It has been raining a lot in south eastern Australia recently.
All East West links are now closed due to washaways and water related problems.
This is the most recent:
Freight train derails at Inverleigh, west of Geelong, leaving dozens of containers strewn across tracks - ABC News
The leading end of the train, including five locomotives, did not derail and there were no injuries. The five section articulated container wagon tied in a knot is pretty impressive...
Peter
Containers did not appear to be secured to the railcars very well.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD Containers did not appear to be secured to the railcars very well.
The usual four twistlocks. one in each corner (or four feet inboard on the 48 foot containers)
They seem to have determined the cause.
I have seen numerous pictures of US derailments involving containers, and those containers seemed to stay connected to their cars, and other containers when double stacked than what was shown in the Geelong picture.
BaltACD I have seen numerous pictures of US derailments involving containers, and those containers seemed to stay connected to their cars, and other containers when double stacked than what was shown in the Geelong picture.
I've seen similar separation of containers where a train has hit a large truck at a crossing and three locomotives were derailed and ended up under a similar pile of containers.
The type of wagon is visible in the larger aerial photos of this event showing three sections of a five section wagon forming a "U" shape. These are little more than a sill with outriggers supporting the container locks. When the train stopped suddenly with the bogies being ripped off, some containers would have been forced off simply by hitting eachother as the train jacknifed. Some of the containers are still attached to the wagon, but lying on their sides nonetheless. Only a few of the containers have collapsed and some of the contents might be recovered if it were well packed and not fragile.
I will note that when containers are/were stacked on the classic 89' TTAX and TTCX cars here in the US, they are/were not locked on.
Ed
7j43kI will note that when containers are/were stacked on the classic 89' TTAX and TTCX cars here in the US, they are/were not locked on. Ed
UP head-on collision at Goodwell, OK back in June 2012.
From the picture, it looks like the double stacks stay connected.
BaltACD 7j43k I will note that when containers are/were stacked on the classic 89' TTAX and TTCX cars here in the US, they are/were not locked on. Ed UP head-on collision at Goodwell, OK back in June 2012. From the picture, it looks like the double stacks stay connected.
7j43k I will note that when containers are/were stacked on the classic 89' TTAX and TTCX cars here in the US, they are/were not locked on. Ed
It does indeed. Some, anyway. The Australian train was not double stack, so it would have been tough for the same thing to happen down south.
My point was that the US ran single stack container flats without locking the containers in place. ALL of the 12,000 TTAX and TTCX cars were that way.
While the Australian flats MAY use locks for their containers, the US example points out that they don't HAVE to.
If they did use locks for their containers, it does look like they didn't stay locked during the crash. That may or may not have been a benefit--it's a pretty big mess, as is the one in the UP photo.
M636C Peter
At any rate, it looks like the Australian cars wouldn't look out of place on a North American container train.
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