Might as well include the official AAR/DOT crossing number on the XREF list, as posted on each and every crossing. In fact, that would be better than lat-lon.
Encourage local jurisdictions to build an XREF for situations such as seemed to be the case in Rockford, where there were several crossings near each other on the same street. That way they can simply initiate separate calls for each suspect crossing. Better safe than sorry.
Just heard the exact reverse of this problem tonight. Seems a delivery truck was dropping off some ATVs at a local dealer and parked his truck right on a crossing. Not a siding - the main. I think it was the local that came up on him. They apparently stopped short, no collision, and reported the problem to their dispatcher, who called our 9-1-1 center. The patrol that was sent out couldn't find anything (I'm presuming the truck had moved by then), but was also confused because that particular street crosses the tracks twice...
To add a bit to the number of calls such call takers get - our 9-1-1 center knows that for every incident that occurs on the interstate that they will get 10-20 cell calls.
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Paul, or to any one else who may know the answer.
So I guess that unless there is a short in the track circiut, or a break in the actual physcal rail itself, the dispatcher doesn't know about any problems?
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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)
Good suggestion and thoughts. Here's mine:
Map ? Either paper and/ or digital format, such as Geogrpahic Information System - GIS ("ArcGIS") format ?
9-1-1 address cross-reference for each local railroad location name ? I.e., "CP 425 is at = 1125 Green St."
GPS coordinates for same - now that's almost universal and pretty much a common-enough basis and accuracy for this purpose, that can cut through the confusion of where "here" is, and the clutter of different names for essentially the same place. "We show that location as being at N 75.1234 degrees, W 40.9876 degrees", etc.
- Paul North.
Paul_D_North_JrBut everyone else has to go through that sometimes cumbersome communication process - even those employees with the right phone numbers, who don't happen to have a radio.
Paul_D_North_JrIt may be useful to step back a bit from this, and look at the broader question of how urgent messages about track and/ or train conditions from non-railroad employees can cut through the 'clutter' of the normal press of business and get to the right person ASAP - as contrasted with non-urgent messages
PDN::: This communication problem of emergencys is a long one no matter what the business is. I've written revisions to many emergency response manuals (ERM) and it appears to all come down to the first reporters.
Now how to apply this to RRs? One way that comes to mind is for the RRs to do a complete survey of the critical locations on their ROW and any other RRs in each emergencyu Jurisdiction. Then provide to the local emergency call center a loose leaf book or flash drive to update computer dispatch system with the following informationl.
1.Top of each page. Local location name. ie Green avenue crossing.
2. emergency numbers. RR, Chemtrek, Amtrak if applicable
3. A cross reference of a local location to RR jargon. This would get the 911 dispatcher calling the correct RR location.
4. Railway #(s) to call.
This would include various VRU punch ins if applicable on that RR to hurry communications.
ie: all problems, crossing problem, washout, derailment, truck on track, etc
The cross reference noted for report; ie: Green Ave crossing is Mile Post G-482.85
A standarized format of how to report problem
ex. This is officer _______ of the ________ city, state 911 center we have had ______ report(s) of a wash out at MP G-482.85 we ( have/have no)t had a squad car on site to verify this report yet.
Our return number is (___-___-____)
The telephone number(s)of the reporter (s) is (____________)( if reporter identified himself) .
Any other items you posters can think of?
But then again, 21 min. is a long time compared to some other incadents.
This han't been a really happy few months for CN has it? I mean everyone along the EJ&E hates them for setting brush fires, and now... a derailment that killed one! Wow. I kind of feel bad for them.
There are a lot of assumptions here on getting a hold of the dispatcher. While I do not know how the CN does it, at the class one that I dispatch at there is little lag time for things like this. The police command center, whose phone number is on every crossing and is the point of contact for local police, has a hot line for each of the dispatcher desks, as well as all the ACDs. When the hotline rings on the dispatchers desk, the dispatcher is required to stop what he/she is doing and take the hotline call. These calls happen more than one might think with crossing malfunctions, stalled/stuck autos on the track and such.
An "expensive model collector"
There is enough hyperbole, hysteria and hearsay floating around here to choke a horse.
