L.A. RUNAWAY !

[Anonymous]

What amazed me was the distance the cars traveled
and the probable cause. I have read about runaway engines,does this happen with freight cars alot ?
Anyone with experiences on runaways ?

[edblysard]

Hi Scott,
Here is what we were told the next day, from one of our trainmasters, so it is suspect.
Crew drags into the yard, cuts away from their train, fails to secure the cut with handbrakes, car men bleed off the air brakes, in preperation for the switch crews to go to it, and then they just started to roll.
You could stop ten to fifteen cars that were rolling slowly, if you got to them quickly enough, but once they got moving over ten mph, your smooth out of luck.
A series of mistakes, each one compounding the other, and there she goes.
If the crew yarding the train had followed the GCOR, you wouldn't have ever read a thing.
And the grade dosnt need to be great, less than 1/2%, the cars can really roll that easy, if you know how, you can use a two by four to lever them along a level track.
What gets me is that UP didnt send the cops to clear out the folks near the sideing, unless there wasnt time, and this did seem like a last ditch, last minute effort to get them stopped.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[wabash1]

cars will take off all by themselves. in california its either up hill or down hill. not rolling hills. these cars just did what they was designed to do. they was bleed off and left standing probley without hand brakes applyed. and a loaded car will gain speed quickly.but what they wont do is slow down. yes cars take off on regular basis. people messing with cars get them rolling. this is why there is derails at all indusrty and spurs where cars a set out if they get rolling the fartherest they will go is on the ground.

[Anonymous]

Them cars didn't go 40 miles without a engine pulling them. The remote control failed

[vsmith]

Q: dont crews have two way radios to let each other know what the other is doing? seems this might not have happened if the two responsible for setting the brakes were talking to each other. The news reports said that each thought the other had set the brakes when niether did.

FYI: those cars covers about 30 miles in as many minutes. It appears that things were happening so fast the dispatchers couldnt cope with it. The latest word coming out of the UP mouthpiece's is that the dispatchers thought the runaway was traveling slower(!) than they thought and that it wouldnt derail when it was switched to the siding. I live in LA and I can tell you I can't drive from Commerce to Montclair in thirty minutes unless I'm doing 60-70 mph, this also contradicts what they were saying the day of the accident when UP reps said that, yes, the train was "deliberatly derailed", they didnt say anything about "switched to a siding and accidently derailed" until this week. UP is in serious trouble with the local communities here. The feeling on the street is that they would rather wipe out a poor neighborhood than damage thier precious yard. I'm just glade no one was killed, UP would really be hung out to dry then.

[dknelson]

The story as I read it was that the UP expected the cars to make it through that neighborhood fine even at their high speed and intended to intentionally derail them -- no casual thing to do with that weight and that speed -- a bit further up the line. Someone made a professional informed judgment and they were wrong. This happens every day but usually it is nothing that can be photographed or shown on TV.
I am sure wiping out people's houses was the last thing the UP intended. But they have to accept responsibility as it was their crew that erred no matter what the error.
Dave Nelson

[wabash1]

to many people jump to conclusions when they dont have the facts. all the reports that news people get i dont pay any attention to. those people are only guessing at what might have happened and drag it out to make it seem worse than what it is.until i get the real story its just a cut of cars that rolled down the tracks and made somebody upset.the railroad has the best saftey record in america out of all transpotation groups.

[Soo2610]

Ed, That is the same explanation that my son tells me the BNSF gave them in Spokane.

[edblysard]

Well then, with confimation from there, it would seem like thats the most probal cause. When you work in a yard all the time, the one thing you never do is leave a cut of cars unattended, no matter what, if your going to go somewhere else, even just to the other side of the yard for another cut, you tie down what you were working on, for just that reason.
I would bet the car man started on the down hill end, and worked towards the front, thinking the road crew had tied brakes on the end they were at, and when he bled enough brakes off, there they went, and not a thing anyone could do about it.
I wouldnt want to be in anyone of the road crews shoes right about now. Or the carman who bled them off, either.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[edblysard]

WE DONT CARE WHAT YOU THINK!
ED

[edblysard]

Hi Smith,
Playing devils addvocate here, but, if I was the dispatcher, and remember, they are looking at a screen with indicator lights, not a real time video monitor, and it showed this cut going like blazes towards a yard, where I know there are a bunch of LPG tankcars, or chlorine tanks, or , well, pick your posion. Choices become real limited at that point, run it into a stub ended sideing, where you know it will stop, or let it get to a yard or diamond, or into a more heavly populated area?
Now that said, I agree in part, that someone should have tied brakes on the downhill end. But, I wasnt there, so all of this is really supposition. But heres my educated guess.
Either it was a two man crew, engineer and conductor, and they knew their train was in the clear in the track they drug into, so they cut away, and tied a few brakes on the uphill side, and left, and didnt inform the carmen or yardmaster that they put the brakes on the uphill side, or it was a three man crew, again, they knew they were in the clear, and didnt want to drop off the brakeman on the way, to tie brakes on the downhill side, but instead, wanted to keep him up front, because it saved time. Either way, the rules say you should tie sufficent handbrakes on the down hill side to prevent movement. It even goes on to explain that, if needed, you can chock the wheels to prevent movement, and explains what you can use to do that.
So someone screwed the pooch, real badly.
In some of the larger yards, and on some really steep down hill grades, railroads use to have runaway tracks for just that reason, they were one ended sideings, with big mounds of dirt at the stub end, or just empty land, designed to allow a runaway to be diverted to this sideing and allowed to derail to keep it from going further down the line.
Either way, you can bet there is a crew out of service, and a lot of people at UP in hot water from the brass.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[Mookie]

ok, now we have something to work with. A short two sentences.

