General Discussion

Tornado wins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azV5bC2br-Q

Rich

Forgot to mention, I found the article at the Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine.

That's got to be the best train wreck video on youtube.

 Was anyone hurt in the wreck (ie railway employees)?

 I have not found any info so far. Still looking. I "assume" the camera was in a locomotive looking backward.

Rich

Wow, that is really spooky, especially when the trailing cars start to catch up lead by that evil tank car.  You know it's not going to stop.  The tornado must have derailed the cars 4-8 cars back first before the first car tipped over.  You can hear the air go before that first car tips.  Sounds like tree pieces hitting the cab as they get into the tornado. 

I did not see a funnel or debris flying which a tornado would produce.  Are yu sure it was not just VERY high winds from a strong storm?.  Winds of 60+ are common in bad storms and if they caught the car broadside as it appears that they did the wind could easily push the car off the tracks. 

 Ok, wind knocked it over. Not interested in arguing. I just copied the link.

Rich

Every time I watch that I can see something else happening.  Notice the way that tank car snags the end of the steel girder on the side of the bridge just before it catches up with the engine.  It looks like that first hopper began to deflect the tank car to the right just before it hit the engine, so it continued to deflect to the right rather than climb up the front of the cab.

Judging by the relatively small number of cars derailed by the wind, I'd have to say it was a tornado - even one of the biggest non-tornadic wind generators - a microburst - generally covers an area larger than half a dozen or so cars.

The trees visible in the background and the debris flying also lead me to think in those terms.

Another source says that this occurred at or near Lawrence, Illinois. That, and a date (which I couldn't tell you) ought to determine some of the details. Could this have been from an in-cab camera installed by the railroad? I didn't know that it would be activated on other than the controlling unit, if so. I couldn't determine what type of load was carried in the tank car (if in fact it was loaded); it looks like a non-pressure tank, which would rule out LPG or anhydrous ammonia.

Edit: This is the tornado that occurred on January 7, 2008, well outside of normal tornado season, and did extensive damage in northern Illinois. The train was on UP's Harvard Subdivision (between Proviso and Janesville); according to the news article the tank car was loaded (probably ethylene oxide, based on experience--I might have humped the cars in that train!). I did see just a flash of debris (starting at 1:04), not long before the train went into emergency (at 1:09). The same tornado, or system of tornadoes, destroyed the barn at our favorite apple-picking venue in Poplar Grove, Illinois (they rebuilt).

CShaveRR:

Could this have been from an in-cab camera installed by the railroad?

That would be my guess.  I can't imagine anybody holding a video camera and watching all that unfold without flinching.

I wonder if the guys in the cab needed clean underwear!!!! 

I have been told by the people who take care of the cameras that as long as that red light is flashing its recording. no matter what unit it is. and there was no placard on that tank so if it was loaded it was non-hazmat. It was nice to see that the iner set of rails kept things on the bridge i was skeptical of that but seeing is believing

I did find the below link that might be this situation. Just a guess. I did find articles about tornado's derailing trains. in a Google and Yahoo search. I did see a tank car and the article mentions a tank car. Apparently it was not a big deal.

http://weather.about.com/od/tornadoe1/p/January_Tornado.htm

Rich

If indeed it was a tornado that caused the derailment, I have to question the wisdom of the engineer in that he just kept on going despite all that was going on around him. Additionally, I wonder why he didn't bail the locomotives brakes and keep pulling away from the wreck. I know he was dragging the firstcar, but still.....

I have stopped my train before due to severe weather; you never know what a storm will serve up: trees across the tracks, washouts (think Rockford), malfuctioning signals and/or crossing protections, etc.

If the alleged tornado had been a few seconds earlier, it could have struck the locomotives instead of the first few cars of the train. And while I would feel fairly safe in a STOPPED locomotive, from this video we can see that a moving train is much more dangerous.

Wabash, I paused the video somewhere around 1:26, and it appears that there are two placards on the end of the tank--white on the left with black lettering, and red just to its right. This is definitely the scenario for a car carrying ethylene oxide, and--although the presence of the placards no longer indicates whether the car is loaded--the article says it was loaded, so I'll accept that. The placards are hard to distinguish in the weather.

(I made another edit on my previous post to put a couple of times in there.)