yellowducky My wife wants to know if what the crew heard sounded like a freight train when the tornado hit?
My wife wants to know if what the crew heard sounded like a freight train when the tornado hit?
Help! I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe!
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...
We have had some discussion here in the past about the pros and cons of track guard rails. The bridge in this wreck had track guard rails that terminated straight rather than curving inward to join each other at the end, as had been more or less standard practice for a long time.
I can’t see how the lead truck of the tank car reacts to encountering the track guard rails. The appearance of sparks on the left side of the truck leads me to believe that it was derailed during the approach. It also appears that the tank is slightly off center to the left of the track when it first becomes recognizable during the approach. The purpose of track guard rails is to keep a derailed car on the bridge deck as it crosses. I don’t know if the track guard rails would have accomplished that, since the truck was running true (although likely derailed) during the entire approach sequence, and may have just kept running true even if the bridge had no track guard rails.
Whatever the effect of the track guard rails was, it was not sufficient to prevent the tank from fouling the plate girder alongside of the bridge deck. You can see a flash of sparks and hear the impact bang as the tank corners the bridge girder. That collision causes the tank to bounce up and down, which apparently leads to the disintegration of the lead truck. You can see the axles of the wheelsets drop out at about 1:25. Apparently some action in the breakup of the lead truck causes more bounce and throws the tank against the side of the deck girder, which guides the tank just before the tank hits the hopper.
Concurning coupler behavior. Until some time in the 1970's they were plain knuckle couplers. Then there were a series of accidents in which couplers "by-passed", that is one slid out over the other, and punctured a tank car. At that point the NTSB/FRA decided that the solution was double shelf couplers on hazmat tank cars. With the double shelf the adjacent coupler can not bypass or override. That was the theory and it proved to be mostly true, entirely so in my personal experience. After a few year's of experience the railroads found that the bottom shelf had the happy side benefit of preventing the extricated drawbar of the adjacent car from falling between the ties which reduced the probablity of derailment. Many railroads put bottom shelf couplers on their car as an alternate standard. As I recall Union Pacific was one of the early adopters of bottom shelf couplers for their own equipment. Bottom shelf couplers may be required on all new cars now but I do not know that for a fact.
Of course there is no free lunch. Soon after the double shelf changeover kicked in I got called to a derailment in Pennsylvania. One or two cars had derailed in the usual manner. The following five tank cars of caustic soda had all derailed the same axle the same way as twisting forces transmitted by the shelf couplers managed to shove the flange over the rail at low speed.
For a couple of years I made it a point to photograph the behavior of shelf couplers in derailments. I found that in a high speed derailment that stacks the cars in the middle like cordwood, an action seen at the end of this tape, the most likely result was that one or the other coupler shank would break right behind the head with no other obvious effect.
My personal opinion in this case is that the first car to derail was four or five back. You can hear the air go before you see anything. The first four cars were all covered hoppers and I suspect one or two of them were empty, that would make it easier for the wind to tip them over. Note that the most distant two cars ultimately separate from the car behind the engine and the one behind it. I suspect they either bypassed or broke a shank. The two cars near the engine appeared to stay together and the one next to the power clearly stayed coupled. I suspect that the UP covered hopper next to the power had bottom shelf couplers and they held. I think that in this case the result was to deflect the oncoming tank car from the left, looking back to the right. That deflection may have saved that tank car from failure in the accident because the tank head was dropped down aimed right at the locomotive's coupler. If that car was in fact the ethylene oxide tank, two people are in my opinion alive because the cars stayed coupled and a shelf coupler is the most likely reason they did so.
Mac
Metal will bend before ultimate failure by breaking. How much the metal will bend is a function of the metalurgical properties of the particular metal.
This applies to coupler shanks and draft gear was well as any other thing that is made of metal including the car frames and superstructures.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
chatanuga Back in December 2000, there was a derailment in my hometown of Bucyrus, Ohio (bottom of page at http://chatanuga.org/NSsand.html) where the second and third car that derailed were still coupled when I saw them, even though the third car was on its side. The couplers were twisted about 90 degrees but still holding.
Back in December 2000, there was a derailment in my hometown of Bucyrus, Ohio (bottom of page at http://chatanuga.org/NSsand.html) where the second and third car that derailed were still coupled when I saw them, even though the third car was on its side. The couplers were twisted about 90 degrees but still holding.