It will be interesting to watch the outcome of the NTSB and FRA investigations when the facts can be scrutinized, especially where the digital and tape records from Homewood and the Sheriff's Office (plus a few more locations come into play)....It will also be interesting to see if the overly centralized DS center and staff workload comes into play along with how many bogus calls did the CN have to deal with along with the other calls. From experience, I know all too well that for every legitimate call, you get a pile of garbage calls to go with them. Every railroad MOW and signal supervisor has spent nights chasing phantom calls (this includes calls and over-reaction from emergency services people too).
henry6 Law enforcement official on private property? Doubt it for several reasons. First, it would be tresspassing and also not of thier juristiction. Secondly, liability...to and from the railroad and to and from the enforcment agency's authority. Third, there probably was a lot more that the law enforcement agency had on its hands. The real question here lies in the chain of communication, its design, its logistics, its locations, its definitions, its people, its messages, its congestion, etc, etc.
Law enforcement official on private property? Doubt it for several reasons. First, it would be tresspassing and also not of thier juristiction. Secondly, liability...to and from the railroad and to and from the enforcment agency's authority. Third, there probably was a lot more that the law enforcement agency had on its hands. The real question here lies in the chain of communication, its design, its logistics, its locations, its definitions, its people, its messages, its congestion, etc, etc.
But I've seen it done a few times when public safety was involved and, on one personally memorable occasion, when a dog had been struck by a train, a story I'd love to tell but I'll save it for when I'm no longer associated with my employer.
Perhaps this has already been addressed by others, I just started wading through this topic.
No, John, if you flag a train and tell the crew what you percieve is wrong, they will usually be glad and not report you as an idiot. But you cannot be an alarmist or wrong. A hot box, stuck break, track obstruction, broken rail, washout, etc. are legitimate. If you are a railfan, as most of us here are, we probalby know the hand signal for hotbox and stuck brake; but those who don't know will have to find a way to communicate. To expect everyone to know these signals, or how to explain the percieved danger in precise railroad terms, is impractical at best. When railroads were "king", most people knew about trains and teminology, it was part of their lives. Today, people know the vernacular of computers, television and film, space, and other current technololgies and social phenomena, and not about railroads.
I have flagged a train for hot box and another for a stuck brake. Since there was no caboose, I got ahead of the trains and to a grade crossing. The engineer seeing me giving the hand signals leaned out the window holding his hand to his ear asking me to shout to him to reaffirm my signals. Both times the train was able to take care of the problem before disaster and there were no consequences to me. But again, not everybody knows the signals and not everybody knows to know the location of the car in the train or its reporting marks.(helpful information in taking care of the problem). As long as the report of a problem is legitimate, the railroad and the crew, are not going to chastise you.
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At one time, long ago, people in small towns knew when to expect a train, because they pretty much came through at the same times. It would not be unreasonable to expect the local police could go down the tracks to flag the 3pm local due to a washout. But in 2009, I see a washout, no cellphone handy (I'm off the electronic leash thank you), I walk down the track because I know the roadrailer is on the way. I wave like mad in an attempt to stop the train. Whats the crew going to do? Call the DS, ask for the RR police to get that idiot off the tracks and have him arrested.
So we are back to the original problem of how to effectivly communicate a problem to the correct recipent.
John
It may be useful to step back a bit from this, and look at the broader question of how urgent messages about track and/ or train conditions from non-railroad employees can cut through the 'clutter' of the normal press of business and get to the right person ASAP - as contrasted with non-urgent messages.
Employees with a radio are in a unique position, of course, because they can contact a nearby train directly, without having to go through the dispatcher, or call the DS directly without having to go through 'channels' or a phone 'tree'.
But everyone else has to go through that sometimes cumbersome communication process - even those employees with the right phone numbers, who don't happen to have a radio. Of course, if anyone actually sees a train coming, they can flag it down directly - as long as they are in front of it. But if they see something unsafe anytime after the locomotives pass - or before the train is in sight - then they too have no practical way to communicate with the crew.
