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Casselton Oil Train Wreck

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Posted by Deggesty on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:07 PM

BaltACD

Euclid is the personification of principle of physics he disavows.

He is given a full service brake application and still keeps on.

He is given a Emergency brake application and still keeps on.

Like anything else - he will stop when all inertia is depleated.

 

--or until he has flayed the horse.

Johnny

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Posted by challenger3980 on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:10 PM

Deggesty

 

 
BaltACD

Euclid is the personification of principle of physics he disavows.

He is given a full service brake application and still keeps on.

He is given a Emergency brake application and still keeps on.

Like anything else - he will stop when all inertia is depleated.

 

 

 

--or until he has flayed the horse.

 

 

At least the HORSE, no longer feels the Flaying, unfortunately the forum is not so Blessed.

Doug

 

May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails

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Posted by jeffhergert on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:13 PM

Our rule and procedure are pretty close to the BNSF instructions.  (For relief of inspection, our speed requirement is now 20MPH.  Also for us, and I would think them, Key trains always require an inspection after a UDE.)  I would say the fusee requirement is meant for situations where the train in emergency has radio problems.  Once the adjacent track has been protected via radio, either by the dispatcher contacting distant trains or the crew contacting closely approaching trains, the fusees aren't really necessary.  (If you feel the need to use a fusee to signal a closely approaching train, you might want to use it to give a stop signal.  Not just place it on the ground.  Unless a train is already at restricted speed, there is no requirement to stop SHORT OF an unexpected unattended burning fusee.)

I've been on both sides of this situation.  If an approaching train is within sight, it is the first concern and contacted by radio.  If nothing is in sight, then the general broadcast and toning up the dispatcher is done.  The dispatcher contacts nearby trains and notifies them of who is in emergency and to talk to them before passing them.

I once had a student engineer who was running the train.  A train coming at us about a mile or so away tells us they just lost their air.  I tell the student to slow us down in case we need to stop.  Because dynamic braking is stressed because of fuel conservation, he starts to throttle down to go into dynamics.  I told him to get some air under the train now.  That in this situation you don't have time to get into dynamics.

Jeff 

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Posted by Deggesty on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:13 PM

challenger3980

 

 
Deggesty

 

 
BaltACD

Euclid is the personification of principle of physics he disavows.

He is given a full service brake application and still keeps on.

He is given a Emergency brake application and still keeps on.

Like anything else - he will stop when all inertia is depleated.

 

 

 

--or until he has flayed the horse.

 

 

 

 

At least the HORSE, no longer feels the Flaying, unfortunately the forum is not so Blessed.

Doug

 

 

Smile, Wink & GrinThumbs Up

Johnny

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Posted by Euclid on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:21 PM

tree68
 
Euclid
and the engineer of the oil train failing to slow to restricted speed until seeing the obstruction and dumping the air.  

 

Stop - you're killing me here.  

The laws of physics have not been suspended.  

The fact that you have absolutely no clue as to the dynamics of train handling is glaringly obvious.  

Perhaps you should stop now, before you further embarrass yourself.

 

 

The engineer did nothing in reaction to the warning.  In the interview, he said he made the emergency application when he first saw the fouling car.  That was 18 seconds after the warning.  If he was required to run at restricted speed, he should have started slowing immediately.  He was running way faster than the sight distance allowed for restricted speed.  Heading into blinding snow; receiving a warning that required immediately running at a speed that allowed time to stop short of obstructions—these factors required slowing down as quickly as possible.  He should have dumped the air as soon as he heard the warning.  Why do you think these facts require suspending the laws of physics?  If you keep it up, you are liable to lose all your humility.       

 

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:24 PM

Euclid
He should have dumped the air as soon as he heard the warning. Why do you think these facts require suspending the laws of physics? If you keep it up, you are liable to lose all your humility.

 

That's not how you reduce your speed to restricted following safe train handling procedures, now is it?

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by edblysard on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:24 PM
I wonder with that much snow on the ground, and the grain train moving, how accurate could the conductor toss a fusee into/onto the adjacent track, and even if he managed to hit the middle of the track, could the oil train have seen it, and had time to react?

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:25 PM

Euclid
Why do you think these facts require suspending the laws of physics?

It's not the facts - it's your conclusions of how things should have been...

LarryWhistling
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Posted by challenger3980 on Sunday, February 19, 2017 7:29 PM

Please review rules 1,2,3,and 4 posted above Smile, Wink & Grin

Doug

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Posted by Euclid on Sunday, February 19, 2017 8:39 PM

zugmann
 
Euclid
He should have dumped the air as soon as he heard the warning.

