Casselton Oil Train Wreck

[tree68]

I'm sure the crew of the derailed train was trying to figure out what was going on, not realizing they had a car now fouling the other track.  

As noted, cabs are a lot quieter than they used to be.  The chief indication of the emergency application would have been the brake line guage and the PCS indicator coming on.  

Even if they had declared an emergency the second the air started to drop, the end result was writ in stone.  The key train was going to hit that derailed car.

From what I could see in the video, only one car fouled the other track.  Had the car gone the other way, this incident would have been written off as a close call.

[sandiego]

Exhaust from brake valve is no longer vented into cab; there are pipes from the brake valves (both the regular engineer's valve and the emergency brake valve on the conductor's side) to the area under the cab floor where the air brake equipment sits.

On the newer locomotives with electronic air brakes I'm not sure if the air is even vented through the engineer's brake valve or is instead vented by a magnet valve under the cab (controlled by air brake computer). There is little noise in the cab in any case as I recall. It's been 12 years since I was running so some of the active engineers out there would have better information.

Kurt Hayek

 

[Euclid]

The exhaust from an emergency application is very short because every car opens a hole to atmosphere in the brake pipe.  A service application vents just one opening in the brake pipe, and takes a lot more time. 

[BaltACD]

Euclid

Yet it seems to have taken 32 seconds before the grain train crew announced that they had gone into emergency.

The bigger part of that 'delay' is waiting for the emergency brake application to finish exhausting.  Brake air exhaust, especially from an emergency application, is loud - so loud that it will interfere with the intelligibility of a person speaking over the radio.  Remember the entire pressure of the trainline gets exhausted to atmosphere with an emergency application - that is a lot of air.

If you have an air tank at home that you use in maintaing your vehicles and have a 'blow nozzle' attachment - see how long it takes to 'vent' the tank to atmosphere - raise the sound and the volume of air several orders of magnitude and you begin to approach the volume and sound of the air being vented at the locomotive.

[Euclid]

That is quite a dramatic video with a lot of added information about the sequence of events as well as the actual audio.  I find it quite interesting how events unfolded as the oil train was approaching the grain train after it was known that the grain train had experienced an undesired emergency application of brakes. 

Apparently the grain train was blowing snow which obscured any visual indication of a dragging car to both its conductor and the crew of the oil train.  But it seems that with this impending meet, a UDE would have been of great concern.  Yet it seems to have taken 32 seconds before the grain train crew announced that they had gone into emergency. 

[Mookie]

Watched it twice.  The grain train never so much as jiggles at the derailment.  Looks like the only indication is the speed going down.  Then the thrill of the inevitable hitting of the grain car.  

I don't know how injuries are avoided in something that heavy doing a flop like that!

[Euclid]

Video is in this link, but this may be older information:

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/casselton_nd.aspx

 

The final report was just released, but there is also prexisting reports in searches.  Here may be a better video link:

http://www.inforum.com/news/4213406-watch-feds-release-video-trains-fiery-2013-crash-near-casselton

 

It shows the locomotive video from the grain train as it derails the grain car and goes into emergency with the oil train approaching and passing. Then it shows the locomotive video from the oil train as it encounters and collides with the grain car.  Also included is the verbal communications between crews, etc.