ns145 There is a small auto unloading facility...
There is a small auto unloading facility...
There is old video somewhere showing NS getting in trouble in KC with open racks full of Ford pick-ups (became convertables) because they were in a siding under a humped bridge. Another communications fail?
Holy crap, this could have turned out much worse! There is a gasoline piperack from the refinery that passes over industrial spur immediately west of the overhead rail and road bridges. The pipes carry fuel into a large tanker truck loading facility. Good thing the tops of those racks got sheared off.
The train was shoving west down a CN industrial spur into Valero's Memphis refinery. The overhead line is CN's mainline between downtown Memphis and West Jct. Location: Lat. 35.085396/Long. -90.073772 FRA calls the small yard to the east of the bridge CN Cottonwood. The nearest street intersection is Riverport Road and W Mallory Avenue.
There is a small auto unloading facility about a half mile to the southeast. I suspect a yard job was doing some switching and inadventantly shoved the autoracks too far west.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/35%C2%B005'07.4%22N+90%C2%B004'25.6%22W/@35.0842185,-90.0781942,16.1z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d35.085396!4d-90.073772
Edit: I see that I took too long fact checking my info.
On Trainorders.com someone said it happened here
https://goo.gl/maps/dZBsE3GMM4CtH4Mv6
Someone said it wasn't a main line misroute like you'd assume -- it was a local shoving some cars up a spur and the cars happened to be coupled to the auto cars, and no one noticed the tall cars couldn't go there.
BaltACDHeard of NS having a auto-rack incident somewhere near Enola, PA - crew was told to use 'X' track in error - and the crew did as they were told. I have no details.
That was the one with the special transformer move that obviously wouldn't clear the PLAINLY POSTED bridge in question. That was stupidity at a couple of levels.
The most likely cause I see for the Memphis incident is something emergent, and with the number of empty autoracks (which would ride nominally higher and interfere more) that go through here daily, something must likely either to do with mistaken MOW raising line and surface without accounting for overhead clearance or something accidentally changing the track level. There are height differences between some types of autorack, and it is possible that there are restrictions on some types on this particular line ... wherever it is ... that were mistakenly overlooked either in dispatching or in having to reroute a move or making a nonstandard routing for a given train. That would have to be speculation until someone reports more facts.
Question is : was the bridge too low for normal autoracks - or did one of the racks have a damaged roof prior that got caught on the bridge?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
So who or what is responsible for this error?
I should know where in Memphis that picture was taken, but it isn't familiar. I'd thought this was at East or West Junction around the ex-IC yard, but autoracks go under there all the time. That almost has to be a line-and-surface change: the interference is not all that great, but enough to keep peeling the roof back once it starts. I think that there is much more damage going on down below the roof as the bridge constrains it to be pushed down into the car as it crumples.
At the start of that video, it looks like the damage progress is located ahead of the bridge by maybe 10 ft. That suggests that the train had previously pulled some distance under the bridge while the cars were interfering. Then it stopped and backed up about 10 ft., and then stopped again. At that point the video begins with the standing train starting ahead. Then once the 10 ft. has been passed, the damage resumes as the next two cars pass.
NP Eddie Didn't the US military us a P38 can opener to accomplish the same thing?
I've still got mine, keep it on the keychain 'cause you never know, do you?
We keep a few in the kitchen too, just in case.
The P-38 can opener. Like the P-51 Mustang, the M-1 rifle, the Essex Class carriers, and swing music we couldn't have won WW2 without 'em!
I was just going to post about this can opening bridge. Didn't the US military us a P38 can opener to accomplish the same thing?
Before the 1970 merger, the GN hauled over height loads to the Minnesota iron mines. They had to use the GN Fridley lead and switch over to the joint NP-GN route and run wrong main from Northtown to Coon Creek.
Aboout 1967 or so the NP/GN lowered the two main tracks under the SOO Line bridge to accommodate higher loads. I remember both tracks being way up in the air to allow undercutting of the tracks.
Ed Burns
SD70DudeSo that's where it happened, but I still don't know how. Was the track recently tamped and lifted a bit? Is the bridge angled and does it cross more than one track, where at least one track will clear autoracks but others will not? That caused a similar incident on CN in Ontario some years ago, with doublestacks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agKwYR8mzzM
Was the track recently tamped and lifted a bit?
Is the bridge angled and does it cross more than one track, where at least one track will clear autoracks but others will not? That caused a similar incident on CN in Ontario some years ago, with doublestacks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agKwYR8mzzM
Heard of NS having a auto-rack incident somewhere near Enola, PA - crew was told to use 'X' track in error - and the crew did as they were told. I have no details.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
So that's where it happened, but I still don't know how.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
I would love to know how this happened.
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/09/16/freight-train-hits-low-bridge-memphis-video/
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