed trip to fly 10 lawmakers down to the Gulf Coast to see the damaged coastal areas firsthand. The Republican Congressmen invited by Scalise wanted to use their office's spending allowance, but Democrats claim that the ever-so-effective Department of Homeland Security would not approve official visits to disaster areas (which constitute much of the Gulf Coast) and ask that trips be organized through jurisdictional committees in order to avoid having to cater to 'a ton of individual lawmakers'. Interesting how the House Democrats have magically discovered fiscal responsibility now instead of when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was using the US Military to chauffeur around her family and running up a $101,000 bar tab. All of Louisiana's coastal Parishes are represented in Congress by Republicans.

Shortly after Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal ordered the National Guard to begin construction on some artificial barrier islands to prevent to oil from reaching further inland, the Governor's efforts at oil abatement were thwarted by the Coast Guard themselves when they ordered the shutdown of oil vacuuming barges while they were inspected for fire-extinguishers and life vests. A few days later, the dredging effort was ordered halted by the Interior Department saying that the rock, dirt and ballast for the artificial barriers were being dredged up in an environmentally sensitive area. A state official stressed that the dredging had been taking place within the original federal permit area at the north end of the Chandaleurs all month.

Another measure the Interior Department has taken in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is to change the name of the Mineral Management Services.

Yes. Really....

The agency formerly known as the Mineral Management Services will now be referred to as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOMRE). The name change was effective June 18, 2010.

Today's Train of Thought Sure Does Suck- June 25, 2010

Actually, I think this picture by railpictures.net contributor Tom McNair has alot going for it in terms of composition and activity.

But having said that, it still sucks. Allow me to explain- take a close look at that one-car train on the bridge. That's an Iowa Interstate Maintenance of Way special, and on the flatcar behind the IAIS GP38-2 is a vacuum truck being used to clean up the right of way along the Government Bridge, linking Rock Island, IL with Davenport, IA. Since much of the bridge is inaccessible to the truck, the Iowa Interstate figured it would be just as effective if it put the truck on a flatcar and towed it out across the span. Besides the rail line, the span also features a two lane roadway (visible on the lower deck) and the middle span swings out to accommodate river traffic.

Closer to us is Burlington Northern Santa Fe's Barstow Local with GP38-2 #2034 leading an impressive 6-unit lashup as it tiptoes under Government Bridge utilizing trackage rights over the Canadian Pacific/Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern. The motive power consists of former Burlington Northern and Conrail units as it makes its way south on June 24, 2010.