"Earth Fault" on CSX

[Glorious NSE]

[squeaky]

That really is a bad day at the office and being in the right place at the right time!

 

When did this happen?edit I see December 2008

[steve1]

Someone needs to check their back-to-backs! Out with the NMRA gauge...

 

steve

[Guest Max Stafford]

Oh b*gger, that looked expensive!

I imagine the first anybody knew it had gone pear-shaped was when they had a power cut in the yard office...!

 

Dave.

[Kris]

Very much a slow motion derailment that one.

[melmerby]

A lot of damage for a slow speed derailment.

 

Aren't the couplings on British stock designed to hold the consist together to prevent such a thing happening?

 

Keith

[APOLLO]

Happens most operating sessions on my O scale railroad. Same, locos go thru, cars derail mid train (usually in a tunnel !!)

 

2 mins work to rerail em and get them rolling. Pesky bits that fall off put in a "bits" gondola & glue em back later !! The bits gon is getting full .

 

Good job the photographers weren't trackside on the far side !!

 

Probably been posted before, this is also a cracker

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azV5bC2br-Q

 

Brit15

[Guest Max Stafford]

Phew! Nature - one, Man - nil!

 

Dave.

[Glorious NSE]

Yes really spectacular that one, and that tank car bouncing towards you is just too scary for words....

[GreenDiesel001]

Sorry, I don't see the problem?

 

Big hand comes over, rerails the stock, checks the track and we go merrily on our way.

 

It happens all the time on my layout

 

Jeff

[Welly]

A bit of Google mapping found the location of that derailment, that turnout looks sharp!

 

Derailment location

[Oldddudders]

Am I the only one who finds the presence of railfans, with a video unusually following vehicles though a turnout, rather than the locos heading away, slightly suspicious?

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Am I the only one who finds the presence of railfans, with a video unusually following vehicles though a turnout, rather than the locos heading away, slightly suspicious?

 

But it's one of the crew who throws the switch and none of the photographers seem to get close to the track. Though there is an edit in the footage between when the guy gets into the cab and the train moves.

 

Looks pretty kosher to me though.

[Welly]

^^^

Unlikely that the turnout was sabotaged during the video edit because they would have had to do it in full view of the traincrew!

[ian_redrooster]

About 4 years ago I was in Fond-du-lac (WI) when a long manifest on the mainline was cutting cars at the south end of the yard (to the rear of the control tower) when a gas tank derailed its leading truck. Back and forth it went several times unknown to the switchman who was about 30 cars to the north and to the driver who was out of sight around the corner. As it got nearer and nearer to the crossing I thought screw this, and ran across the yard to another switcher crew. The crew looked a little bewildered as I ran towards them holding both hands above my head shouting derail! They eventually stopped the movement by radio and with the tank car only about 1 car length from riding up onto the grade crossing and splittng the coupling.

 

Moments later the 'chargeman' was out of the tower and down at the trackside where we explained what we had seen. He was clearly grateful for our intervention.

Sadly our mini-van was parked the other side of the crossing, now blocked by the derail. We explained this to him and asked permission to climb over the end of another tank car to get our vehicle. He declined - on the grounds of health & safety! FFS we'd just stopped a derail from potentially becoming a more serious incident and we were now stuck. We finally managed to persuade another motorist to drive Steve round to the otherside (about 3 mile drive!) to collect our van and off we went. A couple of CN baseball caps is all we got for our trouble. If it had still been WC owned I'm sure another they'd have been more accomodating!

[Glorious NSE]

Am I the only one who finds the presence of railfans, with a video unusually following vehicles though a turnout, rather than the locos heading away, slightly suspicious?

 

I must admit that was my first thought, but on a re-watch (and before I posted it here!) I changed my mind, the derailment doesn't happen at the turnout blades, as far as I can tell the camera is following cars through the turnout blade area and they are all on the track at that point, the derailment happens either at the frog end of the turnout or just after (the fans interpretation in the comments to it is that it was the rail *after* the frog that turned over) - and it does so after some of the vehicles including the two loco's go through successfully - I think it's just one of those things.

