SEATTLE — The owner of a fluff-and-fold laundry in a small western Oregon town couldn't be happier that tons of mud, rocks, snow and fir trees sloughed off a hillside one day in January.
No one was hurt when the landslide took out the Union Pacific Railroad's main track through the Cascades south of Eugene, but it has severed a key rail link between Los Angeles and Seattle. The slide spans 3,000 feet.
The railroad has dispatched about 200 workers to clear toppled old-growth trees, shore up the hill, and rebuild the tracks. Luckily for the local business, the crews take their mud- and silt-caked jeans and overalls to the 4-month-old laundry in nearby Oakridge.
"It's been great for us," said Rendilee Wortham, owner of Laundry Haven. She and her husband plug away 12 hours a day, seven days a week, cleaning the dirty garb.
Their small enterprise got lucky, as did many others in the quiet town, which is accustomed to outfitting summer-recreation enthusiasts.
The rail business, on the other hand, remains challenged. It will be late this month at the earliest before the rail line is restored, Union Pacific has said.
Meanwhile, 15 freight trains that used the line now detour through Bend, Ore., and Salt Lake City, causing delays of one to two days. Large freight movers in the Northwest report that delays in getting empty rail cars have held up shipments of some materials to California.
Amtrak's Coast Starlight between Seattle and Los Angeles has been suspended, disrupting travel for about 1,400 daily passengers.
Amtrak restored a portion of the service in February between Los Angeles and Sacramento. On Friday, Amtrak said it would add bus service between Sacramento and Portland, with stops in the Oregon cities of Medford, Eugene and Salem. Amtrak Cascades service still runs between Eugene and Vancouver, Canada.
Amtrak expects to relaunch the Coast Starlight in May, said Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham. "We're all very hopeful," she said.
"The slide is massive," Graham said. "It's unlike any slide we've seen in recent years."
Union Pacific engineers were alerted to the Oregon mudslide when a signal indicated a section of track had been knocked out.
The size of the Jan. 19 slide on Coyote Mountain -- a remote area north of Chemult and about 15 miles east of Oakridge -- shocked engineers.
