NS intermodal 21T has derailed on the Rockville Bridge (4:15PM). Appears high winds may have blown a number cars on their sides with one container ending up in the Susquehanna.
some photos, courtesy of flickr member tjaden76.
…I’d wager the news of a derailment on the Rockville bridge caused some “nerves” when first heard by officials. It appears the recovery might be a bit touchy. Apparently, by looking at photos, some containers tilted, might be holding in position by coupler only…
And I’d imagine that bridge is a very important link in the route chain for the RR.
Quentin:
I’d bet that your supposition has probably rung all the bells! The Rockville Bridge is indeed an important link for NS. Not to mention a tricky spot for recovery. The rocky river bed and heavy,fast flowing Susquehanna would make recovery difficult, not to mention the cold, high winds would make it a pretty miserable spot to have to be out on, as well.
Just a guess but I’d bet that with those double stacks the cross wind was the main issue in causing the derailment.
…And I agree with all your thoughts too Sam.
I’d think perhaps some authorities might be holding their breath just a bit as that work takes place on the {100 yr. age bridge}…But as you said…The cold would be terrible now.
Suspect they will be running on the bridge again within 24 hours.
Well that is one disadvantage of double-stacks.
Boy, I feel sorry for the guys that have to clean up that mess, not the the best place to have a derailment.
I suppose NS will reroute some trains over the buffalo line up to Lock Haven and then uses the Nittany & Bald Eagle route back down to the the Pittsburgh Line.
zugmann, thanks much for that link. He definitely ‘worked over’ that opportunity !
For a great ‘see-through’ view of the bottom of a well car showing the cross-bracing, check out this photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29958205@N05/5298336408/sizes/l/in/photostream/
The sequence of photos is eloquent testimony to the strength of the couplers - ‘tightlocks’ ? - and the Inter-Box Connectors that are still holding the cars partially upright and the both levels of boxes on the cars, respectively. It’s actually the lower-level connector on the upraised side that’s under the most tension.
Similar events have happened from time on other railroads with high and/ or long bridges - I believe C&NW / UP have had that happen at the Kate Shelley Bridge from time to time. The Milwaukee Road used to have a “high-wind” indicator signal light for one of its Puget Sound Extension bridges - I believe over the Columbia River - after some piggyback trailers were blown into it. When the winds were too strong, the light went out - typical railroad ‘fail-safe’ arrangement. It was shown in the photo essay “One More Mountain to Cross” by Blair Kooistra in Trains in the late 1970’s, if I recall correctly.
I wonder if “Safety First” NS will consider installing something similar at Rockville. On the one hand, it’s unlikely that a locomotive or anything carrying crewmen would be at risk - it would be property damage only. On the other hand, if either the box was carrying haz-mats or flammable substances, or fell into a train on an adjacent track that was - think of a unit train of ethanol tank cars - then the property damage could be pretty spectacular and hazardous to people. I believe Amtrak runs only single
Links to a couple of newspaper articles - the one from the Harrisburg Patriot-News (“pennlive”) also has 5 photos and a video. One of the photos shows quite a jumble of containers.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/12/railroad_crews_start_clearing.html
http://photos.pennlive.com/patriot-news/2010/12/rockville_bridge_train_acciden_1.html
This one from the Morning Call has more info about the Amtrak detour and buses:
http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-ap-pa-train-derailment-20101228,0,225431.story
- Paul North.
What an event , it is made bigger by the cold and wind . One can hope the bridge is not damaged by this. Unlike the event in Roanoke, it would be nice if there was a railcam so we could watch the clean up. That would be a great boost for Trains Magazine to set up such a camera.
Cannonball
ccording to WGL one of our locl stations, two containers dropped into the Susquhnna river. They hve been recovered. The crs tht tippedover are upright and the bridge is clear and trains are running. Here is the link.
Just ‘activated’ that link - thanks for providing it.
Must have been a slow news day yesterday - apparently this was the “Top Story” for WGAL-TV’s (Lancaster, PA) 11 PM newscast.
New Question: Since it appears the train/ cars stayed together even though tipped: How and why did it happen that the train came to a stop ? I’m wondering if the train air brake line came apart at one of the tipped cars, which of course would have placed the train’s brakes into “Emergency”. But since the progression of the amount of tilt of the cars is so gradual, that might not have occurred - the train line might have stayed intact. If so, then why did the engineer stop ? Or was the train already stopped, waiting for a signal or something else to clear ahead, and that’s when the cars and containers were tipped over ? Or if it was moving - usually comparatively slowly here - were the conductor and engineer looking backwards, so the boxes starting to go askew, and then promptly applied the brakes ?
