BRIGHTON, Ill. — Amtrak says at least nine people have been injured after one of its trains slammed into a tractor-trailer in southern Illinois. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari says a crew member and nine passengers on a train from Chicago to St. Louis were taken to hospitals with injuries not considered life-threatening. The medical status of the truck driver wasn’t immediately known. Magliari says the crash happened about 11:15 a.m. Monday near Brighton, about 40 miles northeast of St. Louis. Magliari says the tractor-trailer was obstructing the tracks. The collision apparently caused the locomotive and four of the cars to slip off the rails, though they remained upright and coupled. Magliari says a chartered bus was expected to transport the 30 other passengers. Pictures on Chicago news show the train upright but derailed.
Was the truck at a crossing? If not, then that makes it 10X worse…
On another thread, it was reported it was a “low-boy” flat bed trailer that high centered itself at a crossing and became stuck.
I saw that on news wire before and i wasnt sure if it was the same thing
When the RTG Turboliners were placed in service, it was on the Chicago-St Louis Line and later when the ROHR Turboliner swere being delivered to Amtrak, each got at least one shakedown trip on that route. The route was plagued with unprotected crossings that ran parallel to th track and then cut over at a right angle. I recall a new Turboliner hitting a trailer loaded with corn. It punched a massive hole through the fiber glass nose of the Power Car buit there was little other damage. A good bodyman repaired the nose and the train was back in service in a couple of days. An RTG hit a truck loaded with hot asphalt mix. The trailer bent around the power car and dumped its load in the vestibule. On another occasion a station- wagon carrying a softball team was hit, killing everyone. None of the collisions were from any cause other than inattentivness of the vehicle driver or racing to beat the train. As I recall, one engineman was so depressed by the frequent and unneccesary bloodshed that he quit.
Jerry Pier
Program & Engineering Mgr, Turboliner (1973-76)
What is your take on what is safe to place at the ends of trains?
It is tragic to have any loss of life, either on the train or in the vehicle in such collisions, but given the greater number of people on the train, it is prudent to give protection to the train passengers and train crew.
On one hand there have been a number of initiatives to improve train performance – reduced train weight, improved acceleration, better fuel economy – by doing away with the locomotive. The RDC, SPV-2000, and more recently the Flexliner and CRC DMU distribute diesel engines powering wheels throughout the consist. The United Aircraft TurboTrain and the Turboliners had power cars at the end of the consists. The TurboTrain had “dome seating”, an elevated seating section with reduced walkway headroom and a step up to reach the seats, but with “cab ride” like visibility to make these seats attractive to passengers – the engines were in bays underneath. The Turboliner as you are thoroughly familiar, had “power cars”, sort of half-locomotive, half revenue seating “combines” at the ends of the trains.
On the other hand, there is the somewhat “standard Amtrak corridor consist” of a P42 Diesel at one end, a ballasted de-engined F40P cab car at the other end for bi-directional operation, and four or five Horizon cars in between. Back when they were running the Cascades Talgo, and if they ever get that thing repaired and running again, they had an F59PHI locomotive at one end, an F40P cab car at the other end, and 12 of those short, lighweight Talgo cars in between.
There seems to be this notion from FRA, Amtrak, or someone that they need a “battering ram” at each end of the consist. I read somewhere that the FRA waiver to operate the lightweight Talgo in the Northwest is contingent upon having a full-weight locomotive or a non-revenue cab car ballasted to locomotive weight at
The Rennsalaer maintenance facility was built specifically for the Turboliners as was the Brighton Park shop in Illinois. They worked out very well with fast turn-arounds routine. The third rail pick-up system was borrowed from the UAC Turbo and worked quite well with some improvements. Failure of the dielectric shield could blow a 6" diameter hole in the truck sideframe but this was in a low stress area so, after the trains were out of warrantee,. no one worried about it. The trains survived some damaging head-on collisions with freight trains violating signals. To the best of my knowledge, no serious injuries were incurred (the enginemen ran back to the far end of the power section) but in one case the Power Car nose was wiped out back to the windshield. The shop carried an inventory of fiberglass noses and were skilled at replacing the structural steel so the unit was back in service in a matter of days. The nose was considered sacrificial; there was a heavy steel barrier right below the windsheld to protect the crew.
The concept of an F59 and an equivalent weight cab car on the Talgo Trains seems hazardous to me. Locomotives do not have enough friction brake to brake themselves at the same rate as the train, relying on the coaches to make the rate. In a collision the cars will be squeezed between thse too slugs of weight which is not a pleasant thought. I would pick a seat in the middle of the train facing backwards.
Jerry