I've seen a picture of two locomotives coupled together. One is still on its wheels, but the other is leaning at about a 45 degree angle, apparently supported only by the couplers. Talk about some stress...
Bucyrus NP Red I am surprised that the locomotive would be pulling the first car and it even looks like several stayed coulped for a time. Does the coulper or drawbar twist? They shouldn't. They should break, right? How does it hang on like that? I don’t know where the breaking point is, but they can twist without breaking. There is clearance and “slop” in the coupler engagement as well as the draft gear. It looks like that car went over 60 degrees or more. It would be interesting to see exactly how the couplers and draft gear handled that amount of twist. As the engine pulled out onto that deck girder bridge, the lead car rode up onto the plate girder alongside of the bridge deck. You can see the far end of the car rise up a few feet when it rides up onto the girder. This support would have taken a little stress off of the coupler twist. Then the tank car wedged into the bottom of the hopper, breaking the coupling, and rolling the hopper upside-down and into the ditch. When that happens, you can see the damage to the bottom of the hopper caused by the tank car.
NP Red I am surprised that the locomotive would be pulling the first car and it even looks like several stayed coulped for a time. Does the coulper or drawbar twist? They shouldn't. They should break, right? How does it hang on like that?
I am surprised that the locomotive would be pulling the first car and it even looks like several stayed coulped for a time. Does the coulper or drawbar twist? They shouldn't. They should break, right? How does it hang on like that?
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
I suspect one reason the microphone was put outside the cab was to let crews know they were not being recorded.
I did find a You Tube video of the cleanup but no doubt it was a couple or more days after the wreck because of the tank car cargo.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
I don’t know where the breaking point is, but they can twist without breaking. There is clearance and “slop” in the coupler engagement as well as the draft gear. It looks like that car went over 60 degrees or more. It would be interesting to see exactly how the couplers and draft gear handled that amount of twist.
As the engine pulled out onto that deck girder bridge, the lead car rode up onto the plate girder alongside of the bridge deck. You can see the far end of the car rise up a few feet when it rides up onto the girder. This support would have taken a little stress off of the coupler twist. Then the tank car wedged into the bottom of the hopper, breaking the coupling, and rolling the hopper upside-down and into the ditch. When that happens, you can see the damage to the bottom of the hopper caused by the tank car.
I believe that is the first time I have ever seen a derailment actually happen live as it were. That was amazing.
South of Calgary is a location on the Crowsnest Sub. called Pincher, or as the rest of the world knows it Pincher Creek. It is downwind from a slot between two mountains south of the Crowsnest Pass where the winds blow in a straight line at a very high speed quite often. At one time derailments during those winds were almost common. It is described almost exactly like what happened here, the cars start to lean over, then straighten up and lean over again further, until KA-Boom.
As mentioned on another thread, now that railways work with weather forecasting agencies, things like this can now be avoided. It has been a number of years since I have heard of a wreck down there.
AgentKid
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
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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)
According to the linked NWS report, the tornado was at EF2 when it struck the train. That's winds between 111 and 135 MPH, possibly gusts to 161. If the train was eastbound, it appears the tornado came in behind the train, so unless the crew happened to see it as they approached the area and recognized it for what it was, they didn't have a clue until their train stared coming apart.
Do you think those cars were empties?
This link has some photos of the January 2008 tornado at Lawrence, IL. Clearly it was documented as a tornado. Here is a link that shows several photos:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lot/?n=20080107tor
From the top, photo #8 shows the derailed train alongside of damaged farm buildings. I don’t see the funnel cloud in the video but they can be a bit elusive to spot sometimes in all the surrounding wind and chaos. They can jump around and skip up and down.
But if the funnel directly hit the train, I think it would have hit the train about 4-6 cars back, and this would not have been seen by the camera. I think it tipped over about ten cars almost simultaneously, but the cars back a ways went over first, and the car next to the engine went over last. When that last car went over, it opened the view revealing the first cars that had gone over, which by then, were sliding in the ditch. So the car next to the engine tipping over was the end of the first phase of the derailment. The beginning of the first phase was not visible, but that is where I would have expected to see the involvement of the funnel if the view had not been blocked by the first car.
