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Model derailment in Tacoma, Wash., Thursday
I think there may be more to this story than is shown in this article. That is a 10-degree curve, with a 30-mph restriction. Zillions of trains have successfully traveled it. As E. Fudd would say, “Something scwewy is going on awound here.”
Where were these cars in the train?
Was a UDE experienced?
Was there a DPU helper?
It might be poor train marshalling. Long empty cars on the head end, with a heavy train behind, can be touchy on sharp curves. It’s especially true if restarting after being stopped. Poor train handling by the engineer can contribute. It can take extra time to remarshall a train, or put a lift in a safer position, and sometimes management prefers to take a chance. And sometimes it comes back to bite them. So yes, there is more to this story when all we have is an embarrassing picture. Perhaps in due course we will hear more.
To answer those three questions… The cars were roughly in the middle of the train. There was no UDE, it was stopped getting ready to make a setout move, and there were no DPU’s.
This is actually not that uncommon of an event. It normally happens when a train stops with the center of the train in a curve, and then the train restarts. The elevation in the curve already has the cars tilting in, and the restart pulls the cars inward because of the force from the front of the train and the weight from the rear. A locomotive pushing on the rear can actually reduce the chances of this happening.
It is more likely to happen with light, empty and tall cars where a sharper curve is elevated for higher speeds. The photo seems to include just about all of these conditions.
Pleading ignorance here. What is a UDE?
Talk about some great comments. Thanks for giving me a lesson on some things I would never have thought about as a simply railfan.
UDE = undesired emergency brake application
So, Steve Carter, the weight of the trailing cars pulled these 7 off on the sharp curve, oops.
Power braking can also cause a stringline, if too much power is being worked against the train brakes.
Model Derailment brings to mind an extremely funny video, World’s Scariest Model Train Wrecks, still up on youtube. If this allows a link: https://youtu.be/rC8VzVmNPOI
That is why I keep the light cars on the rear of my American Flyer manifest freights. Those super motor Hudsons have a lot of torque…
I somehow doubt the railroaders involved with this found it very amusing…
UDE’s? What ever happened to “Big Holed”?