California SP runaway

[Anonymous]

i actually had the tape of that on video, it was called incident at duffy street. Kind of sad, but you could see all the damage had been done, the train wad going pretty fast down that line, and there is a pretty tight curve there. they were saying that people who lived there were worried about the fact that the trains were there, and that something like this might happen. If I remember correctly, they either smoothed out the curve, or realligned the line to make sure that it didn't happen again.
Brad

[gabe]

I remember seeing a story about a Southern Pacific runaway in California. I wish I could be more specific, but a heavy unit train was coming down a very long straight hill, lost it, and then predictably derailed when it hit the curve at the end of the hill. To make matters worse, the clean up effort punctured a major gasoline line and caused an incredible inferno in the residential neighborhood about a week later.

Anyway, there were three units on the front end and, pursuant to SP's practices, the two pushers who helped the train up the hill stayed with the train to allow their dynamic braking to help ease the train down the hill (unknown to the poor engineer, 3 of the 5 units did not have their dynamic braking functioning and every car in the unit train was 40% heavier than he was told it was).

My question: the entire train derailed including the two trailing units (the story goes the engineer in the last unit putting the train in emergency was the event that lost the train for good).

Were the two trailing units forced to ride the train down to its inevitable demise? Could they have uncoupled from the train and just come to a stop when it became clear it was hopeless for the rest of the train?

Gabe