Spotted this in the local paper today:
This doesn’t make sense. How is a support beam from a tower that close to a rail car?
There are lots of places like this around industries. The used to be maked clearly with signage that said close clearance or will not clear man on side of car. The signage is mostly in disrepair and the crews are supposed to be familiar with such clearance problems on the territory they work in. The reality is much different.
That sucks, railroads should be required by the AAR to put up more signs and keep them up, the unions should get upset by these accidents.
for the short time i worked for the railroad…the way UP made it sound that if u get killed is YOUR FAULT, and no one elses…in this case…he should have paid more attention. (according to the rule-book) But I can think of a couple instanced where that thing was just stupid and made no sense what so ever.
Well, there are steps the railroad can take and he was supposed to be looking out for himself on the same token, but it is still sad to see a railroader killed on the job.
Actually, clearance signage inside industries is the industries responsibility, not the carriers, if it is an industry owned track.
On carrier owned track, it is up to the railroad to mark or sign close clearance, and remove or modify the obstruction.
Most close or tight spots are listed in the employee timetable or special instructions, and in the track bulletins/slow orders.
I am lucky, in that the railroad I work for allows the switch crew to bad order, or refuse to work industries that have a chronic clearance problems…if we find a problem, and report it, and nothing is done about it, next visit into that industry results in the foreman’s/conductor having to power to refuse to work the plant.
Nothing gets their attention like having the railcars they need sitting in a siding just outside their gates, and no one willing to spot them in the plant.
There is a small specialist plastic company we pull and spot weekly with five or six tank cars.
We refer to it as a right handed shove, because you have to shove the car into the plant, and the left side of the lead has a chain link fence right up against the track, zero clearance to ride.
The right hand side has several small cinderblock building close to the tracks, with just enough room for a man to ride or walk between them and the cars, there is a crushed stone walkway there.
They have several signs clearly stating “no clearance/railroad employees must not ride this side” posted on the fence and several signs on the right hand side stating “riders on this side only from this point”.
We have to shove in and around a fairly tight left hand turn, always at night.
They hired a new waste management company a few months ago, and these morons decided to place their dumpster just in the middle of this curve, right up against the tracks between two buildings…
Lucky for me, I was riding the point, but standing on the end platform, instead of
wow holy crap its news like this that kills my passion for wanting to work for the railroad, heck i might as well get a daycare job
Watch out for those disgruntled tottlers, they’ll pull that 45 out and shoot ya’s!
There’s a lot of that going on lately…
Good story Ed.
that beam he hit was 14 high or better. No signage cause it wasnt needed. We are still getting details about this accident. It was a loaded coal train going to the dumper and supposedly he was up high on the side of the car ( way higher than what I would ever ride) but until we get more details its hard to say what happened.
I am interested in information about the accident in Iowa that killed Keith Myers. You had mentioned that the steel beam was 14’ off the ground. Is this a standard height or you know this as fact because you have run this route and know the location? I don’t want to make you nervous by asking a bunch of questions but this is important to me about how this happened. I have heard several different reports about the time frame and how he was killed…everything from 5 am in the morning to being crushed by a shifting load of logs .They pronounced him at 7:38 am. The railroad is stating he was alive when they took him to the hospital but the local sheriffs dept stated he was deceased by 6:30 am. He was called to work at midnight but he was in bed and 60 minutes from the job. So he started work around 2 am.
Please any info would be appreciated.
Will be curious to hear more on this…support to a water tower? A beam striking a person on the side of a car 14 ft. off the ground? - something world class REALLY wrong here. That beam would have fouled the standard clearance envelope for Illinois and just about anywhere else.
If a civil engineer designed that beam to be there, he just broke the law. He should lose his license and go to jail for manslaughter. (ignorance of state statute should not be an allowable excuse)…and drehpe will back me up that there are a lot of railroad ignorant design professionals out there (you are NOT supposed to work out of your area of expertise, but these folks do around railroads)
In my experience, I constantly see clearance violations placed that should not be there around railroads. (Snowman,LC & I have discussed this before in the forums). When I teach railroad basics to surveyors, we get the surveyors in the field to be aware of this because they work with structural civil engineers doing site layout. Agri-dummies around grain elevators are the biggest violators of clearance regulations IMHO, mostly with jury-rigged add-ons to the elevators.
Basically, a standard clearance envelope starts at the top of rail and goes up to 22’-6’. From the ground-up to 22’-6" , NOTHING is supposed to be placed within 8’-6" of the center of the track. The 8’-6" distance increases as you approach and enter a curve. There are exceptions for docks, etc…BUT anything that fouls the clearance envelope requires a “No Clearance” sign as a warning…
Deeply Concerned Feathers
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