In the recent derailment of an NS train in Harrisburg, KY, the cars appeared to simply “fall over” on a curve. Was this perhaps a case of "stringlining?
Hopefully you can thread your way through the ads on that webpage. That’s almost as hard to do as getting that train around that curve!
I found another video (not given here) taken post-derailment from a drone that showed all the cars on the rails before and after the curve. That’s what made me suspect stringlining.
As a child, I learned about stringlining first hand while playing with my Lionel toy trains. I found if I ran too long of a train around a curve, the cars would simply “fall over” just like they did in Harrodsburg.
This brings me back to a question I posted on here a few months ago. Are some of these trains just plain too damn long? Have long “monster trains” led to more expensive derailments?
Uh-huh. Yeah, me too. Even today when I put a train together on the layout it’s heavy cars up front behind the power, light cars at the rear, 'cause you know what’s gonna happen if you don’t!
Didn’t the people who put this train together ever play with trains when they were kids? Obviously not!
Without knowing more about the circumstances, it’s hard to figure in train make-up. Might have involved pick-ups enroute, before anyone had a chance to figure out proper make-up.
There’s also the issue of pre-blocking, which to my understanding could put mixtures of loads and empties scattered through the train.
Or it could be an engineer, inexperienced in that particular location, who figured eight and sand was the proper operating technique…
CSX had a string line derailment a year or two ago at Harpers Ferry with a empty grain train headed back to Brunswick from the grain facility at Winchester, VA.
Train was stopped at the absolute signal on the Shenandoah Sub waiting for traffic on the Cumberland Sub to open a route for the train to move East to Brunswick. Signal was given, Engineer put the brake valve to Release and started pulling - pulling harder and faster than the brakes were releasing and about 10 empty covered hoppers were pulled to the ground to the inside of the curve upon which they were sitting.
I remember that derailment. It took out a section of the pedestrian bridge as well. I proposed to my wife on that bridge, so it struck a nerve seeing it torn off.
Way back when I was in college I worked in low town Harpers Ferry in the blacksmith shop and enjoyed seeing the trains roll slowly across the trestles through town. It was surprising when it fell over like that as it had to be something like you describe as speed or loading was unlikely to be the issue.
