As some people probably know the town that I live in had a very dangerous derailment Sunday. It was kind of scary and very interesting to watch the whole thing unfold and having two scanners was great as I got to listen to the conductor and engineer describe in detail what happened as it happened as well as listen to the clean up crew. I’m still listening as I type this because the area is still being cleaned up. What I found interesting though was the amount of specialized equipment that was brought into town for the cleanup. Even the CN command post and the OPP(police) command post are very large. I’ve taken a ton of pictures of the equipment but we can’t get close to the accident scene. I was thinking something like this would make a great diorama or scene on a layout just because of all the equipment involved. Has anyone tried this before?
Ah yes, the hazards of being a train freak.
I keep on forgetting about those hazards. You know the ones, buying a house close to the tracks.
The house I live in is roughly a mile from the CN Kingston Sub (30 mins down the line from the current CN derailment) & about 600’ from Canadian Pacific’s Belleville sub.
OOPS!
Oh well, C’est la vie.
Gordon
Back in the '50s, MR had a short article on a modeler who specialized in wreck scenes:
- Overturned (steam) locomotive, with appropriately damaged plumbing, rodding and equalizers.
- Stove in, splintered wooden box cars.
- Trucks and lading scattered about.
- Mangled rail on split, broken ties.
The text described how he ‘injured’ cast lead cattle with a soldering iron and appropriate paint. Thankfully, there was no photo of that.
On a more practical note, this is something like modeling a highway accident, or a building demolition. It might interest a one-time visitor, but would get old for the owner after the third (or so) viewing. I’d rather see all of that specialized equipment parked in an appropriately detailed storage facility while my trains continue to operate, derailment-free, on the tracks.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Sounds like the perfect diorama for a competition.
Some photos here: http://www.northumberlandnews.com/news/article/174178
My house is only a couple of miles from the crash site. Sunday we had to pack our bags and get ready to evacuate but in the end we never did. In those pictures there was actually someone in the backhoe working when it happened as well as a few guys working around it. I bet they got a few stories to tell. I’ve watched these trains go by me for years, sometimes standing just 10 feet away from them and never really thought much about what was in them. The one’s that derailed were carrying jet fuel, butane, waste petrolium and some sort of acid. It ruptured a natural gas line and the butane car caught on fire and burned for almost 24 hours. I wonder what kind of noise 2 tank cars full of jet fuel would have made if they blew up, lol. Right now there must be at least 50 flat bed trucks and tanker trucks parked all over the place just waiting for their turn to haul something away. It’s actually kind of cool to see but we still can’t get near the crash site to see the progress.
As I mentioned to a friend recently, CN probably derailed on purpose so that VIA couldn’t use their tracks!
[;)]
Having said that, a diorama of a crash scene would be cool.