Do not Amfleet cars have an emergency cord at the vestibule ceilings? I seem to remember such. I ask because I wonder why no trainman or conductor or passenger pulled the cord when the train started to accelerate instead of decelerating approaching Frankfurt Juntion.
With my many times of riding this stretch of the NEC, possibly 500 times in total, I think I would have gotten up from my seat and raced to the vestibule to do just that. Also with knowledge of previous wrecks at that location.
I base my analysis of my own behavior on one New Haven RR incident. I was going from either New Haven or New York to Boston on one of the slower hourly trains, those that stopped at Old Saubrook, Westerly, and Kingston. At one of those stops I notice a large cluster of people at the vestibule end of the car, and no trainman or condoctor. Clearly, I thought, these people want to get off and may have to ride to the next station. So I got up, walked to the vestibule, said excuse me to the passengers there to let me pass through them, opened the door and trap, stood outside wavinig an arm sideways bck and forth knowing the engineer or fireman would look back before the train would start, alllowed the passengers to detrainj, and then closed up. A few minutes later, the train started, the conductor came back and thanked me but said not to do it again.
Am I correct about the emergency cord? What would you have done?
Derailment site was a little over 3 miles from 30th Street Station. I suspect the onboard train crew was busy collecting tickets and such from the passengers that boarded at 30th Street and would know the train would be accelerating to 80 MPH as a normal matter, at what point do you make the realization that you are going faster than 80 when your attention is on the other aspects of your job. With the speed which the train accelerated to, it would have been approximately 3 minutes or less from the time the train started to pull from 30th Street until it was on the ground.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I haven't measured it, but I'm pretty sure it's more like 6 or 7 street miles, and probably more like 10 track miles. Mapquest says 7 street miles, http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm says 5.75 as the crow flies.
I can believe that it's about 3-4 miles since the last decent curve, probably around 32nd St.
I do agree that the train crew was probably busy collecting fares, plus it was dark, so I can understand if they didn't quickly notice high speed or lack of deceleration for the mile or so at which it would have mattered.
Patrick Boylan
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All good points. But what would you do, assuming you were not distracted?
Another assumption that this thread makes is that you, who are not a crew member, have an intimate knowledge of the route in question. I have a pretty good knowledge of Metra's Southwest Service between Union Station and Oak Lawn but I'm sure that it's less than that of any regular crew.
Just think of the reasons people would give for pulling the emergency cord...
"I thought we were going too fast!"
"I forgot to get off at the last station."
"That fellow at the other end of the car looks suspicious!"
"I feel sick and need to stop to let my stomach settle."
"I left the oven on."
"I forgot some papers I need today."
"I just wondered what would happen if I pulled that cord."
"I left my kid in the car."
"I left the car lights on."
"I didn't pull it, somebody else did! {snicker snicker snicker}."
"My kid pulled it. Don't blame me, he is just being a kid."
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
I agree that knlwledge about the emergency cord should not be wdely distributed. Regarding the NHRR reaction, which I analyzie to judge what i would have done on 188, I had had extensilve musuem and fan-trip experience with regular coach vestibultes, the latter acting as coach host and thus unnofficial trianman on Central Vermon trips, so I knew what I was doing at the time, and just did not wish to see passengers carried past their stop.
Many of us do things like this in less threatening situations all the time, like yelling to a bus driver to open the second dooor because a woman with stroller or baby carriage wants to board or yelling lights at a driver at night or dusk with headlights unlit.
I think if most readers of this forum knew they could prevent a serious accident, they would react as I would.
Some railroaders may wish to wieigh in on this. Anyone who was a trainman in the days of cabooses ever put a train into emergency?
Engines have an emergency valve on the conductor's side. I've heard of a few conductors using it, too.
I was worried once my conductor was going to pull it when he thought we might hit a car racing us to a crossing. They stopped a couple feet short and the conductor said they were just laughing away. I don't think they meant to beat us across, just scare the "stuff" out of us. (With a 12000 ton mixed manifest going down hill just a few mph under track speed, I would've been "upset" if he would've pulled it. I was more worried about the train derailing on top of us rather than hitting some "motorist.")
