In the following clip, it appears (from a limited visible area) that some cars would have remained upright if the couplers would have been able to prevent the twisting force to rotate the next coupler. If that’s true (I’m likely missing something), why wouldn’t couplers be allowed to rotate? If nothing else, have a shear pin that would hold the coupler straight until something like this happened?
I saw a derailment which I was told involved about 65 cars. In it, there were 13 cars lying on the side of the track fill bank, nearly upside down. They were all coupled together with their couplers and the air hoses coupled. They all tipped over at once or nearly so, and stayed together.
I also recall a news piece posted here maybe around 2013 that showed a unit train of identical tank cars, maybe around 100 cars, and the entire train of cars was simply lying on its side with all of the cars coupled together and lined up perfectly straight along the straight track. In both of these cases, I assume that the effect was made possible by the ability of one car going over taking the next car with it, etc., etc.
This could be prevented by rotary couplers, but I assume that it is deemed that the benefit does not outweigh the added cost. This type if rollover propagation only occurs after a derailment has begun. Once that happens, there is a very high probability of massive jackknifing and randomly piling up of cars. So they will be wrecked despite there being a swivel joint for the couplers. There also may be cases in which several cars derailing and rolling over in sequence causes less overall damage than if they derailed and jackknifed into a crushing heap.
Wonder if a rotary coupler would have made any difference. The car isn’t rotating around a stationary coupler, the way cars do in a car dumper.
Have to love the people that walk up to an overturned tankcar without knowing what’s in it.
Most of us watching here know it didn’t have a placard, but I’m guessing those people didn’t take notice to that fact at the time.
A few weeks ago, I was at that very crossing. There was a Lake State Railway train stopped right to the north.
The whole idea of tight lock couplers is to keep the couplers together so they can’t pierce adjacent cars.
Given that most uses of rotary couplers involve unit trains of the same types of cars, I suspect that the Pinto concept applies. Maintaining and dealing with them on a daily basis would be a bigger problem than the occasional derailment of this kind.
If you are a ‘real engineering’ type you could keep a number of computers busy calculating the various stresses that get applied to the important aspects of the cars, second to second as they are involved in major derailments. If you are a ‘olde time’ engineer you could burn out a slide rule.
I still remember the extended 5 mph bumpers on automobiles in the 1970’s. Thank goodness that standard was amended. I venture to guess the answer to rotary couplers is the same. You can go too far with safety standards in that the cost for having them outweighs the risk mitigation.
I think it would be more safe for a conductor riding equipment to clip onto a freight car ladder with a carbiner if they are going to ride it for switching BUT I think that would probably be more hassle than it’s worth and probably be another safety issue.
In thinking about this further, even if the objective was desired, I don’t see a practical way to allow cars to tip over without applying tip-over force to the cars connected to them .
A very real safety issue if one gets into a situation where they need to dismount quickly! No way would I have ever done that!!!
You wouldn’t use a screw-lock carabiner. There are very quick safetly hooks that can be released about as quickly as you can let go with your hand. Probably not important since I’ve never heard of a conductor falling off of a train.
It happens. Just one example, from the Royal Gorge Scenic RR
https://kdvr.com/news/husband-of-royal-gorge-train-conductor-killed-in-accident-shares-story/
Or yesterday.
But since you’ve only been interested in railroads for a few months…
One of the tests for prospective NS conductors is hanging off the side of a car for two minutes. May not sound like much, but…
I think you’ll find that for regular extended push/shove moves, a “shove platform” (AKA a caboose) will be used, or the conductor will find a safe place to stand.
The carabiner or other hook is the easy part. There’s the rest of the harness that has to be maintained and tested periodically.
DJ of djstrains on Youtube is a CSX engineer and just posted a video of a talk that he just gave at a steel mill railroad modelers convention. He said that there’s a regular 3 mile backup move that is done in the Pittsburgh area at night, over a bridge over the Monongehela River with the conductor hanging on to the lead car.
Found it! (9) Railroad Operations, Incredible Footage, Industrial Modeling Tips & MORE! - YouTube
Even in many industrial settings two minutes is a insignificant amount of time to be protecting the shove and hanging on the side of a car, and after a relatively short amount of time every additional second seems like a minute if not an hour.
People who know railroads were so against it, I wasn’t going to argue the pros/cons. I would use a harness if I had to be in a situation where I could fall. The harness wouldn’t need to be intrusive or heavy since it’s not a full fall arrest harness that’s meant to absorb energy from a long fall like those for tower climbers. Look at climbers’ harness that can arrest falls of 10+ feet. They are inexpensive (about $25) and lightweight (about 2lbs).
Yes. About 3 months.
I’m a tall guy. The grab irons on the sides of 1950’s era passenger cars weren’t designed for guys like me. It does get uncomfortable fast…
In “Ferris Bueler’s Day Off” there is the statement ‘Life comes at you fast’.
Life comes at you even faster when you are on the side of a car being shoved at 4 - 8 - 10 MPH and maybe even a little faster. When you see the situation that will dictate you GET OFF the car NOW! You don’t want to go having to figure out how to unfasten a device that has you affixed to the car. Every move a crew makes is INTENDED to be made safely, however, reality being what it is - S…t Happens and being on the side of a car that is now a unsafe place to be. That realization comes at you FAST. Faster than you want to try manipulate some device to let you leave the car.