Has anyone ever heard of this happening before?
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-amtrak26-2008aug26,0,3288219.story
The first reports of such things are sometimes not greatly accurate. It should be interesting to rear the rest of the story.
This reminds me of the time there was a newsflash that read “passenger falls from balcony on cruise ship Norwegian Majesty” I immediately thought “um… there are no balconys on the Majesty.” turns out a kid was sliding down the bansiters and fell down a stairwell.
Stuff happens. No big deal.
Rich
They have smaller fuel tanks as compared to a regular road diesel, so if anything happens out of the ordinary (the other engine on the train dies, they miss a fuel stop, they don’t get full fueled, then they are in jeopardy of running out of fuel.
Dave H.
Well, if there’s a mode of transportation that can survive fuel exhaustion in a non-catastrophic manner its a train. Better Amtrak than American Airlines borked their fuel situation on a given run.
Absolutely Nittany, reminds me of “The Gimli Glider”…For those who’ve not heard of it an Air Canada 767 that ran out of gas at 40,000ft…It’s a great story with a happy ending.
Gimli Glider was exactly what I was thinking of too. Legend holds that the Air Canada mechanics sent out to get the aircraft airworthy again ran out of gas, too, on their way to the strip at Gimli.
Seen that happen before. I rode by BNSF’s Tennessee Yards one day looked up at the bridge and saw the hump job SD40-2, TEBUC6, and another SD40-2 hooked up to 2 Dash 9’s! I called my friend who works at BNSF and said the hump job ran out of fuel and the Dash 9’s had to push them back to the fuel racks. So it might happen more than folks think.
Ran out in trucking on the one tank, cracked the other tank’s fuel line in against company orders and got the rig home. The next day the engine failed due to gel from desiel settle out ruining the fuel filters. If you got two tanks on that truck, USE em. (One was strictly for ballast on a crazy long wheelbase transtar 9800) and this was in cement service out of Little Rock.
If that wasnt enough, the tranny and rear end tore out after wearing through later that month. The last gasp was when the rivets failed allowing the cab interior floor to fall through onto the frame below exposing the interstate at 70 mph. THAT isnt a surviveable scenario they teach you in trucking school. Im still here because mentally I had to invent what the procedure was to stay alive and get the dutchman stopped.
Fuel? No problem. Just get more.
Now, if we cannot get more at any price, we have problem then yah?
Oops!
Maybe amtrak should take a page from the Burlington Northern and have fuel tenders for some of it’s locos. (probably fit a decent sized tank in a retired passenger car or a retired F40PH)
Was just gonna write the same thing!