So the question remains. To make it easier to visualize, suppose there's a smoking or flaming 'hotbox' - no question that it's a serious safety problem, and the train needs to be stopped ASAP. A non-railroader sees it, happens to have the right 1-800 number handy, and calls it. Then what should happen - and what actually happens - and how fast [Q]
On the other hand, suppose someone calls in with a clearly minor problem - say, an open door on a box car. Who does that call get routed to so that its priority can be assessed and not get in the way of more important things [Q] Again, then what should happen - and what actually happens - and how fast [Q]
Finally, suppose a well-meaning but uninformed person - a layperson, or a Constable On Patrol ['cop'] - calls in with a problem, but is understandably less than clear about what it is and exactly where it is. Who is the person assigned to sort that out, and then buck the message up the chain-of-command to the DS [or others], as appropriate for the urgency of the situation [Q] Do they have a 'hot-line' to the Chief Dispatcher's desk when they need it [Q] Do they have the training to know when and when not to use it [Q]
As I think about this further, if the railroad police desk continues to be the first point of contact for the outside world - which may be appropriate, because they are the most accustomed to dealing with the uninformed public regarding the railroad - they may need more 'horsepower', authority, and training to get to the right person as quickly as needed. Although it is usually staffed 24-7-365, think about the calls that will come in, esp. from the 1-800 numbers at the grade crossings. Most of those will likely be about a malfunctioning grade crossing signal. What is the Police Dept. going to do about that directly [Q] Not much, except maybe to send someone out to manually protect or flag the crossing, pending repairs - and most importantly, notify the people who really need to know about it - the C and S Dept. to send a maintainer to perform those repairs, and the DS to issue the appropriate cautionary orders to the train crews in the meantime. Likewise, in the hotbox or washout scenarios here, again there's not much that the railroad police can do about those directly. Do they even know which train might be involved or heading that way [Q] And if so, do the railroad police have the authority to contact the trains directly [Q] If not, then again the message has to go through the DS anyway. Perhaps a better process is for such calls to go directly to an assistant DS who isn't busy working a desk or territory, or the Chief's administrative assistant, who can then go and tug on his/ her sleeve and get their attention ASAP.
If the railroad police are going to continue to be the screeners of these kinds of calls - which may nevertheless continue to be the best way - then the process needs to be as streamlined as possible, so that something like the flaming hotbox scenario can be routinely addressed in a minute or two - not 21 minutes.
No expertise or 'agenda' here - just my 2 cents' worth.
oltmannd This sure appears like CN is rightfully going to wear the blame for this and the sheriff's dept may not have done anything wrong. "We called the railroad, so if anything happens, they can't blame us!" seems to be the attitude.
This sure appears like CN is rightfully going to wear the blame for this and the sheriff's dept may not have done anything wrong. "We called the railroad, so if anything happens, they can't blame us!" seems to be the attitude.
So far I haven't seen anything that indicated that anyone on the ground at the scene even knew a train was coming. I would submit that if they did, perhaps they would have taken further measures.
Given the weather situation in the area at the time, law enforcement probably did do all they could. We don't know what the other demands were on the police at the time - there may have been multiple wires down situations - clearly a hazard to the public, and moreso than a washout on a railroad line where you've already called the railroad and can't see any trains coming.
Insisting that they should be conversant in railroad operations is like suggesting they should be conversant in [pick your obscure subject here] - it's not germaine to their day to day operations. Most likely any hazmat training they have is at the awareness level - keep your distance and call in the experts.
As we've discussed here, the response time from the railroad (which, if we use the sheriff's numbers was actually more than 21 minutes, since the train crew was never notified of the situation before the incident) may not have been out of line given normal procedures and practices.
I'm sure there will be damages paid, and procedures will be carefully reviewed and cleaned up if necessary, but I'm not sure that anyone really did anything wrong.
CShaveRRI'm curious: the sheriff sees a bad track condition on CN and calls UP? The lines are parallel, but he didn't know which was which? And didn't know which was the busier of the two lines going through town? Yes, a lot more railroad awareness is needed!
Yes! And not knowing is almost criminal.
That quote about the sheriff not knowing anything about stopping trains? What nonsense. I'll bet you 9 out of 10 3rd graders know that freight trains take a long distance to stop and that a reasonable effort to get one to stop might be to go up the track a ways and make a ruckus.
The effort could fall far short of conforming with railroad rules but still have a pretty good chance of success.
The sheriff's dept may have been busy with other thing from the rain. But, which of them was worse than track speed, mainline train derailment?
Where was the effort? Where was the follow though?
From the Winnebago County Sheriff's dept mission statement "we will maintain the peace, protect lives and property to the very best of our ability" (http://www.winnebagosheriff.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)
Did they do this?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Desertdog, I do agree with you...police should have the same level of knowledge as fire and hazmat teams. But to expect a policeman to be conversant with operating procedures or be able to operate a locomotive is out of the question.
And Bucyrus, it was the desk sargeant who refused to send a car to the crossing incident in this case. Bad "copmanship" in my book.
Question for RR folks:Would a neighboring road, in this case UP to CN, contact the other road if they receive calls such as washed out track in situations like this?
Yes and no. If a track supervisor was called out and found nothing, then yes, he would notify the DS to get the other road involved. This has happened a number of times in Western Iowa, and of course in Iowa Falls with crossing protection.
