Metra train blocked by CN and Barrington is still NIMBY

Trains Magazine General Discussion
101

No, I get that they think the delay was excessive, what I don’t get is that they seem to think that this never should have happened at all.

And what I do not see is any discussion of why it took time to fix. I’ve deal with a lot of broken machinery and sometimes you find a routine repair that takes a whole lot longer than it ought to because something is bent, broken, or stuck. Requiring a tool you do not have.

How long do you think it ought to take to fix a broken knuckle? Is there some guidance as to the standard amount of time?

And was there an issue with the spare knuckles on the locomotive? Did they have the usual compliment of knuckles or were they short?

And if indeed a service truck had to come down from Mundeline with a coupler, why does anybody expect that it would not have been caught in traffic if the train created a traffic jam? Are they supposed to bend the laws of physics and fly there?

102

I have not heard anyone say that knuckles should never break. And, as has been mentioned several times in this thread, the issue has nothing to do with how much time it should take to fix a broken knuckle. The issue is why the CN did not cut the crossing during the repair.

103

well, they could’ve taken a train [swg].

Yeah, moving the train ahead could have helped clear some (all?) of the crossings, though could it have cleared SR 14? Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see any indication that moving the still-operational half of the train would have cleared that one crossing (or that they didn’t move some or all of the train out of the way). I don’t disagree that not clearing out the crossings that they could have was a bad idea ™.

To the professional railroader types → IF they could have closed the open trainline at the “new” end of the train, it would have taken about 10 minutes (or thereabouts) to get back up to operating pressure, plus whatever time is necessary to do a brake test (presumably there’s something that has to be done after they go into emergency) right?

for the sake of argument, let’s say they did that, AND had a knuckle dropped off at the head end. so, we’re at about 20-30 minutes since emergency. So far, the conductor has gotten to the break, and checked it out; gotten air pressure back into the trainline, done a brake test if necessary.

Ride up to the knuckle, pick it up, and go back. another few minutes (5-10).

so, now we’ve had this break for nearly 3/4 of an hour before the conductor can even start working on the bad knuckle. 45 minutes or so to get the old one out, and the new one in, brake test, and continue onward seems VERY good to me (note I’m not a pro railroader… just volunteer with a historical group on weekends… so my times may be significantly skewed…)

104

It is exceedingly difficult to cut crossings that are blocked by cars on the porition of the train that has no locomotive attached to it and the movable portion of the train is prevented from coupling to the unmovable portion of the train by a broken knuckle. Duh!

105

Yes, I fully understand that you can’t cut the crossing with the lead locomotive if the knuckle is broken. I am assuming that CN has more than one locomotive though. Do you have information that there was no possiblity of cutting the crossing because no other locomotive was available to pull the hind end back? If not, why would you assume that? It seems relatively improbable.

106

[quote user=“Bucyrus”]

BaltACD:

It is exceedingly difficult to cut crossings that are blocked by cars on the porition of the train that has no locomotive attached to it and the movable portion of the train is prevented from coupling to the unmovable portion of the train by a broken knuckle. Duh!

Bucyrus:

benburch:

No, I get that they think the delay was excessive, what I don’t get is that they seem to think that this never should have happened at all.

And what I do not see is any discussion of why it took time to fix.

How long do you think it ought to take to fix a broken knuckle?

I have not heard anyone say that knuckles should never break. And, as has been mentioned several times in this thread, the issue has nothing to do with how much time it should take to fix a broken knuckle. The issue is why the CN did not cut the crossing during the repair.

Yes, I fully understand that you can’t cut the crossing with the lead locomotive if the knuckle is broken. I am assuming that CN has more than one locomotive though. Do you have information that there was no possiblity of cutting the crossing because no other locomotive was available to pull the hind end back? If not, why would yo

107

[quote user=“n012944”]

Bucyrus:

BaltACD:

It is exceedingly difficult to cut crossings that are blocked by cars on the porition of the train that has no locomotive attached to it and the movable portion of the train is prevented from coupling to the unmovable portion of the train by a broken knuckle. Duh!

Bucyrus:

benburch:

No, I get that they think the delay was excessive, what I don’t get is that they seem to think that this never should have happened at all.

And what I do not see is any discussion of why it took time to fix.

How long do you think it ought to take to fix a broken knuckle?

I have not heard anyone say that knuckles should never break. And, as has been mentioned several times in this thread, the issue has nothing to do with how much time it should take to fix a broken knuckle. The issue is why the CN did not cut the crossing during the repair.

Yes, I fully understand that you can’t cut the crossing with the lead locomotive if the knuckle is broken. I am assuming that CN has more than one locomotive though. Do you have information that there was no possib

108

I haven’t read that on this thread. You seem to want to create an argument where none exists.

It takes about 5 minutes to drop a broken knuckle. Move the train up to where the engineer has set out a good one, move the train back. If its only five or ten cars back, this whole process can take 15-20 minutes. If there’s no spare up front (I’ve never seen that), I’ve heard of the next train dropping one off (double track) right at the break. In urban areas, somebody sends out a truck. Whatever is fastest. Time is money. Spare knuckles are pretty much all over the place. It’s a railroad. This event is neither news nor unique. Just the time for repair in this instance makes it unusual.

I’m gathering that this train didn’t have a spare. Well, yeah, if so, that’s a problem all right. There’s a reason they always carry a spare. The only other thing that might have held this up was that the knuckle broke far back in the train. That’s unusual. CN has had knuckles show up manufactured by Siderúrgica Nacional (Sidena) of Mexico which were woefully prone to breakage. They shouldn’t have been in the system. They haven’t been manufactured in years.

