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NTSB: 12 pieces of rail entered passenger car in Metro-North accident
Something doesn’t compute. How did 468’ of third rail enter an 80’ car?
The article refers to 12 sections of 39 foot third rail, which probably ended up piled next to each other.
When something works so well the design is rarely tested… It just works… People with trucks and SUV’s should stay away from rails… Now not to get past the gate is another issue. my rule of thumb is DON"T… If you cannot drive all the way, don’t! Period… http://homepage.ntlworld.com/russelliott/3rd-4th.html#Safety-blocks
The actions of the driver were pretty inexplicable, makes one ask if she was impaired
William, I’m with you on just how did the third rail end up in the first car. Even though it was jointed rail it still shouldn’t have broken lose and more importantly nor should the splice bars that hold them together break. Or Perhaps someone didn’t fully bolt them together as required for that size rail. Someone being the RR MOW crews? And that should play an important part of this investigation along with the rest of the wreck.
The third rail isn’t a load-bearing rail; it just has to hold together enough to conduct electricity and keep itself off the ground. I don’t know how sections of third rail are joined, but I’ll be they aren’t joined with the same six-bolt fishplates that hold running rails together. Given all that, it does seem odd that a dozen sections would end up all in one car. And maybe it’s just as well that they did. If the joints had held up, 468’ of third rail could have skewered its way through several more cars and caused a lot more injury and damage. As for metallurgical analysis of the third rail, it sounds like it wasn’t the rail that failed but the supports, and it is the supports that ought to be examined. Maybe that’s what the original summary report meant.
Speculation is great fun, but I guess we’ll just have to wait until the investigation is complete and read the final report to find out what actually happened.
The third rail first pierced the SUV before entering the lead rail car…which tells me that it was the SUV that dislodged the 3rd rail as it was pushed along in front of the train…common sense deduction.
ED, speculation and theorizing is a fun and and intriguing exercise…
Lawrence, I think that if the"splice bars," call 'em angle bars, were fully bolted, the 3rd rail probably would not have come apart.
Ed’s pointing out that the 3rd rail is not load bearing, absolutely correct. NYC used under-running 3rd rail current-pick-up shoes, even less load than an over running shoe, like LIRR’s.
Here’s the theory: suppose the carcasses of the driver and the SUV were shoved and compressed solidly so that they could scoop up the 3rd rail? Suppose only 1 end of the 3rd rail was bolted?..the angle bars would support the other end. suppose the SUV and the train, scooped up the 3rd rail as if it was a row of falling domino’s.? the angle bar bolts easily breaking…
I am unfamiliar with 3rd rail operation. I assume there has to be a gap in the 3rd rail at the crossing. Does the train have to be long enough to span this gap so that some part of the train is always in contact with a section of 3rd rail, or is there some kind of battery that can take it across a gap? Would and overhead wire be safer?
I will speculate.
Could the automobile after being struck by the train caught the third rail, started breaking the third rail off its attachments, then the third rail would have enter the railcar thru the cab and into the passenger compartment.
Now for about 30 seconds or longer, before the circuit breakers pop, you have a source of arcing to start the fire, with whatever gasoline the automobile had in the fuel tank.
Impaired, texting or jabbering on a cell-phone, methinks.
Yes, there is a gap in the third rail at highway crossings. On an 80’ car, one of the shoes would be in contact while the other bridged the gap. No batteries. Back in the days when New York Central’s “S” motors did the switching, and “T” and “P” motors handled the outbound trains, GCT had overhead “third rails” where big gaps occurred (e.g. at slip [‘puzzle’] switches. A small air-activated pantograph collected the power. On occasion, when a locomotive, or MU car, got isolated, terminal personnel had a ‘jumper cable’, with long wooden handles, that they could connect to a third rail and the unit’s contact shoes, like ‘jump-starting’ a car. Yar, they did wear rubber gloves, too. New Haven FL9s could fire up the Diesel (which was rarely turned off in GCT) and get going. Many NH motors had missing pick up shoes, which could be a problem for the EP-5s. If the eastbound NH locos air-activated shoes didn’t deploy, on transition from catenary to third rail at Woodlawn, NY, the lame shoe would be clipped off by a safety device. Maintenance, on the NH, wasn’t great, back when…
Ed: the third rail is of an “I” section. Special angle bars/fishplates join the sections in the web. See Emily Moser’s “Iridetheharlemline” for some good info and drawings of the Wilgus/Sprague Third Rail System that were recently posted.
Unfortunately, we won’t know the true story until Sen. Charles “Photo-op” Schumer (D-NY) completes his in-depth analysis and we see him on the MSM.
I have heard comments that the NH FL-9s and EP-5s had small DC pantographs to contact the overhead third rail. Is this true? I never climbed up on one to find out, although I had a multitude of opportunities to do so, which may be a reason I am still alive. The FL-9s idled all day in GCT, in Diesel-mode, awaiting an outbound assignment. No EPA/Sierra Club loons, back then, to complain.
Yes, ole photo-op" Schumer has his puss on the nightly news all the time. Most of the time he is proposing more useless legislation that costs the taxpayers more money.
Hi Williams Hays, the news after the wreck stated she got out and took a look at the situation, got back in, possibly buckled her seatbelt, and drove forward. No mention of her being on a phone or texting during her egress, inspection of her car, and ingress.