tuff going in some places.
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That's better than the updated story I saw this morning that said it was a "single lane" track.
Jon 
It appears that the Thursday Builders were cancelled, both #7 westbound and #8 eastbound. The Wednesday trains are still on the line, with the #7 running nearly on time, and the #8 almost 9 hours late near Grand Forks, ND. I suspect today's trains will depart on time from Chicago and Seattle, as dispatchers have had a day to clear the backlog of freight trains.
What a mess!
We were unfortunately scheduled to return from our "winter get away" at the Izaak Walton Inn in Essex, Montana when they cancelled the Thursday departures. It's a great place to watch trains IF you can see them over the huge piles of snow on either side of the main line. Since we got there by train, we had to wait until the next eastbound Builder came through on Saturday (it left Seattle on Friday) and made it back without incident.
Our westbound Builder hit a long snow drift in the same place as the stuck one, but we were the day ahead and it was only about six feet deep by then. Snow crashed by our lower level sleeper roomette completely covering the windows, but we made it. That was Tuesday and the Wednesday eastbound didn't make it through it, as the story says it was up to 25 feet deep by then.
So we had an extra night at the Inn and enjoyed ourselves. While this was our third time staying there, we did vow that our next visit would be in the Summer time.
FJ
Big_Boy_4005 posted:It appears that the Thursday Builders were cancelled, both #7 westbound and #8 eastbound. The Wednesday trains are still on the line, with the #7 running nearly on time, and the #8 almost 9 hours late near Grand Forks, ND. I suspect today's trains will depart on time from Chicago and Seattle, as dispatchers have had a day to clear the backlog of freight trains.
What a mess!
Looks like Elliot has a new scene to model on his layout. 
The Empire Builder stuck in a snow bank!