A washout situation is considered an emergency and should be handled as such.
henry6 Bucyrus henry6 Law enforcement official on private property? Doubt it for several reasons. First, it would be tresspassing and also not of thier juristiction. Secondly, liability...to and from the railroad and to and from the enforcment agency's authority. Third, there probably was a lot more that the law enforcement agency had on its hands. I can’t imagine that any of these points would or should prevent the police from taking action in an emergency. Suppose the police were there at the crossing concluding that the washout was serious enough to threaten a train, and a train suddenly appeared on the horizon. What should they do in that case? If it were me in that case, and if I had a fusee in my car, there is no question about what I would do if I saw a train approaching from a significant distance. And I would not worry about trespassing. I am basing my statement on a conversation I had with a police department that would not take action when a crossing gate was down and there was no train. His reason was that should something happen to the public because of the police action the police and the municipality would be at risk. Therefore no action was less r4isky than some safety action (like stopping people from going around the gates!)
Bucyrus henry6 Law enforcement official on private property? Doubt it for several reasons. First, it would be tresspassing and also not of thier juristiction. Secondly, liability...to and from the railroad and to and from the enforcment agency's authority. Third, there probably was a lot more that the law enforcement agency had on its hands. I can’t imagine that any of these points would or should prevent the police from taking action in an emergency. Suppose the police were there at the crossing concluding that the washout was serious enough to threaten a train, and a train suddenly appeared on the horizon. What should they do in that case? If it were me in that case, and if I had a fusee in my car, there is no question about what I would do if I saw a train approaching from a significant distance. And I would not worry about trespassing.
henry6 Law enforcement official on private property? Doubt it for several reasons. First, it would be tresspassing and also not of thier juristiction. Secondly, liability...to and from the railroad and to and from the enforcment agency's authority. Third, there probably was a lot more that the law enforcement agency had on its hands.
Law enforcement official on private property? Doubt it for several reasons. First, it would be tresspassing and also not of thier juristiction. Secondly, liability...to and from the railroad and to and from the enforcment agency's authority. Third, there probably was a lot more that the law enforcement agency had on its hands.
I am basing my statement on a conversation I had with a police department that would not take action when a crossing gate was down and there was no train. His reason was that should something happen to the public because of the police action the police and the municipality would be at risk. Therefore no action was less r4isky than some safety action (like stopping people from going around the gates!)
I can understand an officer not wanting to flag people around falsely lowered gates. I don’t know if it would create a liability risk, but he might think it would. However, refusing to flag people around the falsely lowered gates would not constitute a safety hazard.
But, in your last sentence, are you saying that he refused to do anything to prevent people from driving around the falsely lowered gates? That would be very wrong on his part. If he were there witnessing people driving around the falsely lowered gates, and no police officer is flagging them to do so, then he should stop those people and ticket them. That would be his job.
RRKen Twenty One minutes is more than enough time.
Twenty One minutes is more than enough time.
Not for CN. I'm thinking they called the CN Police, a Montreal number. The CN police would then try to get through to the RTC/DS centre. It's not exactly easy to get a hold of the dispatcher, I've sat on hold with the RTC for an hour while she was busy dispatching on 7 different subdivisions and that was after spending 40 minutes trying to navigate through the RTC phone menu.
On UP, it is drop what you are doing and stop movements. RMCC is set up to route information to Corridor Managers for handling, and call outs. RMCC has listings of crossings in a data base so that any sort of description is matched up with actually mile posts and or FRA crossing inventory numbers.
When I call in crossing failures, usually the turn around time is about 10 minutes. That means, after I hang up with the crossing hotline, the DS is handing out XH orders.
henry6First, there is absolutely no reason any law enforcement officer should be a qualified engineer or anything else but a qualified law enforcement officer! GOD he has to be enough other things in that role why add that or anyother professional expertise (Chemist? Heavy equipment operator? Hairdresser? Lawyer? Social Worker? Interpreter? Psychologist? Psychiatrist? MD? I mean, come on!). Second, I've heard police cars call in to have the dispatcher contact "the railroad" or to name the wrong railroad. Plus they do not keep up with property swaps, name changes, and responsiblity changes within the railroads...the local media doesn't, the public doesn't, there's virtually neither reason or opportunity for the police to. And the deeper we go here, the more I am afraid that CN is going to be falsely hung on the timeline. It gets clearer and clearer that the timeline is fuzzy, the contact sequences are fuzzy, the information given to which railroad when becomes a question, we don't know what else was going on on either of the railroads elsewhere nor what else the Sheriff's department had going on. It appears that there was a period of bad weather, the Sheriff and other local officials had their hands full, perhaps so did the railroads. If the Sheriff or a 911 operator called the train dispatcher directly with complete clear and concise information, then two, three minutes tops, would be a reasonable response expectation. But we hear that the wrong railroad was called first and that CN had to call back for some kind of clarification. Time was ticking away; that's all. Happenstances and event sequences did not work in the favor of avoiding a tragedy. Not the Sheriff, not the 911 Operator, not either of the railroads, can be "blamed" for the derailment based on the time line of 21 minutes.
