General Discussion

Concurning coupler behavior.  Until some time in the 1970's they were plain knuckle couplers.  Then there were a series of accidents in which couplers "by-passed", that is one slid out over the other, and punctured a tank car.  At that point the NTSB/FRA decided that the solution was double shelf couplers on hazmat tank cars.  With the double shelf the adjacent coupler can not bypass or override.  That was the theory and it proved to be mostly true, entirely so in my personal experience.  After a few year's of experience the railroads found that the bottom shelf had the happy side benefit of preventing the extricated drawbar of the adjacent car from falling between the ties which reduced the probablity of derailment.  Many railroads put bottom shelf couplers on their car as an alternate standard.  As I recall Union Pacific was one of the early adopters of bottom shelf couplers for their own equipment.  Bottom shelf couplers may be required on all new cars now but I do not know that for a fact.

Of course there is no free lunch.  Soon after the double shelf changeover kicked in I got called to a derailment in Pennsylvania.  One or two cars had derailed in the usual manner.  The following five tank cars of caustic soda had all derailed the same axle the same way as twisting forces transmitted by the shelf couplers managed to shove the flange over the rail at low speed.

For a couple of years I made it a point to photograph the behavior of shelf couplers in derailments.  I found that in a high speed derailment that stacks the cars in the middle like cordwood, an action seen at the end of this tape, the most likely result was that one or the other coupler shank would break right behind the head with no other obvious effect.

My personal opinion in this case is that the first car to derail was four or five back.  You can hear the air go before you see anything.  The first four cars were all covered hoppers and I suspect one or two of them were empty, that would make it easier for the wind to tip them over.  Note that the most distant two cars ultimately separate from the car behind the engine and the one behind it.  I suspect they either bypassed or broke a shank.  The two cars near the engine appeared to stay together and the one next to the power clearly stayed coupled.  I suspect that the UP covered hopper next to the power had bottom shelf couplers and they held.  I think that in this case the result was to deflect the oncoming tank car from the left, looking back to the right.  That deflection may have saved that tank car from failure in the accident because the tank head was dropped down aimed right at the locomotive's coupler.  If that car was in fact the ethylene oxide tank, two people are in my opinion alive because the cars stayed coupled and a shelf coupler is the most likely reason they did so.

Mac

We have had some discussion here in the past about the pros and cons of track guard rails.  The bridge in this wreck had track guard rails that terminated straight rather than curving inward to join each other at the end, as had been more or less standard practice for a long time. 

I can’t see how the lead truck of the tank car reacts to encountering the track guard rails.  The appearance of sparks on the left side of the truck leads me to believe that it was derailed during the approach.  It also appears that the tank is slightly off center to the left of the track when it first becomes recognizable during the approach.  The purpose of track guard rails is to keep a derailed car on the bridge deck as it crosses.  I don’t know if the track guard rails would have accomplished that, since the truck was running true (although likely derailed) during the entire approach sequence, and may have just kept running true even if the bridge had no track guard rails. 

Whatever the effect of the track guard rails was, it was not sufficient to prevent the tank from fouling the plate girder alongside of the bridge deck.  You can see a flash of sparks and hear the impact bang as the tank corners the bridge girder.  That collision causes the tank to bounce up and down, which apparently leads to the disintegration of the lead truck.  You can see the axles of the wheelsets drop out at about 1:25.  Apparently some action in the breakup of the lead truck causes more bounce and throws the tank against the side of the deck girder, which guides the tank just before the tank hits the hopper.

My wife wants to know if what the crew heard sounded like a freight train when the tornado hit?

yellowducky:

My wife wants to know if what the crew heard sounded like a freight train when the tornado hit?

Help!   I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe!  

tree68:

yellowducky:

My wife wants to know if what the crew heard sounded like a freight train when the tornado hit?

Help!   I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe!  

One thing sure is for sure, someone from a higher power was watching over that train that day. If that hopper wasn't in the way, I think the outcome would have been much worse. It seems to me that the couplers would have broken beetween the -8 and that 1st hopper. I wonder why? Also depending on how much train you are pulling, the weight, and track conditions, just because the EOTD said the train was in emergancy doesn't mean it was stopped. Right?

bubbajustin:

One thing sure is for sure, someone from a higher power was watching over that train that day.

If 'someone' was truly watching over the train, wouldn't 'they' have caused the tornado to go away, or cause the train be delayed so as to not have been there at all during the tornado, or perhaps had the train going faster so it would pass the area before the tornado, or perhaps .....etc.......

And to answer your railroad question: correct. The EOT will indicate both air pressure as well as motion (or lack thereof).

 You hear the air dump in the engine. The train was not going that fast. Why didn't the brakes on the cars lockup. I seen the sparks under the tank. It looked like debris across the rails from the dropped cars.

As for the camers. The South Shore placed one in every cab on the fireman's side. They video what is ahead and behind.On the old cars that is two cameras per car and married pair of the new cars.

BaltACD:

tree68:

yellowducky:

My wife wants to know if what the crew heard sounded like a freight train when the tornado hit?

Help!   I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe!  

Another forum I participate in posed the question that if a Tornado sounds like a freight train, then correspondingly a freight train must sound like a tornado...if that is the case then...do the noises cancel each other out?  Pondering that could make you head explode...

I'm confused.....the horn that was heard, was that the train or the tornado sounding its horn for the collision with the train?

spikejones52002:

 You hear the air dump in the engine. The train was not going that fast. Why didn't the brakes on the cars lockup.

Track speed in that area was 30-40 mph.  Even dumping the air, it will take a half mile or more to stop at that speed.  The engines by themselves stopped quicker, even if the hogger bailed off, as the PCS cuts the power when the air goes.   

WSOR 3801:

the PCS cuts the power when the air goes.   

That was awesome.  When I took Southwest Chief a few years ago across Kansas, we were on a slow or stop order a good part of the night.  I'd wake up in my sleeper and could tell we were barely moving or had stopped.  The next day, my car attendant said there had been high winds and tornados all around us. When the wind gets above 60 mph, Amtrak has to run very slow or stop.  I don't know if freight railroads are restricted that way or not.  I wouldn't want to be in a Superliner car up high and get blown over.  They sway more than  the old coach cars anyway.  The only time I can remember a lot of swaying was coming back with my parents on NYC from New York and the sleepers had been taken off, so the diner was the last car.  As we ate, the car kept swaying without it's rear anchor, like a mild crack-the-whip.  And I saw a large freight wreck from the windows of the UP City of St. Louis somewhere in Calif, the porter had told us to watch for it and we did.  Cars were smashed and spread out all along the track as we crawled past. 

Here is a little follow up. Turn down the speaker volume first. The music is loud and obnoxious. Scroll down and read the text.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aB08ASei28

 Rich

Here are some other tornado train meets many years ago.

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/tornadotrains.htm

Rich

Amazing Video, Thank You!