I threatened to pull it once when I had a student engineer. Our last signal was an Approach, we crested a hill and he was letting his speed pick up instead of slowing down and preparing to stop for the next signal about a mile away on the downward side of the hill and around a curve where you couldn't see it until you were practically on top of it. He said to me and the condr, "I think the next signal will be an approach." I said, "And I think you are going to get us down to a crawl, prepared to stop at the next signal until you can see it or I'm pulling the air on you." It was at a point where we are closing up at the terminal. Often, it works out just like he said, but it's dangerous to think that way.
Jeff
I've always understood it's a Federal offense for an unauthorized person to pull the cord (actually a handle). It's highly unlikely that a non-crew member would recognize the need before a crew member did. In this case, accelleration may have been so rapid that the Conductor and other crew members didn't have time to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
Semper Vaporo: I would add "I saw the I Love Lucy episode" and "I wanted to see if it worked". By the way, it does.
Tom
ACY I've always understood it's a Federal offense for an unauthorized person to pull the cord (actually a handle). It's highly unlikely that a non-crew member would recognize the need before a crew member did. In this case, accelleration may have been so rapid that the Conductor and other crew members didn't have time to recognize the seriousness of the situation. Semper Vaporo: I would add "I saw the I Love Lucy episode" and "I wanted to see if it worked". By the way, it does. Tom
Johnny
Yes, it is illegal for an unauthorized person to activate the emergency braking, but lots of things are illegal, yet that doesn't necessarily stop someone from doing that thing because they think they have a valid reason to do so... even if the reason is utterly laughable, downright stupid, or for a lark.
"Hey, I didn't mean no harm!"
Also, way back when I used to ride the city bus to work, there was a cord strung along both sides near the roof and if you wanted off the bus, you were to pull that cord to alert the driver to stop at the next corner... at times I had to use it to get the driver to release the rear exit doors when he didn't see me waiting to get off. I suspect that this sort of arangement might still be in use on busses in some places and people might equate a cord in similar locations on a RR passenger car as something to be used for the same reason and not realize that it is truly an "Emergency Brake' and not just a bell ringer to alert the engineer.
I recall an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer from about 1962 in which the emergency cord figured prominently. The NYC RR used to operate a special train for Clevelanders and other northern Ohioans who went to Miami University at Oxford several times a year. Apparently as the train left Oxford for Cleveland on its winter-break run some students thought it would be great hijinks to pull the emergency cord. After the required time to re-set the brakes the train had barely started up before the cord was pulled again. Following the third or so time, the crew decided to teach the students a lesson and simply did not move the train for about 2 hours. Then the cord got pulled again; another 2 hours passed. I'm not sure how many more times this was repeated but the article did feature the train's incredibly late arrival in Cleveland. The following year the NYC discontinued this service. Imagine how much inconvenience this caused to so many people, especialy in the age before cell phones. History doesn't record if the miscreants were ever identified, let alone prosecuted.
Speaking of potential prosecutions, as daveklepper was describing his actions in detraining passengers, all I could think of was how lucky he was no one twisted an ankle, fell down, or was otherwise injured. Any railroad's or insurance company's lawyers would have had you clapped into the Tower of London for that. Or what if you had been injured in opening the door? What a field day for attorneys!
I've often been alarmed when I've seen the casual, inattentive way some attendants board and detrain cars on excursion railroads. If I'd done it that way, I'd have received a serious rebuke from Conductors and supervisors. A lawsuit waiting to happen.
Semper: It shouldn't be confused with a stop signal because it's not a cord nowadays. It's a handle. But you never know how people's minds work --- or don't work.
Of course before we helped the two Central Vermont trainment on our yearly Autumn folliage trips we had a class on what to do and what not to do. And I followed those instructions. And those who volunteered were told NOT TO BRING THEIR CAMERAS.
Probabably, if the experience had been repeated, I would have remembered that the friendly conductor told me not to do it again, and I would have tried to rememeber in which direction I last saw a trainman or the conductor walk thru the car and tried to chase him down before the train started. Which is probably what I should have done in the first place. But the occasion did not arise for me again.
One curious thing. On these postings of mine, I keep writing Grand Trunk and then going back to change it to Central Vermont. Why? Because even though I did not take pictures, others did, and the train's image stays in my mind. The coaches were from the Grand Trunk, except the last year when they were borrowed from the New Haven and the trip started in New Haven instead of New London, where the crews and power changed.
How did that NYC train interline to Oxford which was served by the B&O Indianapolis-Hamilton line?
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