I remember hearing this from my planning teacher about a month ago (year?). This exact thing happened to a friend and fellow worker of her father. She said that she and her family went to visit their father at the railyard. Her father’s friend was walking on top of the cars, having to jump the gap between two cars. While her family was talking, her fathers friend was about to jump to the next car when the train pulled ahead. This widened the gap and her father’s friend fell between the cars. The train stopped, and her father’s friend got wedged between the two couplers. Everyone came rushing to his aid. He was also talking, saying he wanted to see his family and a priest. I think it was about this time that her father told her to go home. Later, her father returned and said that he died when the train cars were being pulled apart. Turns out that having him wedged between the cars kept him alive.
I have no idea if that story is true, but the concept is valid. Crushing abdominal injuries result in massive internal bleeding, but the bleeding is minimal until the crushing object is removed.
The treatment is for the rescue squad to install MAST (Military AntiShock Trousers) and start IVs in both arms before removing the crushing object. The rest is in the hands of a good trauma surgeon.
This seems to be a familiar theme: A boxcar left at a siding just north of Calgary, Alberta, the car was there for years, finally someone questioned about it and it was opened and contained brand new cars, (remember, cars were shipped in double door boxcars) which were, by now, 10 years or older, this legend has been verified by many people, but no one can follow up as to where these cars ended up.
I couldn’t find “J.C. Cohn” or the album I think it came from (Spaghetti Sauce and Other Delights) online, but I do recommend Alan Sherman’s album of greatest hits. It’s on sale at Amazon. - a.s.
Sounds good in theory. However, how do you account for a runaway/derailment like what happened at Cajon (was it in the 80’s?). The final study on the wreck showed that the overall weight of the train was more than what the crew thought it was. How could this have happened if the weight of the train does not make a difference in stopping the train?
Because it was going down hill. Continuing use of the mechanical brakes for long periods of time causes them to overheat and they glaze over and become ineffective.
You can demonstrate this in your car. Put one foot on the gas and with the other one partially depress the brake and drive around for a while.
I do t"Charlie"already. It actually has an interesting history. It was originally done as a political campaign song in the late 1940’s, and caught on with the general public (but not enough to win the election). While the words were new, the tune was not. It was used in a 19th century tune called “Wreck of the Old '97” and a later tune called “The Ship That Never Returned”. There’s also an interesting parody of the “Rock Island Line” apparently written in the 1950’s, which I sometimes perform to cringing audiences. The chorus (“The Rock Island Line is a mighty fine line…”) is the same as the orignal, but the verses aren’t. For example, here’s the second verse:
The seven forty-five was always late
But arrived today about quarter to eight
The engineer said as they cheered his name
“Well, we’re right on time, but this is yesterday’s train.”
We had this very discussion in accident reconstruction training when we pointed out to the instructor that there was no place in the speed from skidmarks formula for the weight of the vehicle.
To prove the point, we went out in the side driveway and had the smallest guy in the class drive a car exactly 45 MPH and at a mark in the driveway dead slide it to a stop. We then added the 5 heaviest guys in the class and 10 50 pound bags of dry concrete mix in the trunk, thus increasing the weight of the car by 1500 pounds and repeated the slide. The difference in the length of the skid marks was less than 6 inches.
I don’t know if this is an urban legend or not, but here goes: while operating during a heavy fog a train goes into emergency. The conductor climbs down the engine to check for broken air hose or whatever and proceeds to walk the train, falling to his death a few seconds later. It seems the engine came to a stop on a trestle. This story was told to me when I was a conductor-trainee to emphasize the importance of knowing exactly where your train is at all times.
Actually “The Ship That Never Returned” was the older song with that melody. A guy living near the actual site of the wreck of “Old 97” (“97” was the train number by the way, not the engine number) in rural Virginia wrote the new words to go with the old song. IIRC the wreck happened in 1903.
However, Vernon Dalhart’s record of “Wreck of the Old 97” was an early hit record in the 1920’s, when Folk / Hillbilly music first started to be recorded, so most people nationally probably knew that song before they had heard of “The Ship That Never Returned”.
Because as with most principles, there are limits. Here, it is usually expressed in maximum Tons Per Operative Brake or TPOB - and in this context, a single ‘Brake’ means an entire freight car with 8 wheels and 8 (usually - sometimes more) functioning brakeshoes. The area and maximum potential force or pressure of those brakeshoes on the treads of the steel wheels is the same, regardless of whether the car is loaded or not, and how much it weighs
The first one that comes to mind are Gunderson’s “shackle” box cars.
Another usually revolves around a railroad being faced with some form of complaint by a citizen’s action committe (herabouts lovingly refered to as “NIMBYs”), to which the urban legend defense is often employed that “The Railroad was here first” which of course is nonsense. Tax paying citizens deserving protection from large corporations that would otherwise walk all over them have been a part of America LONG before the first rail was ever spiked down. [:-,]
The “shackle” cars and related R.R myths (i.e that the Amtrak Beech Grove shops were built as a secret concentration camp) are so enduring that the same videos posted on Youtube purporting to reveal the “truth” by Left wing conspiricists during the last administration are being re-posted by right wing conspiricists during the current administration…IMHO, all of those folks need to find a better hobby…
The story goes back decades. A passenger conductor worked the same run for years. He was a sober, respected family man. When most his age took retirement, he did not. He died with his blue suit on.
Settling his estate proved problematic. There were two wills in two states. A different will at each end of his run. There were two wives and two groups of children with same husband/father. The different family beneficiaries never suspected the other existed until it came time to claim the body.