Here's a picture of the Kent Ohio train crash that was this past Thursday.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=260963&nseq=0
Looks like they filled that gap under the bridge pretty well. Fortunately nobody was hurt from what I've heard.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
Great pic. Here is another posted by that photographer.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=148631
At least when trucks get wedged under overpasses sometimes its a simple matter of letting the air out of the tires to get them unstuck. In the case of a train there is probably a dispatcher looking for a new job.
Al - in - Stockton
spokyone Great pic. Here is another posted by that photographer. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=148631
The sign on the bridge is rather amusing, given the circumstances....
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I've always wondered why there's no *tell-tale* type bar set up in advance of a low railroad or highway bridge. On I-90, close to town, there is a somewhat lower than average highway overpass. This thing gets whacked by a tall truck every 3 or 4 years, and requires expensive repairs. Couldn't there be a horizontal metal bar, about a quarter mile before the bridge, that matches the low bridge height? A tall truck could whack the reletively inexpensive bar, and save the wear and tear on the expensive overpass. Surely, the same could be done for a rail line.
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passengerfanAt least when trucks get wedged under overpasses sometimes its a simple matter of letting the air out of the tires to get them unstuck. In the case of a train there is probably a dispatcher looking for a new job. Al - in - Stockton
Or a train crew, or a corridor manager, or a yardmaster, or a ramp manager, or a trainmaster, or somone at a clearance desk. There's more than one possible culprit, and the train dispatcher is one of the least likely. What has happened more than once is someone forgets that a line is only cleared for ordinary double-stacks, or an ordinary and one high-cube, not two high-cubes, and loads a well car improperly.
RWM
I don't know what happened to the company officer on our railroad who ordered the crew of a stack train (who knew better) to proceed on the route for which they were lined, resulting in a mess that made it to the pages of Trains soon afterwards. At this time the UP or CNW had specific tracks that had been lowered to clear a couple of overpasses along their route. Prior to that, CNW had a light-beam height detector east of Proviso that would set special signals to warn eastbound crews not to proceed. These bridges have all since been taken care of in one way or another--there are no restrictions due to height in that area.
That second bridge (under which the stack train was wedged) looks 'way too modern for something like that to happen--it was undoubtedly built (or rebuilt) after the start of the stack-train era, and the problem should never have existed. I couldn't read the sign, Larry, but that rather stinks as a "solution", whatever it says.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
I couldn't read the sign, Larry, but that rather stinks as a "solution", whatever it says.
WARNING KEEP OFF TOP OF CAR
KEEP OFF
TOP OF CAR
Murphy Siding I've always wondered why there's no *tell-tale* type bar set up in advance of a low railroad or highway bridge.......Couldn't there be a horizontal metal bar, about a quarter mile before the bridge, that matches the low bridge height? A tall truck could whack the reletively inexpensive bar, and save the wear and tear on the expensive overpass. Surely, the same could be done for a rail line.
I've always wondered why there's no *tell-tale* type bar set up in advance of a low railroad or highway bridge.......Couldn't there be a horizontal metal bar, about a quarter mile before the bridge, that matches the low bridge height? A tall truck could whack the reletively inexpensive bar, and save the wear and tear on the expensive overpass. Surely, the same could be done for a rail line.
There you go--thinking again. If you keep spouting such logical solutions to a problem, you'll never make it in management.
You guys are talking about the jangling dingle bars that on my Lionel set would cause the giraffe to duck his head back in the stock car.
Patrick Boylan
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gardendance You guys are talking about the jangling dingle bars that on my Lionel set would cause the giraffe to duck his head back in the stock car.
Never heard them described that way, but yes....
Telltales fell out of favor when brakemen no longer had to walk the rooftops to set brakes, and definitely when the use of roofwalks was banned. At the time, cars rarely exceeded the height of a box car. Of course, hi-cube boxcars became a factor, but they are a fixed commodity - they're always the same height. They also often run the same routes on a regular basis (ie, auto parts trains) so the environment they run in can be controlled.
It seems that the railroads again have a raison d'etre for "telltales", albeit in a higher tech version. The recent incident in the Detroit River tunnel was likely caused by the same mixing of domestic and international containers as well.
As for the coal hoppers, that could have been a lot of places.
Murphy Siding I've always wondered why there's no *tell-tale* type bar set up in advance of a low railroad or highway bridge. On I-90, close to town, there is a somewhat lower than average highway overpass. This thing gets whacked by a tall truck every 3 or 4 years, and requires expensive repairs. Couldn't there be a horizontal metal bar, about a quarter mile before the bridge, that matches the low bridge height? A tall truck could whack the reletively inexpensive bar, and save the wear and tear on the expensive overpass. Surely, the same could be done for a rail line.
It would have to be more hi tech than that...a bar hitting a container 20 cars back isn't going to make enough noise for the crew to hear. Now if something like a high/wide detector was installed, we'd be talking high/wide detectors
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I thought the idea was that the crew in the cupola caboose would see the telltales bounce. Is Fred at the back end of every train, and can he do more than just flash?
No tell tails because: 1) no one rides (or is supposed to ride) tops of cars anymore and 2) most cars are so high they don't even have ladders up to roof but only to hand brake wheel.
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Joe May said
This is a spur track that serves a gravel pit ONLY, the containers had been bad ordered and set out near the pit. The closer track was used to bring them in, and it has the clearance the stacks need. When they decided to take the BO'd stacks back out, they used the other track which obviously doesn't have the same clearance.
passengerfan At least when trucks get wedged under overpasses sometimes its a simple matter of letting the air out of the tires to get them unstuck. In the case of a train there is probably a dispatcher looking for a new job. Al - in - Stockton
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
gardendanceI thought the idea was that the crew in the cupola caboose would see the telltales bounce. Is Fred at the back end of every train, and can he do more than just flash?
The tell tales were so the brakeman riding on top of the car would feel them and drop to the ground to avoid having his head (or more) taken off by the tunnel/bridge/etc...
A FRED is at the rear of every train unless there is a locomotive or caboose there, although they still ride on some. Switching moves don't need FREDs, and in the daytime some local runs just use a red flag stuck in the coupler. A FRED (Flashing Rear End Device) just flashes, but an EOT (End Of Train device) can relay the brake pipe pressure, speed, and other data up to the engineer via a tail-end box located on top of the control stand in a locomotive.
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