Here's my observations: First of all, if you look at the trees bending, they are bending away from the train and from watching those tornado shows, when the tornado is close, the wind usually gets sucked into the twister. Another obsvervation is after the cars tipped over, none of the trees where the derailment happened are fallen or even snapped off that is usually a good sign of a tornado. But then again, the debris that you see could be attributed to a tornado that hasn't touched down yet. I'm assuming that even tho a funnel cloud is close to the ground, it could wreck havoc on the surrounding land.
http://www.youtube.com/user/pavabo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulvbox
I didn't get a clear impression the train was trying to stop, only that it definitely ran into something. A tornado that close might not be all that visible, also it might have run into it just forming. Either way, the engine seemed to remain intact, at least until the rest of the train came running after it.
zardoz If indeed it was a tornado that caused the derailment, I have to question the wisdom of the engineer in that he just kept on going despite all that was going on around him. Additionally, I wonder why he didn't bail the locomotives brakes and keep pulling away from the wreck. I know he was dragging the firstcar, but still..... I have stopped my train before due to severe weather; you never know what a storm will serve up: trees across the tracks, washouts (think Rockford), malfuctioning signals and/or crossing protections, etc. If the alleged tornado had been a few seconds earlier, it could have struck the locomotives instead of the first few cars of the train. And while I would feel fairly safe in a STOPPED locomotive, from this video we can see that a moving train is much more dangerous.
If indeed it was a tornado that caused the derailment, I have to question the wisdom of the engineer in that he just kept on going despite all that was going on around him. Additionally, I wonder why he didn't bail the locomotives brakes and keep pulling away from the wreck. I know he was dragging the firstcar, but still.....
I have stopped my train before due to severe weather; you never know what a storm will serve up: trees across the tracks, washouts (think Rockford), malfuctioning signals and/or crossing protections, etc.
If the alleged tornado had been a few seconds earlier, it could have struck the locomotives instead of the first few cars of the train. And while I would feel fairly safe in a STOPPED locomotive, from this video we can see that a moving train is much more dangerous.
We have no idea what the lead engines view of the weather was, however, I suspect we have all driven, at one time or another, into one of the 'wall of water' type thunderstorms...only knowing that we are entering an area of heavy rain, without being able to see anything but the leading edge of the storm area and no idea of what is behind the wall of water we are entering. For the entire situation to go from start of rain to derailment in progress in less than a minute (33 seconds).....there was no way to avoid this incident short of having the train stopped in the previous county.
Here is a link to another article. Apparently there were two tank cars. It mentions what they were carrying.
http://www.pantagraph.com/news/article_5c29b200-ea08-5c84-922c-e62fb2bb6d28.html
I did find the below link that might be this situation. Just a guess. I did find articles about tornado's derailing trains. in a Google and Yahoo search. I did see a tank car and the article mentions a tank car. Apparently it was not a big deal.
http://weather.about.com/od/tornadoe1/p/January_Tornado.htm
I have been told by the people who take care of the cameras that as long as that red light is flashing its recording. no matter what unit it is. and there was no placard on that tank so if it was loaded it was non-hazmat. It was nice to see that the iner set of rails kept things on the bridge i was skeptical of that but seeing is believing
I wonder if the guys in the cab needed clean underwear!!!!
CShaveRRCould this have been from an in-cab camera installed by the railroad?
That would be my guess. I can't imagine anybody holding a video camera and watching all that unfold without flinching.
Judging by the relatively small number of cars derailed by the wind, I'd have to say it was a tornado - even one of the biggest non-tornadic wind generators - a microburst - generally covers an area larger than half a dozen or so cars.
The trees visible in the background and the debris flying also lead me to think in those terms.
Every time I watch that I can see something else happening. Notice the way that tank car snags the end of the steel girder on the side of the bridge just before it catches up with the engine. It looks like that first hopper began to deflect the tank car to the right just before it hit the engine, so it continued to deflect to the right rather than climb up the front of the cab.
Ok, wind knocked it over. Not interested in arguing. I just copied the link.
I did not see a funnel or debris flying which a tornado would produce. Are yu sure it was not just VERY high winds from a strong storm?. Winds of 60+ are common in bad storms and if they caught the car broadside as it appears that they did the wind could easily push the car off the tracks.
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