First, there is absolutely no reason any law enforcement officer should be a qualified engineer or anything else but a qualified law enforcement officer! GOD he has to be enough other things in that role why add that or anyother professional expertise (Chemist? Heavy equipment operator? Hairdresser? Lawyer? Social Worker? Interpreter? Psychologist? Psychiatrist? MD? I mean, come on!).
Second, I've heard police cars call in to have the dispatcher contact "the railroad" or to name the wrong railroad. Plus they do not keep up with property swaps, name changes, and responsiblity changes within the railroads...the local media doesn't, the public doesn't, there's virtually neither reason or opportunity for the police to.
And the deeper we go here, the more I am afraid that CN is going to be falsely hung on the timeline. It gets clearer and clearer that the timeline is fuzzy, the contact sequences are fuzzy, the information given to which railroad when becomes a question, we don't know what else was going on on either of the railroads elsewhere nor what else the Sheriff's department had going on. It appears that there was a period of bad weather, the Sheriff and other local officials had their hands full, perhaps so did the railroads. If the Sheriff or a 911 operator called the train dispatcher directly with complete clear and concise information, then two, three minutes tops, would be a reasonable response expectation. But we hear that the wrong railroad was called first and that CN had to call back for some kind of clarification. Time was ticking away; that's all. Happenstances and event sequences did not work in the favor of avoiding a tragedy. Not the Sheriff, not the 911 Operator, not either of the railroads, can be "blamed" for the derailment based on the time line of 21 minutes.
CShaveRRDan, I'll take issue with your speculation about being on hold for three to five minutes with UP personnel. They are pretty good with that automated system of theirs at getting the proper people to respond to the call, and quickly.
I have called CN's system (from the New York Ave. crossing in Oshkosh here) when gates were down intermittently. I was on hold a shade over 4 minutes in that case. I can't speak to UP's system.
Dan
CNW 6000 Here's a story I found on the BLET website:http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=26634 The Sheriff says they contacted both CN and UP so that answers that question, but what number did they call? Quoting the Sheriff:“I don’t know anything about trains. I don’t know anything about stopping trains,” Meyers said. “All I know is they had 21 minutes from the first time our office called them until the derailment.We have radio communications in our squads. If they have radio communications, then I’d think 21 minutes would be ample time to notify the train and get it to stop.” I wonder, since the Sheriff mentioned contacting both roads:-Which did they contact first?-How long was the deputy on the phone to each RR with whatever numbers s/he called?-Was the time of the first call the start of the 21 minute "window"? Pure speculation here...but say they called UP first and were on hold for 3-5 min, talked with person for 1-2 min and then hung up. Repeat situation with CN...that could cut the window in half.
Here's a story I found on the BLET website:http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=26634
The Sheriff says they contacted both CN and UP so that answers that question, but what number did they call? Quoting the Sheriff:
“I don’t know anything about trains. I don’t know anything about stopping trains,” Meyers said. “All I know is they had 21 minutes from the first time our office called them until the derailment.We have radio communications in our squads. If they have radio communications, then I’d think 21 minutes would be ample time to notify the train and get it to stop.”
I wonder, since the Sheriff mentioned contacting both roads:-Which did they contact first?-How long was the deputy on the phone to each RR with whatever numbers s/he called?-Was the time of the first call the start of the 21 minute "window"?
Pure speculation here...but say they called UP first and were on hold for 3-5 min, talked with person for 1-2 min and then hung up. Repeat situation with CN...that could cut the window in half.
He admits he doesn't know anything about trains or stopping them? And he is the Sheriff? At a time when more and more dangerous stuff is moving by rail, he had better learn in a hurry.
