Flooding likely ruined the newly renovated railroad track and bed, but The Little Train was spirited out to safety before the Cottonwood River could back into its home at Soden’s Grove. Meanwhile, the Cottonwood River has begun its usual slow movement to return to its banks.
Les Nuessen, Sertoma president, said on Wednesday that the newly restored train already has run for a couple of private parties. It needs only a little tweaking on running speed to be ready for an open house planned later this month.
Sertoma members held work days last month to get the track into prime condition for the train’s opening day. Nuessen anticipates that the club will need to haul in more gravel for the track bed and more repair work will need to be done on the track when the waters recede.
That should happen soon. According to information from the National Weather Service, the Cottonwood was at 24.52 feet at 7 a.m. today. The river had crested Wednesday at 25.19 feet, which was high enough to close Highway 99 south of Soden’s Bridge.
The river is predicted to be at 20 feet — flood stage — around 7 a.m. Friday, and the highway is expected to be open to traffic.
The Cottonwood had crested on Tuesday at 12.5 feet at Cottonwood Falls/Strong City. Flood stage there is 9.0 feet. The Weather Service showed the river at about 5.4 feet early this morning.
At Neosho Rapids, the Neosho River was edging back down toward its 22-foot flood stage, after cresting at 25.7 feet on Wednesday. The Neosho should be below 22 feet by 7 a.m. Friday.
The Neosho had crested on Tuesday near Americus. Flood waters approached the Americus Road, though an anticipated closing of the road did not occur.
As for the train, Nuessen said that Sertoma plans to host a day of free food and rides from 1 to 4 p.m. May 28. Plans include bringing in other amusements for the children. Fanestil’s has contributed 1,000 hot dogs for the event, he said.
More information will be released when plans are finalized.
4Jayhawks (anonymous) says...
You would think that after this has happened how many times now ?? they would try to come up with a solution to prevent it so money is not spent on fixing the tracks every year.
May 11, 2007 at 2:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )