NS train 75J came upon a burning trestle Tuesday night (1/12/10), according to the sketchy accounts the crew made an emergency brake application but couldn’t stop before entering the trestle. They stopped in the midst of the fire and had to bailout of the train suffering burns and other injuries.
UPDATE with a bit more information. The location was near Walker Springs, AL on the ex- SOU Mobile to Selma line. The two two crewman were helicoptered to a hospital with a burn unit.
The Conductor, Aaron Milhouse had died from injuries suffered in this incident, please put his family in your prayers.
From http://www.jreb.org/ns/index.php?topic=8599.0 :
(CLARKE COUNTY, Ala.) - Diesel fuel was expected to burn into the early morning hours Wednesday after a train caught fire on the Norfolk Southern railroad in the Jackson area. Two people with burn injuries were taken by helicopter to a hospital, said Clark County EMA Director Roy Waite.
Around midnight, three of the train’s engines containing 8,000 gallons of fuel each were burning on a railroad trestle and fuel was spilling into a creek below, Waite said. Because of its remote location, emergency responders were forced to use ATVs to reach the scene of the fire.
Waite said no chemicals were on board the train and he did not believe there was any danger of the train exploding. He said the diesel fuel, however, would take hours to burn out.
The train remained on the tracks and did not derail during the fire. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
From http://www.jreb.org/ns/index.php?topic=8601.0 :
NS GE Dash 9-40CW’s 9522, 9632 and 9874 were severely damaged by fire late on the night 1/12. NS train 75J approached a trestle near Jackson, AL, and found the trestle on fire. The train attempted to stop, but finally came to a stop with the locomotives on the burning trestle. The crew jumped from the units into the water below. They were rescued and airlifted to a local hospital. The locomotives each had over 3,000 gallons of fuel and were allowed to burn themselves out, as fire crews were unable to reach the remote location, except on ATV’s.
A terrible tragedy - truly a real-life “worst-case scenario” - what would you have done if you were in their places ?
that is the reason why i tell every new conductor to let me decide what brake application to do or not do. Now dont get me wrong we dont know who made the brake application but if i was running it would be 8 and sand i would not stop i would try and get to the other side. same at road crossing if a fuel truck is blocking the way open it up and let it fly, you have a better chance get past the flames then stopping in the middle of them.
I couldn’t agree more and I doubt we’re ever going to know who dumped the air, if it were their first reaction to what they were seeing, acting before they thought, or what. Easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Were the flames so high that the air hoses were melting before they could get the air reset and possibly pull off the bridge? It’s a sad, sad situation and I hope to never be faced with a event as dire as that.
Well to at least try and put a reasin behind my statement, Valley your right in that we can make statement sitting in the easy chair, but look at reality, as huge as the timebers are on the old wood treasels it would need to burn for several hours at least 6 or 7 hours to make the thing unsafe. I am sure that a differant train ran thru there so the sight of the treasle burning may be nerve racking get over the bridge, then stop snap judgments and common sense go along way.
Speculation is simply a self-serving means for us to try to project what logic or physical strength we would apply if we had been in situation that we mold and control within our mind based on tidbits of information that we have received about a situation. What we need to remember is that we were not in that situation, we do not have all the information, we were not there, we do not have a complete picture, and entertaining and espousing ideas that we would have done different is foolish given our very limited vision of the wide spectrum of events that led to this tragedy. What we need to remember is that their families, friends, and coworkers are going through a difficult time and searching for answers anywhere they can find them… including this site. Do not ever assume that what your mind forms as a representation of the situation will ever equal what the physical world manifested. Pray that nothing ever occurs that produces a re-creation of the physical situation and your speculations are truly put to the test. God bless and watch over the families, friends, and coworkers of these men.
My concern is what is the Engineer’s condition?
I hope he/she will recover, but no where is his/her condition reported. Hopefully,the Engineer will recover.
Surely, families of both deserve our hopes and prayers.
The engineer, Aaron Milhouse, passed away. God bless him and his family.
http://www.utu.org/worksite/detail_news.cfm?ArticleID=50400
The conductor, Mickey Stepp, is unconscious and in stable condition.
Prayers to the family for the recovery of Mr. Stepp. and condolences to the family of Mr. Milhouse.
Looks like Wabash’s instincts were probably right- 8 and sand -and stop on the other side, without any eyewitness to fill in actual situation.
Years ago a driving instructor passed along to his class, sage advice; " when driving, always have an escape strategy planned." Advice that on a couple of occasions proved to be prophetic and helpful.
You guys must remember a few things maybe ive been thru this and who says there wasnt a eye witness, when they get this train off the bridges the first thing they did was download the tapes and pulled the rail view it wont be til monday or tuesday and valley and myself will be looking at the video at the trainmaster office.
May God have mercy on them and their families.
After some further thought, this is worthy of some discussion - it’s not just ‘Monday-morning quarterbacking’. These situations may ocuur more often than we realize. A few years ago there was a video circulating on-line of a UP unit coal train that got stuck on a burning trestle somewhere in Texas or thereabouts, caused by either a hotbox or a stuck brakeshoe or something similar, if I recall correctly. Also, within the last year or two the UP also had a wooden trestle over a waterway near Sacramento that caught fire for some unexplained reason, as far as I can recall - vandalism and/ or careless fires by the homeless that frequented the place were suggested as possible causes.
So there’s a more than infinitesimal possibility that one of the professional railroaders here could encounter something seemingly as unimaginable as this again in the forseeable future. And as mentioned above, to have a plan of some kind - or even to have thought through the alternative pros and cons prior to being confronted by the actual event - can go a long ways towards promoting clear thinking and a quick decision to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again. That’s why aircraft pilots and railroad engineers have to train in simulators, where they can be exposed to these kinds of extreme scenarios in a a controlled and safe environment, and figure out a good response - and critique it afterwards. Remember, it was just over a year ago that the US Airways plane landed in the Hudson River after the dual bird strikes shut down all of its engines - a supposedly ‘unthinkable’ event. Many people are glad for Capt. Chesney Sullenberger’s many years of training, accident investigations, and glider pilot hobby which led to that happy outcome.
Paul, You’re right. Applying lessons learned, analyzing case studies, and developing scenarios is always beneficial especially when integrated into training. Perhaps if there is enough history of similar circumstances, they will integrate new procedures or technology to avoid any loss. I would imagine that some sort of sensor could be utilized. Maybe look to the military…
With an employee fatality? Nope. That video and those downloads are going to be locked away in the legal department. Regular employees will never see them.
If it’s not a fatal accident, are the railview videos normally shown to employees for some type of training information?
Norris the answer is yes and no, its very hard for me to put it into words that wont get edited or some guy telling me his 6 year old kid is reading it and haft to exsplaine why i said something, to sum it up Liability
I think Wabash has made a very interesting point about an engineer’s decision to try and stop short of a fire (with the risk of stopping in the fire), versus keeping moving so he can pass through the fire.
I cannot think of anything other than fire that would pose such a dilemma. It could be a fire in a timber trestle or any other type of fire near the track. If you have two men in the cab, each charged with the responsibility to stop the train in an emergency, a fire on the track certainly does raise the question of a possible disagreement between the two men as to whether to try to stop or keep going. And either choice could be fatal.
I am surprised that the railroads do not have rules that define the authority to stop a train in the case of fire on the track, and more than one man in the cab. I would expect that they would have an official procedure on how to analyze a fire on or near the track when approaching with a train.
I just looked back at the posted article. Was it journalistic license or a misunderstanding when they said that each unit had 8000 gallons of fuel (has anyone heard of more than a 5000-gallon tank on a locomotive?). I can remember when tank cars held 8000 gallons.
I learned a little about the trestle today: it’s all steel, except for the deck. Knowing that (does a crew know that much about bridges it crosses?), I’d probably have opted for running across it, given the choice. Of course, I don’t know if the track condition was visible through the smoke–but if the rails were still straight and level…
I know, 20-20 hindsight.
Carl,
I can’t imagine any engineer deciding to keep going, hoping he could get through the fire without derailing, if he were 100% certain that he could stop short of the danger.
But here is the hard question:
Suppose you are an engineer who comes upon a timber trestle that is engulfed in flames, but appears to be intact. The only question is the extent to which the fire has compromised the trestle’s strength. Suppose you believe there is a 75% chance you could stop short of the danger with an emergency brake application, and a 25% chance that you will not stop in time. And if you don’t stop in time, you will probably stop in the fire zone, and possibly collapse the trestle besides.
What would you do in that case?
The accident occurred at night. The moon may have had a sliver of waning cresent, but was just a day or two away from the new moon phase http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon/index.php?month=1&year=2010&css=moon.css&Submit=Go. The sky was clear to partly cloudy. The temperature was likely between 29 to 35 degrees http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KALJACKS2&graphspan=day&month=1&day=12&year=2010. (See the graph diagrams at the bottom of the page.)
Longitude, Latitude: 31.5508, -87.7675
Just plug in the coordinates at http://maps.google.com. Google Maps shows the rail lines in standard Map view. You cans still make out the rail when you select the Satellite view plus you can see the trees and other stuff. The arrow points to location of accident.
Can’t find definitive information on the wind direction and wind speed. Plus there is a conflict between news articles on when the accident occurred. One states that it was around midnight on the 13th. Another states that it was around 9:45 p.m. on the 12th. Also, data is not available for Walker Springs. The closest local with wind data is Jackson, AL http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KALJACKS2&graphspan=day&month=1&day=12&year=2010. Wind for the area on the 12th was from the north at 8 mph with wind gusts up to 11 mph. Wind for the area on the 13th was from the northeast at 6 mph