 

 

That's not how you reduce your speed to restricted following safe train handling procedures, now is it?

Well, it would not be good train handling if you could slow to restricted speed without going into emergency.  But the point of restricted speed is to be able to stop short of possible obstructions.  The oil train is moving at track speed and gets a warning that he needs to be at restricted speed by the time he begins passing the disabled train.
 
If a service application will not slow the oil train to restricted speed in time, what do you do?  The consequences of not heeding the warning quickly enough are obviously dire as shown by the collision with the fouling car.  The oil train may not have been able to get to restricted speed even if he had dumped the air at the moment of the warning.  But why wait? 

Under this circumstance, it seems to me that safe train handling would have called for an emergency application to cut speed as quickly as possible.   The risk of the emergency application causing a derailment or other problem would be less than the risk of heading into a blind spot that is known to contain a problem which might be fouling equipment. 

The rule calls for immediate action to prevent this type of collision.  When the UDE indicated the possibility of a fouling car, there was a total of 59 seconds available to stop short of that car.  A delay in reacting used up 49 of the 59 seconds available. 

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, February 19, 2017 9:10 PM

Euclid
Well, it would not be good train handling if you could slow to restricted speed without going into emergency.

 

My God you are all over the map in that explanation.   Pretty apparent you have no experince as an engineer.  So stop pretending you know what's best.  It's downright pathetic.  

 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, February 19, 2017 9:11 PM

Let's see - a train doing 28 MPH at the time of the UDE, and dragging a derailed car, takes 35 seconds to stop.  The derailed car was 45 deep (~2250 feet).

How long will it take a 102 car loaded train doing 43 MPH, with nothing dragging, to stop?

That collision was going to occur.  Period.

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
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Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

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Posted by Euclid on Sunday, February 19, 2017 9:34 PM

tree68

Let's see - a train doing 28 MPH at the time of the UDE, and dragging a derailed car, takes 35 seconds to stop.  The derailed car was 45 deep (~2250 feet).

How long will it take a 102 car loaded train doing 43 MPH, with nothing dragging, to stop?

That collision was going to occur.  Period.

 

I don't know if 59 seconds was enough to stop the oil trail or not.  Do you?  I do know that it would have slowed down a lot more in 59 seconds than in the 10 seconds it utilized. 

Just because you believe the collision is going to occur, it does not relieve you from the rule to take immediate action to slow down as much as possible.  

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, February 19, 2017 9:45 PM

Euclid
Just because you believe the collision is going to occur, it does not relieve you from the rule to take immediate action to slow down as much as possible.

Do we really have a non-engineer lecturing engineers how to run their trains?  

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Euclid on Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:05 PM

zugmann
 
Euclid
Just because you believe the collision is going to occur, it does not relieve you from the rule to take immediate action to slow down as much as possible.

 

Do we really have a non-engineer lecturing engineers how to run their trains?  

 

No I don't care how you run your train.  But if you have some pressing issue with what I am saying, I will be glad to respond.  It's not a lecture.  It's not even an insult.

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:07 PM

Euclid
No I don't care how you run your train. But if you have some pressing issue with what I am saying, I will be glad to respond. It's not a lecture.

Sure sounds like a lecture.

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:10 PM

Euclid
zugmann
Euclid

Do we really have a non-engineer lecturing engineers how to run their trains? 

No I don't care how you run your train.  But if you have some pressing issue with what I am saying, I will be glad to respond.  It's not a lecture.

Run that keyboard!  It is the only thing you can run, qualified or not.

 

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Euclid on Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:12 PM

Well I can't help that.  You ask me a question, I answer it with no disrespect, and then you fly off the handle and say I am lecturing you. 

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:16 PM

Euclid

Well I can't help that.  You ask me a question, I answer it with no disrespect, and then you fly off the handle and say I am lecturing you. 

 

You think that was flying off the handle?  Whatever you say, Senpai.

 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Euclid on Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:21 PM

zugmann
 You think that was flying off the handle?  Whatever you say, Senpai.

Well actually I have seen worse flying off the handle now that you mention it.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:29 PM

    I've read on these very forums that if you were to suddenly throw a loaded train into an emergency stop situation that you run the risk of derailing the train, making a big mess, and perhaps getting someone killed. Now beuclid wants the engineer to dump the air on a loaded, volatile oil train because the engineer was made away that a grain train had done so. It sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:50 PM

Oil train (Nominally 100 cars +/-) = 14400 tons moving a reported 42 MPH

Kinetic energy is directly proportional to the mass of the object and to the square of its velocity: K.E. = 1/2 m v2. If the mass has units of kilograms and the velocity of meters per second, the kinetic energy has units of kilograms-meters squared per second squared.

