pedrop wrote: Here is one of the GE´s...
Here is one of the GE´s...
I take it that the rail route runs(3 r's) along side a highway? I inserted the 3r's after i reread the text looking for errors. My question: were there any witnesses to the accident? Was anyone on the highway injured?
Hi doghouse,
the accident happened after midnight. The road we see along the wall links a small town close the yard we sse in the pictures, but is used most by trucks carrying iron ore to load trains at the wall you see in the pictures. At that wall always have truck drivers and other employees all day and night, so I´m sure there were witnesses. Nobody on the road was injuried, in spite of the train cross it by a viaduct about 500 metes before the point where the train hit the wall. The enginner told the nearest station about his problem and the road was closed immediately. The engineers survives because he went to the second loco, the SD40-2. The firts one (u23C) hit the wall and dropped to the side and the full tank exploded. The third unit (another U23C) was completly destroyed by the iron ore cars. The middle unit, the SD40-2, was squeezed between the two GE´s and hit the wall with its rear and. That´s why the enginner survives.
The train lost the brakes because the engineers was alone that night (in fact, here in Brazil just one person controls the trains, from the small one to the huge EFVM locotrol of 320 cars). He drove the train to the mine at the top of a hill. Then, he moved the locos to the rear to start loading the cars. When he coupled the locos again to the train, he forgot to open the air valves, so the the locos couldn´t pressure the lines with air to the brakes. When the train was completley full of iron ore, he starts to go down hill and perceived the train had no brakes braques. He said the train reach more than 100 km per hour when hit the wall.
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