Just after the FRA issues a final report painting RCO’s in a less than glorious light, a RCO runs into a empty Boardman coal train at Hinkle closing down the yard and mainlines for a time. The incident happened at 8:50 this morning.
RCO/RCL report;
http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/05_007775finalreport_RCL.pdf
what did you think would happen??? RCO’s are dangerous…
looks like the RR are going to have to go back to manned switch engines.
From the Tri-City Herald;
A runaway train caused a derailment and small fire about 8:30 a.m. Thursday in a switching yard just south of Hermiston.
The accident apparently occurred when the remote-controlled Union Pacific train, which had no one on-board, quit responding to operators’ commands. Operators were able to anticipate that it would collide with rail cars parked in the switching yard off Feedville Road south of town and warned Hermiston fire officials.
The engine of the runaway train ran into a line of empty coal-hauling cars, then jumped the tracks, hit an embankment and overturned. Fifteen cars were reportedly derailed.
Firefighters quickly put out a small fire that broke out in the engine using a fire extinguisher. Diesel fuel was spilled, and was being cleaned up by late morning.
Down with Remote Controls!!!
As long as no one was hurt, I can’t help but laugh.
However,
The day a runaway nails a propane car or causes a toxic spill, it won’t be so funny.
Well typically, Remote control means unmanned. DUH!
Propane?
They lit a 100 gallon tank once at a fire show years ago, roasted all of us spectators for 30 minutes.
I have seen them operate for many hours at Barstow on the BNSF with no difficulty. Go to my web site then the Barstow pix & you can see them in action [:p]
I guess they are not going to be able to sweep this one under the table.[;)]
Quote by: Funnelfan:
KInda sounds like what happens to my TV when the batteries stop working.
BTW… Funnelfan, do you use/create dispatching boards for SCC (or whatever they’re called now) TD3? Maybe it’s just the name.
CC
Yes, I’ve made territories for TD3. I really need to update my funnel territory to represent Hauser Yard, and I was testing out a somewhat updated Boyer East last night.
I thought there was a fail safe circuit built into the RCO system that automatically applied brakes if the signal failed or was lost. Is this not true? Or are we looking at another case of operator error?
Erik
in addition to Erik’s question, aren’t they suppose to be speed limited when in RC mode? It doesn’t sound like it was going that slow to knock 15 cars off the track and roll.