Collision is imminent: do you jump or ride it out?

[Anonymous]

While reading the thread on the recent crane-hauling truck / train collision in Louisiana, I came across the following post which started me thinking:

zardoz

seppburgh2

And let me put this out there, if  the PTC set off an emergency application can the train crew jump off before impact? 

 

Not at 45mph!  

Well, yes, they could jump, but at that speed I'd take my chances in my 'safety cab' locomotive.  Now if had been a gasoline or propane truck, then I might reconsider, even at 45mph.

I've been reading up on crew safety a lot recently, including this great thread from 2011 about collision posts. The topic has some real-world importance to me — I'm not a professional railroader but I am an operating employee at a tourist railroad and regularly work alongside train crews on larger railroads as a photographer and freelance journalist (see page 50 of the November Trains or the video extra). While I don't want to be paranoid, I am aware of the risk I take every time I go out on the rails, whether I'm working as a brakeman on a 25 mph tourist line or just riding and photographing an 80 mph commuter train on the Northeast Corridor. We have one crossing that — when I'm controlling a shove — I go through with one hand on the air whistle and the other on the backup hose dump valve, watching the cars fly across the tracks without even slowing and wondering whether the driver of that red one will stay stopped or change his mind. Grade crossing incidents, trespasser stikes, suicides, even collisions with other trains...they don't care whether you're a career railroader or just somebody in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Railroaders, what are your thoughts, experiences, and practices on jumping versus riding out a collision? When would you jump? When would you hunker down and protect your head? Do you worry about your derailing train hitting you if you jump? What if you're in a cab car on a standing-room-only commuter train and there's nowhere to run? Has your employer trained you about what to do when a collision is imminent?

[Overmod]

TrainManTy

what are your thoughts, experiences, and practices on jumping versus riding out a collision? When would you jump? When would you hunker down and protect your head? Do you worry about your derailing train hitting you if you jump?

Here is the famous video from Smiths Falls in 1991,

where a LRC engineer makes the decision in an interesting fashion.  I see no evidence of cowardice here, and it is interesting to watch the 'body language' as the engineer gauges whether the train will stop in time, and decides it probably won't. (Note: I still find that video embedding using the toolbar button doesn't work right)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1q9eBaWY3k#t=12)

[Euclid]

That is always the dilemma.  I suspect that there have been hundreds of case where crewmembers could have saved themselves if they had jumped before an impending collision that ultimately killed them.  With lots of other collisions, trainmen did jump and save themselves from getting killed in a wreck.  Some jump and the collision never happens, like in the video posted by Overmod.  Some jump and get killed from the jump.  Some of those could have survived had they not jumped. 

Jumping off to save yourself is one of the unique practices of railroading because there is often a long warning time before a collision happens.  Often the speed is low enough to jump without an overriding risk of death, and yet a collision might be fatal because of all the momentum in a moving train. 

Steam locomotives in particular were dangerous to ride out a collision because it was easy to get crushed between the engine and tender; and also because of the prospect of being scalded to death by escaping steam escaping from broken lines and damaged appliances.  A steam locomotive did not have to be moving very fast to provide these hazards, and the low speed made jumping less risky.  So jumping was frequent in the steam era. 

Grade crossings would seem to offer less opportunity to save yourself by jumping.  Most grade crossing crashes give little warning, so there is no time to consider jumping.  Vehicles stalled on the track might give time to consider jumping, but then often those stalled vehicles move out of the way before the train gets there.  

Although, as I think about it, the type of vehicle that is most likely to remain stuck on a crossing is a large truck.  And they are the type of vehicle that poses the greatest danger to a train.  As others have said, the obvious gasoline tanker truck would be something to avoid hitting above all else.  But even those have been ridden out safely, I think I have heard.    

One of the most interesting jumps that I know of was on the D&RGW.  A fireman on a passenger train warned the engineer and an accompanying Traveling Engineer that they were going too fast for the next curve.  The Traveling Engineer told the fireman to mind his own business, so the fireman simply got off—at over 60 mph.  The firemen knew that a derailment was imminent, so he jumped off.  He was right.  The engineer and Traveling Engineer were both killed as their engine leaped nearly across the Arkansas River.  The fireman survived, his gamble paid off, but the stakes were mighty high in getting off at such a high speed. 

[chatanuga]

Here's the video.

l1q9eBaWY3k

Kevin

[Lake]

I'm sure the driver was happy that the colision never happened.

[rfpjohn]

In our last rules class, the trainmaster made it a point to discuss what to do in the event of an imminant collision. He opinned that staying in the cab was your best bet. Considering the chances of getting burried by wreckage piling up, should a derailment occur, I tend to agree. Hope I'm never faced with that choice! By the way, what was the back story behind that Via Rail near collision?

[traildoctor]

I’m just an outsider, not in the railroad industry but, I still think it would be safe to have a sacrificial car ahead of the locomotive.  A low (4’) car with energy absorbing material and a cow catcher on the front would make a fine bumper, much better than the crew cab taking the hit.

[Overmod]

traildoctor

A low (4’) car with energy absorbing material and a cow catcher on the front would make a fine bumper, much better than the crew cab taking the hit.

It would suck.

Hitting cars of a standing train with such a thing would result in a fairly prompt override, assisted by that 'cowcatcher', with the FRA-buff-compliant underframe of the last car now neatly aimed right at the cab windows.

Even a high car with good energy absorbing qualities -- an "improved version" of the buffer cars required on things like ethanol trains -- is going to have an awful lot of kinetic energy to dissipate, with the additional understanding that constraining the interaction between the buffer car and the first-encountered car (or locomotive) does not guarantee that any successive cars will remain properly coupled, aligned with the rails, etc.  (At the risk of having to play the Shari Lewis clip again - see any ot the Euclid threads on improved oil train systems...)

What you really want is an improvement to a 'safety cab' system, where the controlled crush, anticlimbing, plow-like diversion, and whatnot serve to 'diffract' any car or locomotive structure away from direct impact with the armor of the cab, or prevent any force or acceleration on the cab that could produce trauma to the people it contains.  Systems which actually direct or focus energy on the cab are NOT a good answer...

[Euclid]

Overmod

Even a high car with good energy absorbing qualities -- an "improved version" of the buffer cars required on things like ethanol trains -- is going to have an awful lot of kinetic energy to dissipate, with the additional understanding that constraining the interaction between the buffer car and the first-encountered car (or locomotive) does not guarantee that any successive cars will remain properly coupled, aligned with the rails, etc.  (At the risk of having to play the Shari Lewis clip again - see any ot the Euclid threads on improved oil train systems...)

What do you mean by that?

[Norm48327]

"(At the risk of having to play the Shari Lewis clip again - see any ot the Euclid threads on improved oil train systems...)"

[Overmod]

Euclid

What do you mean by that?

Lots and lots of discussion on the mechanics of energy dissipation (both accidental and during braking) that will help traindoctor and others understand what is involved.  That includes the pros and cons of drawbars, proportional braking, and a variety of other things that you, and other contributors, have gone over.  It's a historical resource of great value.

I just don't want to see the disputational side of the threads start up again!  ;-}

[Euclid]

Overmod,

Okay, I see what you mean.  I am pretty sure we put the disputational part to bed, so that part is settled.