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Fatal Rear-end Collision Reported on BNSF

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Paul,  <o:p></o:p> Thanks for finding and posting that information.  It seems to be confirming my general conclusion about the failure of the posts.  I am rather amazed because I find it hard to believe that they could get it wrong with all of the developmental work, resources, and testing that would go into a locomotive crash performance standard.  As I said before, I expect the crash performance in this collision to become the focus of intense review and debate within the regulatory bodies that come into play.   <o:p></o:p> What they needed was not only collision posts that were strong enough, but also a stronger frame.  I sure would like to see an image of the locomotive frame if anybody knows of one.  <o:p></o:p> Beaulieu,  <o:p></o:p> I don’t think they would need to build a strong enough cab to withstand the force of the whole train.  It just needs to be strong enough to either directly deflect, or jackknife the train it hits and/or the train it is pulling without destroying the cab.  With that deflection, the whole force of the train could not come to bear on the cab. This collision deflected the flat cars nicely.  The only problem was that the deflection system ended when the cars were only half way over the cab.  Otherwise, there would be nothing fundamentally wrong with a ramp-over-the-top type of deflection system.  But on the other hand, if the posts had not bent over and formed a ramp, the deflection would probably have occurred in the form of jackknifing the flat cars, or even stacking them up on each other to some extent in combination with jacknifing.  I think they need heavy bars that go up the front, under the nose, and up the windshield frame, and all if it strong enough, (and the main frame strong enough) that it can deflect and/or jacknife most of what it hits without yielding.  And if anything does manage to ride up the front of the cab, the bars would protect it from puncture.
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