Actually the cars were supposed to have gone 70 mph in some spots and I looked at the pixs very carefully and didn't find an engine. So what do you base your remote control theory on?

Jen

[Anonymous]

The UP is negligent, if the yard was at the top of an over 30 mile downhill grade, there should have been a derail protecting the mainline from runaways.

The crew was wrong for not putting on handbrakes. But that isn't the only possible way a runaway can occur. I have seen the wedge that holds the drawbar in the car fall out allowing the coupler to fall on the ground. If this happened during a shove with no air there would be no way to even try to catch the cars.

Allowances for emergency circumstances must be built into a yard and the UP didn't do that.

[wabash1]

Even if they was on a remote control engine the engine goes into emergency when it loses a signal from the pack. the train wont go over 18mph pre-set on our packs. there is so many failsafes built into these engines this is why they dont get any work done as you haft to keep resetting these things to make them keep working.

[wabash1]

fisrt off you dont need derails to protect main line in yards . it dont matter if the yard is at the top of mr. everest. it is stupid to do that. as trains will come in and out the thing would never be on anyways. if the drawbar comes out that is mechanical failer and nothing you could do about it anyways.but depending on which end would fall out it would derail the cut anyways ans the drawbar would dig into the ballast and stop. but instead of giving my other opinion here aout emergency circumstance built into yards tell me what you would do. then we will either commend or say why it wont work. why am i doing it this way. cause what might be obvious to you we didnt think of. and if it would work fine if it wont we will exsplain why. i am interested in this one. truthfully

[Mookie]

another piece of my puzzle train. I didn't realize that.

Thanx Wabash!

Jen

[Mookie]

In addition to that - were the people at the crash site pre-warned that it was coming so they could get out of the way?

Jen

[vsmith]

No, no warning, no notification to police or fire. This is even after two police patrol officers at a grade crossing in Puente Hills radioed in that a train with no engines (i.e. a runaway) was moving at a high rate of speed toward LA. They could have diverted the string onto another connecting track in Santa Fe Springs but they didnt react fast enough. Had they it would still have derailed but it would have been next to a riverbed with no houses around. The story coming out now is that this was there last chance to get it off the mainline before it entered the yard and before it crossed a major freeway. They also said that they had to switch it at that moment as there was a propane train in the same yard and they were fearfull of a major disaster if they collided. This is all coming from UP spokepeople. Theres still going to be a lot more info as the circumstances are examined more. City of Commerce Fire and Police only found out about the runaway after the 911 calls started flooding in. Seams UP has no emergency contigiency plans of any sort for something like this, and that a lot of mis-communication via phone and radio occurred, again this is all from UP.

[Mookie]

Interesting, up to the last line. That seems very strange that UP wouldn't have some kind of a plan in place for this. Unless it was in place and ignored. But we may never know, altho if I know the forum people, we will hear a lot more.

Thanx

Jen

[edblysard]

Hi pfrench68
Derails at a yard lead or throat dont work, it s too busy there. Where I work, the yard throat is part of our switching lead, I drag out and shove back through it around 150 to 200 times a day, the derail would never be on. Besides, the other side of that would be what happens the first time someone forgets to take it off, say a foreign crew is yarding a train, and dosnt know its there? Now you have a set of locomotives on the ground blocking the entrance to your yard.
Never seen a drawbar wedge fall out, but sure it could, and have had a coupler fail on a shove, but had the crew tied sufficent brakes on the descending end, none of that would have mattered.
Bet UP does install a runaway track near this yard, thought.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[Mookie]

Ed - would they not have a plan in place and was it just oversight or miscommunication or is the UP really that "out-to-lunch"?

Jen

[edblysard]

Hi Jenny,
Add this into the mix. The dispatchers, for the most part, have no idea what or where the tracks really go, or whats around them,. They rarely, if ever, go out and ride the rails they control. The odds that the person who decided to run this cut into a sideing not knowing there were homes near there are pretty good.
Down here, most of Houston and the surrounding area is dispatched from the joint BNSF/UP center, in Spring Texas, just outside Houston. All of the dispatchers are required to take a familarizing ride with a crew at least once a year, so they can see what they are controling, and note any changes.
So now, when we ask the dispatcher for a pair of signals to run around our train at Air Products sideing, she has a mental picture of what we really are facing, a double ended sideing with old harp stand switches at each end, and one end on a sharp curve, so opposing traffic cant see us coming out of the other end of the sideing. So she now knows to hold any traffic at least two blocks away, because they couldnt see us until the last minute. Before, they would give us permission, but allow opposing traffic to creep up to the last signal, assuming we all had visual contact with each other. She knows better now, but before, it was just a big board with lights on it, no real sense of what it really represented.
But I agree, why didnt the dispatcher or someone in the control center call the cops? How much time did they have?
Why didnt someone from the yard call the cops, if they knew this cut was going to be going through crossings?
We have a emergency plan here, for just such a problem, and can contact not only the police and fire depts. but also all the industries near our tracks and sideings.
So Uncle Pete has a little explaining to do.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[Anonymous]

