Very interesting picture...

[railroad65]

How/what caused this to happen. Notice even the truck slid along with the box on the frame.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=244396

 

Thanks for information,

Railroad65

[eolafan]

A guess from one who is not a technically sound railfan would be that the car had LOTS of weight in it and was stopped VERY suddenly during a switching move and the contents of the car shifted forward VERY suddenly and VERY hard, breaking the welds or bolts that held the car body to the frame.  Am I close to being correct?

[ndbprr]

My guess is a cushion underframe desigend to "travel" on start or stop to ease damage to the load.  An over aggresive move exceeded the slack action limits and jerked the whole thing off the car. One of the reasons cabooses were abandoned in addition to the cost of them is that as a train  started by the time the slack action got tothe rear of the train people in the caboose were knocked out of their chairs and even suffered broken bones or worse.

[Modelcar]

...With today's different motive power and torque application when starting....and T  E ratings.....Can "slack" be designed out of the system to an advantage, or is it still necessary to have it for train operation.....??

Believe "slack" is minimum in Triple Crown type train operations and how about passenger train consists....Min. "slack" if I understand it correctly.....

[ndbprr]

Slack is a thing of the past on todays road engines BUT switchers are a different story I would suspect.  In addition the mechanism could have been weakened through corrsion or rusting and I did not notice a date of when the picture was taken so it could be older then today

[ndbprr]

I checked it again and the picture is dated 1978 so it definitely predates modern engines.  It could have occurred previous to that date also and may have been stored for awhile. 

[zugmann]

Only slack on triple crowns is between the engines, and b/t the engines and the first trailer.  The rest is solid.  But they're also very light.  

 Without slack on traditional trains, you'd have to find a new way to couple/uncouple them. And I sure hope it isn't the triple crown style of pins... we'd never get anything moving. 

...With today's different motive power and torque application when starting....and T  E ratings.....Can "slack" be designed out of the system to an advantage, or is it still necessary to have it for train operation.....??

Believe "slack" is minimum in Triple Crown type train operations and how about passenger train consists....Min. "slack" if I understand it correctly.....

[Soo 6604]

My guess is that it was carrying the very first shipment of Viagra and some of the boxes broke open and leaked out.

Or, new heavy duty cushioning for glass shipments

Paul

[WSOR 3801]

That car has a cushion underframe.  On these older ones, the center sill slid back and forth, while the trucks and body stay still.  Note the trainline attached to the sill.  Probably had a defect in the sill, at the head of a long, heavy train, and ripped it most of the way out.  Older engines had worse wheelslip control.  They could have slipped, train ran in, then when the engines regained their footing, run-out, and snap!

[csxengineer98]

Slack is a thing of the past on todays road engines BUT switchers are a different story I would suspect.  In addition the mechanism could have been weakened through corrsion or rusting and I did not notice a date of when the picture was taken so it could be older then today

i beg to differ..slack is far from a thing of the past with any engin!!!!you can rip a train apart just as fast with modern engins as you can with older engins...

csx engineer 

[Modelcar]

...Yes, I'm sure the uncoupling issue would be hindered with force on couplers and would prevent the "normal" uncoupling without the "slop" between cars...Hadn't thought of that.

[dknelson]

Gee, who said the Kadee coupler with the extra-long shank wasn't prototypical!

Dave Nelson

[edblysard]

The cushion underframe device has been removed for replacement or repair...there are two huge springs, (each over 6 feet long) one at each end of the center sill/drawbar, with the hydraulics and reservoir in the middle.

When the mechanisms and springs are removed, the sill/drawbar can free wheel so to speak, running from limiting stop to limiting stop.

We had one of the drawbar spring locks fail, the drawbar slid out and the spring came screaming out of the sill, shot several car lengths down the middle of the track...scared the crud out of my helper.

 

[Modelcar]

.....Boy Ed, that set up on cushion underframes  sounds like it has pent up potential to be a killer in certain kinds of wrecks that might open that sill, allowing those springs to fly out in all directions....Something like a concentric overhead garage door set of springs might be if they could ever get loose.

[ChuckCobleigh]

We had one of the drawbar spring locks fail, the drawbar slid out and the spring came screaming out of the sill, shot several car lengths down the middle of the track...scared the crud out of my helper.

Yet another reason to stay out of the gauge?

[edblysard]

Q,

Funny thing was the car had just come out of our heavy RIP track, the drawbar had been replaced along with the plate it rides on...seems the car man who repaired it didn't put the keeper key in the right way...the draw bar rides in a pocket with a pivot pin and other stuff, the back of the pocket is the spring retainer, and when the key that holds the draw bar failed, it broke another part, which allowed the steel pocket for the draw bar to slide out also.

We were switching the cut of cars out of the rip track, and when I kicked the car ahead of this one, the draw bar on the box car went right along with it...use your imagination, but the spring made the exact sound you would expect a big spring to make when it shoots out of a steel tube.

My helper was walking down the lead, with his back to the cut, and this thing hit the ground between the tracks right beside him...he moved sideways faster than I can run in a straight line!

 

From what I can tell, the springs are used to return the sill to center, some what of an equalizing system, and to absorb the initial impact of coupling, compress some, and then the hydraulics take over.

 

Chuck, you right, one more reason not to stand in the dead zone...about the only reason I can come up with to be in the middle of the tracks is to adjust a knuckle/draw bar, or replace a knuckle...other than that, there is nothing I need to do that involves being in the dead zone.

[trainfan1221]

It's usually the knuckle that breaks I thought.  Interesting picture indeed.