Four runaway rail cars struck two locomotives purposely parked on the mainline tracks to stop them, Monday, in east-central Kentucky.
CSX spokesman Gary Sease said that the collision caused a fire and spilled butyl acetate, a flammable liquid, from a burning tank car. Butyl acetate is commonly used as a solvent or as a synthetic fruit flavoring.
Shortly before noon, the four CSX rail cars left their track and went onto a main rail line, traveling several miles before running into CSX locomotives.
CSX placed the locomotives in the path of the runaway tankers to stop them, said Buddy Rogers, a Kentucky Emergency Management spokesman. Both locomotives were unmanned, Kentucky State Police Maj. Lisa Rudzinski said.
One angle, shown on local TV, showed the crash scene with a string of hoppers on the same track. I assume that the hopper train stopped, the conductor tied it down and uncoupled the locos, then the engineer ran forward and around the curve, stopped, shut down and bailed out. There was no room for any fancy, “Catch the moving cars,” maneuver. Distance available was only a couple of hundred meters, at best.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - in metric units)
Too bad they could not have gotten the engines further head to a switch, if one existed, and off that track and had the runaways plow into the stopped hoppers.
Or taken just one engine to absorb the impact.
How did those cars get through a presumably closed switch without derailing?
To explain in more detail, even if there had been enough trackage available, and there had been no other trains moving on the stretch of track, to preceed (a) runaway car(s) and properly match the speed is near impossible. Even a light locomotive won’t accelerate or brake like a car will making last minute adjustments in speed near impossible. Then there would be the question of lining up the couplers (only our model ones have centering springs). Plus, by having both locomotive and cars moving while they try to make the joint brings in the possibilty of derailing the whole thing at speed, with personnel onboard the locomotive. Add to that the fact you only have the braking power of the locomotive (no fool is going to venture between the cars and loco to attach the brake hoses) To take it even farther, when the loco brakes, the cars could push against each other and accordion.
And that’s just off the top of my head why the idea of simply derailing the cars would be the best idea.
Most switches have spring points allowing the car’s weight to push them over long enough for the wheel to pass through it.
Actually a spring switch is a specialty type of trackwork. A car rolling through a misaligned trailing point switch will generally bend the throwbar of the switch enough to force the points over which, unfortunately, tends to leave the points half thrown for the next facing popint movement resulting in a split switch.
When I was working on the SP(sxties) some genius decided to bring a geep out in front of a loose carload of lumber, match the runaway’s speed and bring the whole operation to a safe halt. Unfortunately he got the geep onto the main at just about the time the flat car load of lumber arrived on the scene. The result was near instantaneous unloading of the flat car and conversion of the geep to a flat car.
There was a news glipe in Trains a few years back when a MRL crew left their train on the main to switch an industry, and when they got back it was gone and a’ rolling. They
did chase it, but it had turn over before they could get to it. Generally the idea is to derail a runaway someplace safe away from a community by any means(parking cars or locos, pulling a rail, or sending it into an old siding) than to try and catch it.
Did the engineer get hurt from the lumber on the flat car?
I learned that my great uncle, a PRR engineer in the 10s to 40s, during the war placed his huge locomotive 4-6-2 on the track ahead of a slowly moving group of cars. He reduced his speed and they slowly caught up to him. He then slowed to a stop and they connected the air hoses and took the cars back to their siding.
Once the movable rails of a spring switch are damaged, that’s it, call out the maintaince gang.
Using a locomotive to catch run away cars is not a good idea, with the possibility of wrecking a $2 Million investment to save additional millions in damage and liablity claims. That folks, is a no win situation! CSX may draw the government’s interest, which is never a good thing!
In the instance I mentioned both the trainmaster whose less than brilliant idea it was and the engr who should have known better were killed. This is why car handling rules call for a high car to be between the engine and/or occupied caboose (does that date me or what?) and any shiftable load like lmbr, pipes, or whatever.
Generally, fixing a run through switch is a fairly simple, low tech chore. A gandy just pounds on the throwbar with a sledge hammer until it straightens out enough to work right.
Seemed like a good idea that would have worked had the engine gotten out onto the line earlier and able to accelerate.
Would it have been better to try to throw a switch against the movement -if they had one in the correct direction, or set the points halfway if pointing towards the runaways?
I guess in my great uncle’s case, his tender would have been a buffer.
But I wonder how the PRR would have felt had his tender been damaged or wrecked.
Better that than a more horrendous wreck further down the line.
Maybe runaways on the PRR did not roll that fast because so much track is so level.
Of all railroads, does the PRR have the least steep grades?
As I child I thought it beautiful that the PRR managed to run their tracks so level with very gentle curves through such chaotic Pennsylvania terrain.
You’ve obviously never seen Horseshoe Curve. That’s anything but level or a gentle curve. The center portion of the curve is so tight, they removed the second track for clearance reasons with the longer cars.
Would you sit in a cab of an engine having propaine cars comming at you, and you attempting to match their speed. Then who is going to open and latch the couplers and lean over and connect the brake lines.
Plus watching speed restrictions on curves and light rails.
K4s #1361 is under restoration by the Altoona Railroader’s Memorial Museum. The work is being done at Steamtown NHS in Scranton by a contractor working for the Altoona museum.
It would be more of a sideswipe. The degree of curvature is 9 degrees 15 minutes, with a center angle of 220 degrees (more than a half circle).
The grade is around 1.28% at the curve itself.
You’d be decending into Altoona if you were headed east. Allentown is much farther east, almost to New Jersey.
So glad they are restoring that locomotive.(In 1995, as we rode by, I was shocked to see it missing. Do I recall it was replaced with an electric locomotive?)
Recently read that the D&RGW had 2-8-8-2 locomotives built in 1943 “dismantled” in 1947.
So sad they scrapped them. After all the cost of destroying it, was it really worth that much in scrap metal? Too bad they didn’t keep one.
Well, when you put it that way, I wouldn’t want to become a cinder.
But, if it was not much of a grade, not much speed, and there was room and no problem with sharp curves [all of which I do not know] I would think it worth the attempt.
If the cars coupled to the engine or not, could the engine not bring them to a stop?
If engine coupler were open and car couplers closed, would they not still couple? Or must you have both open?