John Timm
Answering a couple of questions posted earlier--
The CN Iowa Division is ABS (Automatic block signals) controlled via track warrants on this stretch through Rockford. This eastbound train had two locos and 114 cars, about 74 or so were ethanol loads. So he had a healthy train. Coming east there are a series of upgrade pulls leaving Rockford. They cross the Rock River downtown and then are headed upgrade to Alpine Road (road goes overhead). There is a block signal just east of Alpine Road--I guess we can assume that it was green. Going east of Alpine the tracks are straight and then make a gentle left turn where they come up to the Mulford Road crossing. The distance from the curve to Mulford Road is only about a quarter mile--if that. The derailment occurred at Mulford Road. The Mulford Road crossing is in a valley and the eastbound train would have been pulling as it worked uphill toward Perryville, the next crossing east.
When I turned on the scanner after the derailment on Friday night, the engineer reported back to the CN RTC that he was moving about 30 mph (newsreports said the black box recorded 36 at the time of the derailment--trackspeed is 50) in run 6 with no air set when he felt two tugs on the train and the air dumped. Like I said earlier, more than 50 cars made it over the site before the train derailed.
Even if there would have been a sheriff sitting at the crossing with a lit fusee, the crew probably would not have been able to stop the train in time to avoid going over the crossing. They might have still derailed, or the tracks might have washed out under the train anyway. It probably would not have been as bad as it was.
The crew of the train was reporting high water along the tracks coming east from Rockford as the train derailed according to the reports in the newspaper. They didn't say that they had water over the tracks though.
That low spot at the Mulford Road crossing is well known though as a spot where the tracks tend to get undermined when it rains heavily--it has happend before at that location.
Lance
As one who lives in Rockford, IL and has been able to listen to the reports on the local radio station (WNTA 1330 AM) it seems that there was some confusion as to who was called and when they were called. Winnebago County Sheriff Dick Meyers was on the station this past week (maybe it was Monday or Tuesday--I forget) and he originally said that the squad was dispatched and saw the 'washout' and communicated this with the Winnebago County 911 call center. The Call Center then called "the railroad", but this turned out to be the Union Pacific--their branchline from Belvidere over to Rockford runs parallel to the CN mainline just to the north by a couple hundred feet. The Union Pacific told them they needed to call the other railroad, the Canadian National. From what Sheriff Meyers said, the Union Pacific provided them with the number to call the Canadian National. The Call Center then called the CN to inform them of the problem. See the problem here....tick, tick, tick. So maybe the original call to 'the railroad' was placed 21 minutes before, but the call to the CN--how long 20, 15, 10, 5 minutes?
It didn't sound like the deputy on the scene called the number plastered on the side of the CN equipment bungalow--it sounded like the call was something that took a while to get done, since at first they called the wrong railroad.
The sheriff also said that the deputy videotaped the washout with his dashboard camera. But I don't see how if the tracks were actually 'washed out' that two locomotives and more than 50 cars made it across safely before the derailment.
The sheriff also got a bit defensive when someone called it to ask why they didn't block off the road toward the crossing if they weren't sure that the train traffic was stopped. In their defense though, the rain storm that likely caused the washout dropped more than 3.25 inches of rain on Rockford in just over an hour on Friday between 6 and 7:30 p.m. and the derailment happened at 8:35 or so and the local law enforcement authorities were dealing with flooded intersections and traffic lights out of order during the time.
Just going to have to sit back and wait for the NTSB report to be completed.
A). A law enforecment officer is not, and should not be expected to be, qualified as a professional railroader and make professional railroader decsions (which direction do you go find a train? how do you get the attention properly?). I've heard some look at a virtually abandoned siding and declare they now knew why trains couldn't stay on the track at the speeds they travel!
B). Once I saw a railroad accident occur while on my way to work (early 70's). It took about 15 minutes for me to arrive at work...a commercial radio station. I called the nearest railroad yard office (I knew most everybody there) and they were just recieving word of the derailment despite train radios and trackside phones!
In 20 years of dealing with the public on issues such as this....the biggest problem is determining where HERE is. In general, the public layman relates locations in references to local landmarks (Wal-Mart, Golden Arches, gas station etc.) Police tend to relate locations to what Hundred Block of a street the occurrence is at. Railroads relate locations to the milepost of the affected line. Throw all three of these forms of location reference together and you end up with the real problem of everyone coming to agreement to where HERE is. Throw in the additional complexity that you may have separate railroads having parallel tracks in the same area, along with the same railroad having parallel tracks in an area that are parts of different sub-divisions that are controlled by different dispatchers and you ramp up the problem of defining where HERE is.
With the advent of placing the AAR crossing designation at road crossings, the amount of time it takes to define where HERE is has been significantly decreased, to the extent that the person(s) communicating with the railroad provide the correct number.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
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