[Oldddudders]

I must admit that was my first thought, but on a re-watch (and before I posted it here!) I changed my mind, the derailment doesn't happen at the turnout blades, as far as I can tell the camera is following cars through the turnout blade area and they are all on the track at that point, the derailment happens either at the frog end of the turnout or just after (the fans interpretation in the comments to it is that it was the rail *after* the frog that turned over) - and it does so after some of the vehicles including the two loco's go through successfully - I think it's just one of those things.

Fair enough - the vid makes it clear that the fans thought it was the frog end where the trouble started, and it is hard to see that the locos would not have swept out any foreign bodies in the frog. The frog would not necessarily have been visible to the crewman pulling the switch. Just my nasty mind!

[EddieB]

Fair enough - the vid makes it clear that the fans thought it was the frog end where the trouble started, and it is hard to see that the locos would not have swept out any foreign bodies in the frog. The frog would not necessarily have been visible to the crewman pulling the switch. Just my nasty mind!

 

Despite the reaction of the railfans, my suspicion rests with the point, er, switch blades (where's Nicky Cruz?) since that lever looked like it didn't want to stay down. Can we be sure that the blades didn't move under the train and cause the derailment?

 

No such thing as a facing point lock in those parts?

[Oldddudders]

Despite the reaction of the railfans, my suspicion rests with the point, er, switch blades (where's Nicky Cruz?) since that lever looked like it didn't want to stay down. Can we be sure that the blades didn't move under the train and cause the derailment?

 

No such thing as a facing point lock in those parts?

I think even in the UK FPLs are only required for the operation of passenger trains, although others may know better. The existence of handpoints often means no FPLs. If you want to run a passenger train over handpoints in the UK, they have to be clipped and scotched first.

[PhilH]

I did notice that the guy who changed the points glanced at the blades to make sure that they were over properly - all you can really do with hand points.

[BR60103]

The handthrow design usually has a latch in both positions, something like a gate latch but released by the foot. (and heavier) But that latch is the only thing that keeps the handle from bouncing up and down.

On the higher switchstands, the handle is latched by a quadrant plate; to operate the handle is lifted clear and moved to the other end and dropped in place. Switches that are accesible to the public or not used often will have a padlock. (Probably all should, but I suspect that busy yards with lots of crew don't).

[dave1905]

Plus the switchstand is on the far side of the tracks from the railfans. In order to throw the switch under the train the railfans would have had to crossover the moving train, throw the switch, then cross back over the now derailing train to get to their original photo position.

 

Don't think so.

 

Cause is most likely either mechanical (car) or track related. We can't determine for sure since we don't know where the cars started to derail or can't see the first cars off well enough to determine their condition.

[Glorious NSE]

It also went fairly comprehensively to the right of it's route on derailment, I would have expected it to head to the left if it had split the points.

[The Stationmaster]

It also went fairly comprehensively to the right of it's route on derailment, I would have expected it to head to the left if it had split the points.

 

That tends to be the case! It looks at one point as if a wheel is lifting slightly on the wagon which seems to have been at the heart of the derailment and I do wonder if it had hit the crossing nose and ridden up - which would most likely result in it going over to the right in that situation. But unless someone has access to CSX paperwork we'll never know what they concluded as the cause (if they did conclude it).

 

 

[F-UnitMad]

Aren't the couplings on British stock designed to hold the consist together to prevent such a thing happening?

No one else seems to have taken up this question, so I'll have a go, though I know precious little about UK railways these days...

You may be thinking of some of the automatic couplings used on passenger units (Pendolinos, Voyagers etc) ?

In the case of a passenger train, keeping the coaches upright in an accident is a priority I suppose, for obvious reasons. I doubt that there's any coupling out there that can do this in every conceivable situation, though.

However I'd have thought these covered hoppers are a lot heavier than any UK DMU, especially loaded, as these appear to be, and if some are going to fall over the last thing you want is a coupling that doesn't part at all - it's clear in the CSX video clip that some cars were pulled over by the car next to them.

One thing I am surprised at is that breaking the brake hoses doesn't seem to activate the brakes on the cars behind the derailment in both clips - the rest of the train just keeps coming under it's own momentum. On a road HGV truck, breaking the airlines puts the trailer brakes on - sharpish!!

 

Anyway, that's one way to get a good view of what the weathering looks like on the underside of a Hopper!!! :D