When you leave your yard is there a power switch? A power derail works the same way after the train leaves town the operator puts the derail back on the rail. If you are working the road you should be interested in this protection because instead of going on the ground in a siding next time, it may be into the front of your lead locomotive!

[Mookie]

Well, gee - that makes sense and look how simple it is. Don't even have to figure a grade or know what needle bearings are!

Thanx Ed

Jen

[edblysard]

Jen, pretty sure they do have a plan, but I wonder if things got out of hand so fast they didnt have time, or if they were so concentrated on the cut of cars they didnt even think about it. Down here, because a neighborhood grew up around our yard, the OEM(office of emergency management) equires us to have a evacutaion plan not only for the yard, but it requires us to have a way to warn the surrounding homes of a problem, say a cyanide car leaks, or a LPG tankcar catches on fire, we have a huge horn/siren that rattles the windows. During drills, we contact the local fire dept and police depts, there are 3, HPD, Galena Park PD, and Jacinto City. Remember, we are in the middle of a huge, 90 mile long complex of refineries and petrochemical plants, so the local TV stations are on our list, and the list of all the industries here, so if a problem does arise, we can call them, and they cut in on whatever they are brodcasting to inform the public.
Shelter in place is a term all the kids in Pasadena, Galena Park and Jacinto City learn from kindergarten on up, (close the doors and windows, turn off A/C, and keep tuned)
Bet this isnt the only time something got away from them at that yard, and bet the FRA will review their response policy, and their lack of response this time very carefully. Count on some heads rolling.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[Anonymous]

The derail I am referring to would be at the exit of the yard. If your yard is that busy then you probably have power switches. A split rail derail works just like a power switch. If you forget, you are fired anyway for exceeding your track authority.

[Mookie]

Ed - let's hope they roll into a safe siding -
Thanx for the info. I am so glad it isn't me down in the middle of all those refineries and plants. That's scary!

Jen

[vsmith]

Apparently the dispatcher office is in San Bernardino about 30 miles further east from where the runaway started and about 60 miles east of LA. The UP has stated they did not have an emergency plan because they didnt think something this serious could occur. The time line was about 25-30 minutes from start to finish, and they now say the cars were moving at over 80mph (YIKES!) when they hit the siding. Dispatchers only discovered the true speed of the cars about 2 minutes before the it would be at the siding and said they couldnt switch it back. They also said that there was a propane (or LPG train) in the yard and that they had to stop it then and there. This is all coming from quotes from the UP thru the local media.

[Anonymous]

Hi Ed,
According to media reports out here in California, (also suspect, except for the many miles trveled) the UP had well over 25 minutes to alert the authorities to several possible crash sights. As fast as the police are out here, that should have been plenty of time to evacuate the possible sites in case of a derailment. The local politicians are really fumming right now.

This isn't the first time California authorities were not warned by an industry experiencing a major calamity - until it was too late. It happens a lot in the petrochemical plants near where I live in the Bay Area. It raises a big stink here too. (no pun intended)

A few years back, an SP pota***rain got away from them in on Cahon Pass. Over an hour later, it went off the tracks at the bottom of the grade, straight into a sleeping neighborhood. No police ever got a warning call then either - lots of dead people.

One would think they could do better - go figure.

May all your poles be smooth -
- Old Pole Burner -

[edblysard]

Nope, no power switches, in fact, we just removed the last one, due in part, to switchmen activating it in a hurry, and lining it under cars.
I work in a 62 track terminal yard, fed by UP's Englewood yard and BNSF South yard, and 450 industries along the Houston Ship Channel. We have zero derails on our inbound and receiving tracks, only at the entrance to the round house do we have derails.
No need to have them because we are the lowest point around, almost at sea level, within 100 yards of the turning basin. Runaways would be coming to us, not from us.
We do insist that all crews from other railroads know and follow our rules, which includes secruing tracks per the GCOR. We do gripe to the supers of the crews who fail to follow this simple rule.
None of the yards here, Englewood, Settagast, East Yard, New South Yard, Old South Yard, Basin Yard, Booth Yard, Strang Yard and Spring have a derail located on the entrance to them.
I could see a yard on a steep grade, and most industries haveing derail protecting their plants, and yards, but why would we want to do that in a busy terminal yard?
Thats what the rules are for, if you follow them, no problem, if you dont, your fired.
The odds are in favor of a split rail or power derail tearing up a set of locomotives going about their business instead of stopping a runaway.
All that said, again, in a yard on a grade, who would drag a cut of cars in, and not put the brakes on the decending end?
Stay Frosty,
Ed