However, this was supposed to be “congested” railroading. That seems to be the emphatic point of many posters. If so, then a following train should have been able to provide power to the rear of the train in short order and, assuming the broken knuckle is up front, separate the crossings. That’s the usual plan. And no, you don’t have to call up a crew for that.

109

Where does the article say that the crew didn’t have a spare? No actual information on how the repair was affected was included in the article.

110

This thread demonstrates the problems of speculation when limited factual information is available, or ignoring it even when it is, in some cases. If you look at the satellite view, you can see the single-tracked CN (as it mostly is along its length) crossing the double-tracked UP. There is a siding/interchange track on the CN starting about a mile to the west of the diamonds. Nothing to the east.

BTW: The J early on had overpasses of a number of highways well south of Barrington: Rt. 64, Rt. 38, Rt. 56, to name some.

111

For arguments sake it seems a few folks have assumed the break apart was in a location that allowed the front part of the train to pull forward enough to clear the crossing under discussion.

Say your facing north on the street, the front of the train is pointed east or moving from your left to right…now lets say the break was on the west or left side of the crossing, then yes, clearing the crossing would be a matter of the conductor walking back, closing the inglenook, pumping the air up, and having the engineer pull ahead enough to clear, you wouldn’t even need a brake test considering the situation.

But what if the pull apart was on the right or east side of the crossing?

Pulling ahead would solve nothing.

And we have no real knowledge of what really broke.

Was it a knuckle, or did the coupler fail?

If it was a knuckle, then the swap out would be pretty much as described as above, have the hogger toss off the right knuckle, drag yourself up to that point, throw the knuckle on the rear crossover platform and shove back to the break, drop the old broken knuckle out and replace, about a 30 to 45 minute job…but if it was a coupler that failed, then nothing the train crew could do in repairs.

So now we are at the “have another locomotive couple into the rear of the train and drag it back” part…well, most railroads don’t have locomotives just sitting around, crewed and ready to spring into action.

If they were to have another locomotive cut away from their train, and come up against the rear of the broken train, then that crew would first have to tie down their train, assuming it was in a position and location to safely do so, then travel whatever distance required to reach the rear of the disabled train, couple into it and pump up the air…all of this would have to be considered after the reason for the break apart was determined, and then set in motion, so your looking at best case time wise, 30 to 45 minutes for a broken knuckle, one to two

112

The duration of delay and the inconvenience it caused begs the question of why it was allowed to happen. The assumptions began with the very premise of the thread title. That is that the complainers were NIMBYS who could not tolerate a little inconvenience that the CN had every right to cause, and no way to prevent. The assumptions have been that the CN could not have been negligent because long crossing blockages can conceivably be unavoidable. Maybe that was the case, but it is an assumption.

So those assumptions in defense of CN gives birth to the devil’s advocate role of assuming that CN was negligent for causing a delay that they could have prevented. So there are two opposing positions to this thread, and both are based on assumption. Based on the limited information available about the cause of the delay, it you take away all possible assumptions, the entire thread is moot. It has no foundation whatsoever.

113

I would venture to think that the break-in-two on CN and how it was handled is actually a straw man for other issues related to rampant NIMBYism and flight from urban issues. Barrington and Frankfort both opposed CN’s purchase of EJ&E because it represented an intrusion of the outside world on their exclusive pastoral Eden where everything is “just so” and outsiders can be kept at bay. This is the same mentality that also opposes the widening of arterial roads from two to four lanes even though they are hopelessly congested or opposes installing sidewalks on side streets because the neighborhood will lose that “country” atmosphere, whatever that is.

114

What following crew? From what I understand the CN is only running about 10 trains each way a day over the J in Barrington. Chances are the next train was more than 2 hours behind.

BTW what is this so called plan you keep speaking of? As a dispatcher for a class one railroad I am very interested in it. We have no set “plan” for a knuckle break, because each break is different.

115

I am certainly glad I am invested in a railroad that is operated by railroaders as opposed to the non-railroaders opinions voiced in this thread.

Denial of reality is a terrible thing to lose.

116

Well, that does change the perspective from the horribly congested, heavy traffic version presented earlier and why Barrington is constantly complaining. I couldn’t tell from the "diversity’ of opinions whether this was high density Chicago area railroading or low density Rock Island type railroading out in Colorado.Now I see that the railroading is practically “leisurely.”

Under similar circumstances (10 trains a day) I do recall a switcher from a yard ten miles away arriving in about 20 minutes to pull the train off the blocked crossing due to a grade crossing collision at the next crossing. And yes, we had a plan for that: it was called “figuring out how to keep the crossings clear” and the written instructions went all the way from where to stop for a meet on ordinary movements, to what to do when crossings were blocked by other than normal train movements: derailments, grade crossing incidents, hazmat, etc… This was part of a formal Safety Plan.

Since 2002, these are required as a matter of law for railroads involved in any merger proceeding by 49 CFR 244.13 as part of Safety Integration Planning. And that rule simply requires that merging railroads standardize individual road Safety Plans, and these plans must specifically (and have for the past 40 years that I am aware of) cover railroad responses to blocked crossings.

"(i) Highway-rail grade crossing systems. Each applicant shall identify a program, including its development and implementation, covering the following: (1) Identification of the highway-rail grade crossings at which there will b

117

Didn’t say there was a “knuckle” plan.

118

Well said. [tup]

119

Was that a modern day occurence, or back before railroads rationalized manpower and equipment to stay lean and competitive?

120

What’s the difference between a coupler and a nuckle?