So this sounds like the movie plot to the Hollywood Movie “Unstoppable”…interesting, I thought that it was entirely made up plot.
Didn’t we gleefully beat this topic well beyond death here?
2 Likes
Yeah, the movie was “based” on the 8888 incident.
1 Like
Either missed it or forgot about it.
You have to love that “…ensuring railroad accuracy”…
Yeah…
Being from Ohio, I remember the story well. I know it was a national news story, but the local channels covered it extensively as well. The movie was very loosely based on the actual incident, although the danger and the rescue weren’t nearly as dramatic. There were no injuries or fatalities involved in stopping the train. I forget why the train was moving under its own power.
Years before this, I remember visiting a railroad museum in northern Ohio and climbing inside the cab of an F-unit. They had a former engineer in the cab explaining some of the controls. He pointed at what he called the dead man’s pedal. He said the engineer had to keep that depressed to keep the train moving. The purpose was in case the engineer had a fatal heart attack and his foot came off the pedal, it would bring the train to a stop. Is this feature not in place in all diesels.
It is in place, but from what I could find, when the engineer applied the independent brake (The locomotive brake, not the entire train’s air brakes) as opposed to the automatic brake which DOES apply the air brakes on the whole train, the alerter was deactivated. If the AI overview on Google is true (which is where I got that from) then this seems like a really bad design flaw.
I’ve never seen a deadman’s pedal in person on an active locomotive. This includes times, long past, when I had some cab rides in my youth. Passenger engines may have still had them, but the freight engines back then no longer did. Alerters didn’t come around until the 1980s or early 90s.
I’ve read the stories about the different methods to hold the pedal down. As one person once observed, it was assumed that an incapacitated engineer would actually fall over and not end up on top of the pedal.
Jeff
One of the more ‘humorous’ aspects of the ‘Crazy Eights’ clown show was the attempts of a sheriff’s deputy to ‘shoot out’ the emergency fuel cut out switch. What could go wrong?
Sounds like one of those "hold my beer’ moments. I don’t know about the 8888 but on most older locomotives there was a ring connected to a pull chain or lever that had to be physically yanked. I believe newer units did have a push button under a protective cover and that it had to be held down for a prescribed duration before it activated.
As it turns out the actual shot fired hit the fuel filler neck and not the fuel cut out switch!
Good thing the local gendarmes didn’t have a bazooka… today they probably would have, plus an RPG as well! From my Cleveland Plain dealer collection:
Cheers, Ed
2 Likes
The EFCO switches on the sides aren’t covered and I believe most second generation diesels are set that way. I believe the problem with the “marksmen” was that some engines have the fuel filler cap painted red. It’s a lot more prominent than the EFCO button.
Jeff
What I heard, decidedly third-hand, was that they were using a riot-control ‘shotgun’ that fired a sandbag. That would have been entirely ‘right’ for an EFCO switch.
I am not certain why there should be a time delay required to ‘hold’ a unit emergency switch. But I can easily see this being introduced as a ‘field mod’ if the switch were easily false-tripped by debris or other intermittent contact.
I don’t remember there being any delay. A quick push of the button and the engine would shut down. That said I don’t think that I ever used the switch outside of the cab. The button was recessed into a guard so that it could not be tripped accidently, so a bean bag would probably not work. A bullet may have.
Mark Vinski
I don’t know - I suspect a bean bag would have more mass than a bullet, however, the HIT on the EFC would have to be direct and totally within its protective guard, and the bean bag would have to stay within the bag (which I find unlikely - as bean bags are promoted as being less lethal than bullets). Not any easy shot as I also suspect that a bean bag would have different aerodynamic properties than a bullet.
The question I just have to ask of the engineers on this forum is how can you “accidentally” put a unit into Run 8 and seriously think that you just applied the dynamic brakes? I understand the momentary confusion with the position of the throttle handle, but wouldn’t the sound of the prime mover erupting into full power mode grab an engineer’s attention? And what good would an SD40-2’s dynamics do at less than 10-15 mph anyway? Every little bit counts, I guess.
There is a certain type of EMD control stand where the dynamic brake and throttle are combined into the same lever. The short, top most lever in the image below is a selector - the engineer uses it to switch between power and dynamic brake. If you are in power, move the larger lever below the selector to the right to increase power. In dynamic, move the larger lever to the right to increase dynamic brake. If in his head, the engineer thought he had the unit in dynamic brake mode, moving the lever all the way over would apply full dynamic, and thus be the correct action in his mind.
Note: I have no idea if the 8888 was equipped with this style control stand, but I think it fits in with the era of when that unit was built.
As to your question about the engine noise: When moving into dynamic (at least on 1st and 2nd generation diesels, I have no experience with modern power), the engine will throttle up, typically to something around notch three, so as to excite the traction motors so they can generate the electricity to pass to the resistor grids (and also generate electricity to drive the resistor grid cooling fans). So it is normal for an engineer to hear the prime mover power up when going into dynamics.
I was giving a check ride to an engineer once that thought he had the unit in dynamic mode and moved the lever and applied power instead. He picked up his mistake immediately and corrected it, but it can happen.
The engineer of the 8888 clearly panicked when he saw the switch lined against him, and despite his lengthy experience, made a series of spectacularly bad decisions.
2 Likes
In hindsight, I think CSX would have given him 100 shares of stock if he would have just run thru the switch and gotten the train stopped. 
CSX has not named the engineer that was operating 8888 at the time. Which, I hope they do at some point.
In run 8 the power will over power the brake shoes and the engine will move, my experience is around notch 2 or 3 will try to move the engine. I know that notch 8 will not hold that locomotive stationary with independent brakes applied.
1 Like
Nor should they!
1 Like