BNSF Wyoming Derailment - River Photo Heavy

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Derailment into a river – What a ride this train crew had!

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_e47af926-1021-5412-9d9c-c1560008fd03.html

There are plenty of news photos on the link result’s lower left.

2

“The train’s two-man crew was able to escape and swim to safety” [:O] As if simply running off the tracks wasn’t spooky enough.

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[EDIT - Fixed formatting - 10:05 AM Fri. 14 May 2010 - PDN]

“Honey, I’m home. You won’t believe what happened to me at work today . . . And you won’t even have to wash my clothes (or my underwear)”.

It’s about 34 photos total, and some of them are really good.

What’s different is that the radiator/ dynamic brakes portion of the rear end of the trailing unit broke off and tumbled down the embankment, landing against the underside of a covered hopper.

The lead unit in Warbonnet paint is clearly leaking black diesel fuel, and a blood-red fluid - probably coolant, or lube oil ?

  • Paul North.
4

Paul: You beat me to the questions I was going to ask.

1. Is the red fluid coolant (maybe glycol?)

2. Why did the dynamic brakes radiator metal work become detached?. Am wondering if the first covered hopper car (grain?) went up and over the anti-climbers and sheared the section off ? Any diesel mechanic know if the broken off section is at a joining/construction mating point?

3. How did someone who came upon the wreck get such good photos?

4. What happened to the “rock”?

5

I thought they dyed off road diesel fuel red.

6

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I’d put my money on the red fluid being diesel, and the black fluid being lube oil.

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Easy to go over the anticlimber when the unit is on its side. I would expect that the car nose down into the river is the guilty party.

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Probably the highway patrolman who saw the wreck happen. Patrol cars usually carry cameras to aid in collecting evidence.

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GOOD question. I’d like to see a photo taken from the side where the lead unit hit it.

Chuck

7

All Off Road Diesel Fuel is DYED red so the Goverment knows if your trying to avoid paying any Fuel taxes on it. So that would be the Red Fluid leak. Black fluid from a Diesel motor is LUBE oil plain and simple. 100 miles after getting my oil changed in my OTR trucks it would be black already from soot. ON GE Locomotives they are buil in Modules were all the wires fans and such are placed on the frame then bolted on. So that wouild be why the Radiator and DB section came off. You get hit by 286K of DEAD weight and see if you stay put. The Boulder from the pics looks like it was on the Right side of the locomotive and lifted up the front of the lead unit. Once it derailed forget about it all over. That crew was very lucky

8

One thing I noticed when looking at the picture of the derailment site was that there were no ‘telltale’ (not sure of the right term) poles/wires like I’ve seen in other mountainous areas. Perhaps that may have warned the crew if those were in place? I guess that depends on where the last signal was though.

Wonder if they’ll scrap the locos or fix 'em.

9

By the appearance of the wreck site, it’s not going to be any help to get the necessary equipment on site to extract the locomotive, etc…up out of the water and up the enbankment. The space at the ROW seems pretty tight there.

Sure will require power of what ever equipment to drag that 200 tons back up to where it must be placed for recovery.

I’m assuming that track there is single…At least, that’s what it looks like to me. Of course I’m just a fan looking at it and what seems to stand out to me…

I wondered about safety catch fence there too…Doesn’t seem to be any, and if it happens seasonably, why not…?

10

Thanks for the answers/ corrections, esp. as to the fluid colors from edbenton. The only thing that makes me feel good about asking/ stating sometimes dumb things is that I usually learn a whole lot more/ better then ! [swg]

This photo linked below shows that there’s a highway - which was alluded to in the article - and maybe even a ‘scenic view’ pull-off or turn-off on the other side of the canyon. If so, it would sure be a good place to watch and photograph the re-railing and clean-up activities from:

http://trib.com/collection_5e93cd00-5e9c-11df-aa84-001cc4c002e0.html?photo=15

I’m not sure, but perhaps ‘the rock’ is the one that’s about midway along the top of the overturned 2nd ‘pumpkin’ unit ? There’s another really big rock about 100 ft. ahead of the lead ‘Warbonnet’ unit, which shows that rockfalls do happen from time to time here.

What several of you

11

Good points on the “Catch-22” Paul, and thanks for the correct names for what I and Quentin had in mind.

12

WOW!

I Am Glad The Train Crew Was Unharmed, But Holy Cow! That Is A Miracle They Survived, Out Of All Derailment Photos That Looks Like The Worst! With The Locomotives And Cars Falling Down The Hill, Hitting A Rock At 30MPH Cars Scattered All Over The Place, A Loco In The Water, And More And More, CRAZY!

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That will buff right out! [(-D]

14

That crew was sure lucky that the river is lower than it usually is this time if year. That part of the river runs high and fast in the spring with lots of big rocks to bounce against if you are in the water. BNSF patrols the canyon in a Hi Rail about 15 minutes before and after a train passes, so it had it have just fallen. I still don’t know why they haven’t put in slide fences in spots prone to those things. The Wind River Canyon is such an amazing place, It is kind of a shame to see this happen there.

Here is a video story for the Casper Star Tribune

http://trib.com/news/vmix_bf13dec4-5e4a-11df-bc69-001cc4c002e0.html

15

Looking at the pictures…especially the 1st one. It looks like ‘the rock’ came from about 20 feet above the covered hopper that is leaning at 45 degrees…it would appear that the bigger part of the rock was knocked into the water at the point where the grain is spilled down the embankment, the smaller part of the rock that is visible on the fireman’s side of the right of way just ahead of the derail engines was probably launched there in the initial impact. I find it somewhat amazing the the rear portion of the 2nd units car-body was sheared off the frame…of course several thousand tons with the kinetic energy of 30 MPH of motion can do some damage when brought to a sudden stop.

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Links to photos - not mine - of slide and falling rock detector fence - [link]http://www.pbase.com/trackside_photography/image/86320760[/link] [link]http://users.sisna.com/jimbobnay/GrandCounty/Images/ByersCan1.jpg[/link] [link]http://users.sisna.com/jimbobnay/ColoCoalTrains/Crescent07.JPG[/link] from [link]http://users.sisna.com/jimbobnay/GrandCounty/GrandCounty.htm[/link] - Paul North.