I’m sorry to be bringer of bad news but Northern CA news provider KCBS reports 9 November 06:
“BAXTER, Calif. (KCBS) – The derailment of a maintenance train east of Sacramento has left one person dead and at least eight others injured.” <5 addl paragraphs>
http://kcbs.com/pages/123105.php?contentType=4&contentId=238660
Here some articles with photographs and video.
http://www.kcra.com/news/10283308/detail.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228460,00.html
http://www.modbee.com/24hour/nation/story/3414269p-12542882c.html
Ouch! - It would appear that the worktrain was travelling rather than working/grinding. That’s about $30 Million in a heap there and a lot of railroads won’t see a grinder for six months.
(My prayers are with the crew, …I have some history with that particular trainset about 14 years ago/ Mookie & Ed know the story… It used to be crewed by SPENO folks from Massena, NY)
MC- Curious. About how many grinders are in operation around the country?
Not to get off the topic of the whole crash but here is the picture of the engine, and I want to know if this is an old F40PH or a F45?
Probably neither–on another thread about this same accident, Mudchicken mentioned that this is a former Speno rail-grinding train, and Speno had some purpose-built GP38s that could have looked similar to this.
The body has a strong resemblence of either of those engines, that why I asked the question.
There was an engine on both ends of this train. I photograpghed this rail grinding train the day before the accident at Hafed, NV the first siding east of Sparks, NV on the UP’s “Overland Route”
Here our some photos:
First is the locomotive (power car?) that was on the west end of this rail grinding train. This was the unit that was leading the train over Donner on Thursday. This unit was built out of a GP 38-2 as I understand it.
This was the locomotive that was bringing up the rear of the ill-fated rail grinding train. It was built from a former Amtrak F40PH as I understand it.
Jimmy B