Some here may remember that some years ago when the D&RGW had similar problems at its “Big Ten” curve on the eastern approach to the Moffat Tunnel from Denver, it installed a windbreak to help prevent that from happening again. An unconnected section of track was constructed on the inside of the curve, and the railroad placed a bunch of old hopper cars on it, which as I recall were loaded with sand or stone or something similar to weight them down. It appears there are 24 hopper cars still there, together with a line of trees that have grown up further on the inside of those cars, based on a “Satellite” or “Hybird” view of that location from the ACME Mapper 2.0 application, at Lat. / Long. coord
Unfortunatly you cannot do that on the Rockville bridge. You have Harrisburg on the eastern side and the cliffs just north of Enola on the west bank. The river forms a perfect chute for the wind to whistle down and over the bridge from the north. Luckily Pennsylvania built the bridge right. It has suvived ice, floods, and derailments since it was built in 1905.
On another website someone posted this link to a photo of a BNSF train on a trestle in Montana that had an ‘wind guard’ - a tall metal fence with horizontal slats - added to it after a doublestack was reportedly blown over in 2002:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=339284
While adding the weight of that guard and the possible* lateral loading of the wind blowing against it might be a concern for some bridges - especially the higher ‘spindly’ ones - the Rockville Bridge is about the last bridge that I would expect to have an issue with that, what with its comparatively short and squat aspect and massive stone construction . . . [:-^] However, that kind of construction - or a similar but solid highway ‘sound wall’ kind of barrier - would definitely ruin the aesthetics, and might pose some other issues since I believe the Rockville Bridge is on the National Historic Register or Historic American Engineering Record or similar, etc.
*The bridge already has to be able to resist a substantial lateral wind load anyhow - besides the effect of the wind blowing just on its structural members - because it also has to resist the push from the wind blowing against the sides of a train crossing the bridge, which force is then transferred from the railcar to the track and then into the bridge’s structure. Adding a wind guard just cuts out the train as an intermediate structure in the ‘load path’ for the wind forces, and might be a little more efficient and hence either increase the wind load or decrease it a little depending on the details, but the bridge still has to be able to resist the wind load.
The same forum and maybe the same poster mentioned that a similar event had happened to ConRail at Sandusky, Ohio in the 1998 time frame. One preventative measure also mentioned that CR took was to park a loaded coal train on the windward track so
The Rockville bridge is massive, onece had four tracks, now down to three. Wind forces against hte structure would no real effect on the structural integrity of the bridge, because such forces are directed down to the bases by the arch design. Your idea of using boxcars is intriguing, but 1. Enola is really full every time I run up there, so storgae space might be an issue. 2. This was a very odd situation and Nrofolk Southern might figure the maintenance and storage of the boxcaes are not worth the costs compared to a once in long time event.
The two empty containers are now downstream a fair distance from the bridge. Now last time there were coal cars in the water, they sent side-boom caterpillars into the river to pick them. The river is now running very full from recent rains, and there is broken ice on it. This may be a problem. Any body got a helicopter that can lift a container half full of Water?
Winds at the time were gusting to 50 MPH at Middletown international [Harrisburg] Airport. allowing for increase of wind between in the gap in mountains at the bridge location plus increase for the height of the bridge and containers above ground, Then take the equivalent force times by the area of the containers times the Coefficient of drag and holy smokes, As I recall from my Aerodynamics class the right conditions you can fly a barn-door.
Seems to me the old Pennsy never had trouble with this bridge. But then again it never run anything but plain vanilla boxcars and single trailers on flat cars.
NS stated to news that trains can not be easily rerouted. Long time ago there was a line from Selinsgrove to Lewistown (bridge, still in place) as well as parallel routes from Altoona thru Bellefonte. Keep ripping up rail lines and of course re routing becomes a problem.
As of noon today they were still there, I saw them.
Please note, almost every day there is a fully loades coal train parked in ENola ready to call for wind duty…
How much do you want to invest in a line that doesn’t earn its keep from wayside traffic to have it for the several days/decade that it is needed as a detour route?
Unless the customer wants his train delivered.