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Crescent derails in South Carolina
When my 1/87 model trains loose contact with the tracks it’s a derailment. Maybe it’s different on the 1:1 scale.
Hmmm…
one side of an aircraft lost contact with the atmosphere…
all sides of the ship established contact with ocean’s water…
The automobile contacted a tree after veering off the pavement at 50 mph…
Fire contacted the ruptured gasoline pipe line…
Euphemistically yours
F X
I just rode up from New Orleans on the Crescent a few days ago. I thought Norfolk Southern’s track was pretty good but it seemed the Dining car rode pretty rough. Wonder if that could have caused the train to lose “contact with then tracks”.
It is amusing! But jeez, the cars could have landed unside down and they COULD have been still in “contact with the tracks.”
It also seems an unfortunate way for AMTRAK to get customers to try their new cuisine!
Second Photo Caption: Should be “FREY” (pronounced ‘fry’) Creek Bridge.
From the looks of the torn out wooden guide railings on the Frey bridge, Amtrak was very close to having the cars tumble off of that bridge!
Accoding to the CTV news up here in Canada, Amtrak used a rather amusing euphemism:
“Spartanburg County Deputy Fire Marshal Tony Barnett said by telephone that the cars had derailed, but Amtrak in its later email said only that the train had become disabled when the seven affected cars lost contact with the tracks.”
It seems the intended message was that all cars remained upright!
In 20 degree weather a broken rail is likely the culprit. Thank god no one was killed. Just watched a story on tv about the sunset limited 1993 crash in alabama . This could have been worse.
Agree with Kenneth 's comments. The local Spartanburg TV station’s helicopter videos of bridge show massive damage. Could have been a real disaster!
“Lost contact with the tracks”? It’s time to revisit George Carlin’s famous rant about politically correct language.
Hmmm FX,
What the heck are you smoking out there on the"left" coast !
My thought is because of the connatations of death, injuries, mass destruction and unsafe track, especially when it involves a passenger train, the use of the term: “derailment” is no longer politically correct, hence the use of the term " lost contact with the tracks" .
While I leave the wrangling over proper terminology to other more astute observers, my question – when I heard about this in the news – was the same as it has been following many similar incidents: Amtrak says it sends buses to carry stranded passengers for hundreds of miles (many to NYC). So do all those sleeping car passengers get big refunds? If I had paid prime dollars for a deluxe or even a roomette, I’d be wanting compensation. How’s this handled? Anybody know? I’ve never seen it discussed here.