In Trains special issue No. 8-2012, called TRAIN WRECKS, on page 48, there is an article called, A WRECK, A MULE, AND A CRATE OF FRESH WHITEFISH by David Jones.
The article tells the story of a runaway freight train on the steep grade down into L’Anse, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. I had posted a similar account of a train runaway on L’Anse Hill that occurred in 1951, and is well known in the area. That thread is here:
http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/203941/2231054.aspx#2231054
A mule or kicker is also referred to as a dynamiter , the air brakes have a defect in the valve or the piston and when the brakes are set, the car goes into emergency, sometimes it will release when the engineer recovers the brakes, sometimes it stays set, but the entire train would go into emergency braking when it “kicked”.
If the crew recovered the brakes, and this one car failed to release, then some of the story would work, but the concept of the brakes only working when the car was facing in a particular direction is a little out there, kinda hard to justify than statement.
Once the train came apart, the air brakes on the rear portion would set up,(go into emergency) and the rear portion would stop, so the only way for this to work is if the defective car came away with the rear of the train, and the anglecock was closed at the break apart, or the defective valve prevented the emergency brakes for working, which is also far-fetched.
Ed,
I am familiar with dynamiters or kickers, although, I had never heard them referred to as mules. But, in any case, I agree with your thoughts about the implausibility of the story. I have never heard of a kicker dumping its air without dynamiting the whole train.
I am trying to find a reference to this wreck to find out what really happened. If people were killed, as the story says, it must have been formally investigated.
The kicker did runaway with the rear part of the train. So I guess the question is whether or not a triple valve defect in a car could block the trainline and, in effect, bottle the air in the rear half of the train. If that were possible, then the car might have kicked, dynamited the leading part of the train, bottled the air in the trailing half, and then broke away from the leading half.&nbs
I am still waiting for an answer to my question about the factual basis for the story I referenced in the first post. I have spoken to the L’Anse, Michigan Historical Society, and also the Marquette, Michigan Historical Society. Neither one can find any information confirming the train wreck described in the story.
There was a big runaway wreck at L’Anse in 1951, which I posted about earlier, and which was also covered in an article in SOO magazine. I spoke to the author of that article, and he could not provide any information to corroborate the wreck story in the Trains publication mentioned above.
He forwarded my questions to two railroaders who have worked on most of the lines in the Upper Peninsula, and neither of them had ever heard of the wreck in the story. Both of them doubted that the wreck really happened.
This is very peculiar. I am developing an explanation on my own, and will offer it for consideration if nothing else turns up.