Brake it to Zero in a controlled manner so as not to derail your train.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Electroliner 1935 on Monday, February 20, 2017 12:00 AM

I may be  sorry I am adding to this thread but I am reminded of the movie "SULLEY" and the questioning of whether he had time to divert to an other airport rather than land in the Hudson River. Decision making includes the time to react to an event. It's why the magician can drop the dollar bill through your fingers before you can squeeze them and catch the bill. Some reactions can be automatic but unexpected events take a few secconds. 

Euclid. As has been asked before, could you provide some background on your comtinuing this discussion of the timing of the Casselton Oil Train Wreck? Are you suggesting failures by the engineers to follow the rules in a timely manor. That they were complicet and could have prevented the collision if they had only followed the rules. Or are you just nit picking and having your idea of fun with the other posters. I await your answer, sir.

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Posted by edblysard on Monday, February 20, 2017 1:37 AM

Electroliner 1935

I may be  sorry I am adding to this thread but I am reminded of the movie "SULLEY" and the questioning of whether he had time to divert to an other airport rather than land in the Hudson River. Decision making includes the time to react to an event. It's why the magician can drop the dollar bill through your fingers before you can squeeze them and catch the bill. Some reactions can be automatic but unexpected events take a few secconds. 

Euclid. As has been asked before, could you provide some background on your comtinuing this discussion of the timing of the Casselton Oil Train Wreck? Are you suggesting failures by the engineers to follow the rules in a timely manor. That they were complicet and could have prevented the collision if they had only followed the rules. Or are you just nit picking and having your idea of fun with the other posters. I await your answer, sir.

 

Good luck with that....Wink

23/17/46/11

 

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Posted by Norm48327 on Monday, February 20, 2017 4:53 AM

Been down this path with Bucky too many times before to get involved in this one. However, I think he should add a signature line that says

"Disclaimer: These posts are the [unqualified] opinion of the author and are for entertainment purposes only".

Norm


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Posted by tree68 on Monday, February 20, 2017 7:19 AM

Euclid
No I don't care how you run your train.

But you should care how he runs his train.  Because he's here to tell you how things are, not how you think they should be.

And that's pretty much been the point - someone who knows tells you how things really are, and you come back with a "yes, but..."

LarryWhistling
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Posted by Randy Stahl on Monday, February 20, 2017 7:49 AM

I don't have to run trains anymore. Too easy to get killed....

 

I've had enough misadventures.

 

Randy

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Posted by edblysard on Monday, February 20, 2017 7:58 AM
PSA time!
 
I’m not really a freight train conductor, I just play on one TV…but I want to join with all the other TV train conductors in telling you it’s time to get your annual BS meter check up.
It’s quick, easy and covered by most health care plans…..so there is no excuse not get it checked!

 

Time for a conductors pose with Alan Alda…foot on lower footboard, hold radio out like Captain Morgan holds a bottle of rum…

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Posted by zugmann on Monday, February 20, 2017 9:06 AM

tree68
But you should care how he runs his train. Because he's here to tell you how things are, not how you think they should be.

That's ok.  I really don't care if he cares how I run my train, either.  I'll run it to the best of my abilities while following all safety rules, regualtions, orders, etc.  This site is the last thing on my mind when I'm doing real RR work.   I post here when I'm bored at home. 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Shadow the Cats owner on Monday, February 20, 2017 9:24 AM

I know I work in the wrong industry and do not even drive the trucks.  However I asked several of my drivers all with 20+ years of hauling some of the nastiest stuff that is pulled all over the USA how fast they can stop in an emergency.  They all answered me with 2 questions do you want the truck upright or on its side with the load all over the freaking place.  In what happened in Casseleton regardless of whatever that crew did whenever they applied the brakes on that oil train the second they saw the grain car was fouling their tracks they were coming off the tracks plain and simple.  It is simple physics you had a 125 ton derail on the mainline and regradless of what you did nothing short of a transporter from Star Trek was going to stop it from crashing. 

 

You can argur what the crew did wrong until the cows come home not one thing is going to change that fact that regardless of what they did that CBR train was going to be derailed.  The momentum of the train and the facts are nothing was going to stop it.  This was that one accident that even PTC could NOT have prevented from all indincations the way it looks like.  Just think about that the ultimate safety system would not have prevented this one on the mainline in ND from happening.  So quit arguing that this crew was wrong on this rule or that rule.  Yes mistakes where made all around.  Just be glad it was not a train carrying a tanker full of Chorline Gas that derailed and went up in Downtown Chicago.  Yes it was a bad accident however it was not as bad as it could have been. 

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