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WIAR bubbajustin Can't this break a train in half? (slack) The slack bunched-in when the locomotives hit the brakes because they saw a switch mis-lined, and the poor crewman got thrown forward. BTW - my grandfather and uncle were longtime Clover Leaf/LE&W/NKP/NW employees in Indiana, with their last assignments being in Decatur, IN. Long live the Leave Early & Walk!
bubbajustin Can't this break a train in half? (slack)
Can't this break a train in half? (slack)
The slack bunched-in when the locomotives hit the brakes because they saw a switch mis-lined, and the poor crewman got thrown forward.
BTW - my grandfather and uncle were longtime Clover Leaf/LE&W/NKP/NW employees in Indiana, with their last assignments being in Decatur, IN. Long live the Leave Early & Walk!
Oh, so the slack buntche uo in a train like a chain or rope? Very cool that youre grandfather and uncle were railroaders on the NKP Clovreleaf! My grandpah blew grain into 40 ft boxcars at Mellott. Just 5 miles south of me.
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For those who are not familiar with the B&O's cabooses, keep in mind that most - if not all - of them were the side-"bay window" type, not the more stereotypical "cupola-on-top" type. On those, slack action could pitch a crewman from the seat up top and cause him to fall down the 6 feet or so to the floor below. In contrast, a bay-window caboose is all on one floor level, so there's no place to fall to, other than from a standing position to the same floor that's being stood upon.
- Paul North.
In the most recent Classic Trains, there's an article about the experiences of a B&O trainmaster in West Virginia coal country.
Part of the trainmaster's experiences was the fatal accident in a caboose when a train moving past the yard, on the main track, went into emergency stop because a switch had been left lined for the yard entrance and not the main (a violation of B&O operating rules that had been tolerated by crews and management for a long time before the trainmaster who wrote the article arrived).
One employee was killed in the caboose and another severely injured when the slack bunched-in and the resulting impact threw them violently (they were found inside the caboose - they weren't tossed-out). I don't have the magazine here with me, but I don't recall reading in this terrible story how long the train was, but it was pulling empty hoppers, so I assume it wasn't just a short cut of cars.
When a train goes into e-stop, does the whistle sound automatically? Could the unfortunate crewmen have had any time at all (maybe just a few seconds) to get a hold of something to brace for impact if they heard a steady whistle? I guess with an impact so violent, even if they had grabbed onto something they may have just been torn loose from it anyway.
Perfectly horrible...
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