South Shore train service shut downNovember 27, 2008 at 11:23 AM | Comments (2)
All South Shore train service has been suspended indefinitely because of extensive rail damage caused by a freight train between Michigan City, Ind., and Ogden Dunes, rail officials said today.
Passenger service on the line is expected to be shut down all of Thanksgiving Day and may not resume until Friday morning, said John Parsons, spokesman for the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District.
“It’s going to be a long time,” Parsons said.
The line carries passengers between Chicago and South Bend, Ind. About 3,200 passengers who were expected to travel on the line today will have to find alternatives, Parsons said.
The damage happened after a wheel assembly on a Union Pacific freight train failed about 1:40 a.m. today. The 120-car train, hauling a full load of coal, continued to run along the along 10 miles of track on the South Shore line in East LaPorte County, damaging welds and causing 22 rail breaks, Parsons said. The damaged sections of rail have to be replaced, he said.
Don’t you just love how we send our trains to other railroads just to disrupt their service?
(Must have been UP power running through on this SouthShore [one word, thus] coal train.)
Interestingly, though, UP had a similar disruption on its own line a few days ago, in which a truck failed and the frame scraped along the track for several miles, causing incredible damage to the rail. It’s not likely that they were cars from the same group, though.
It would be interesting to know the nature of the wheel assembly “failure” or better yet to see a photo of it. It’s hard for me to imagine how a train continued for 10 miles causing 22 rail breaks along the way without derailing. It’s been more than 60 years since I last rode the South Shore but I recall that is (certainly was) single track territory with a number of grade crossings and probably at least four turnouts. It seems to me that any one of these would increase the likelihood of a derailment.
I don’t know if the guys in the caboose would have seen it, but I’ll bet they would have felt it!
Quentin, I can’t find an indication on my map (the SPV Railroad Atlas) of there being any detectors on this stretch.
In the case of the UP incident I mentioned above, the problem was detected by the dispatcher, who was getting occupancy lights where he shouldn’t have, and switches that weren’t showing the proper alignment.
As an aside, I’ve noticed that in eastern Iowa, UP has been adding dragging-equipment detectors like crazy–every two or three miles! This may be to protect their investment in concrete ties.
Wasn’t there an article in Trains a while back about a roadrailer that derailed, ran for many miles, then rerailed itself? Perhaps luck intervened here that nothing worse happened.
I understand that the line was reopened yesterday evening.
If the incident looked anything like the photos in BaltACD’s post, a dragging-equipment deterctor might have been actuated by the truck frame hanging low outside of the rail.
Makes me wonder how I would have reacted, had I been driving along U.S. 12 and seeing that train moving as I met or passed it. Also, wonder if anybody was in the NICTD headquarters building (Dunes Park station) at the time–it would have passed there.
Yes The train was powered by U.P… They pulled the rest of the train into the power plant.
I wonder how a broken wheel continued to turn. I would figure that it would just drag on the flat.
The engines just sat dead in the yard. They are to big to navagate the sharp turns from 10th to 11th on the West end and and 11th to 10th on the East end of Michigan city. Then transfer to the Kingsbury track to N/S in La Porte.
Remember, on the other end of that axle is a wheel that still wants to turn like it’s supposed to. I suspect that there could have been a bit of sliding as well.
My only experience with a flat wheel was several years ago, when we were going from Washington to New York City, buisness class, on the Vermonter. I heard the flat hitting immediately after we left the station, but thought that the train crew also would hear it and take action. The car was cut out in Philadelphia, and we had to ride coach the rest of the way. The car attendant hoped that there was a replacement available in New York, so he would not have to end his day early. Surely, it was heard when the equipment was coming into Washington; perhaps there was not another car to replace it?
For two reasons I find it hard to believe that this incident involved just a broken wheel though it certainly could have started with a wheel failure. 1) I wouldn’t think that a broken wheel by itself would cause any damage to bonding straps as shown in the photo, and 2) I think a mighty big chunk of wheel would have to be broken off to cause the massive blows that would be required to break a rail. Wouldn’t these blows be transmitted to the truck frame as well as the rail? It seems to me that the truck frame itself couldn’t have withstood the kind of punishment that resulted in 22 rail breaks without the frame iself breaking and causing a derailment.
We’ll never get the real scoop from the news media unless they chance to interview someone who’s knowledgable about railroad equiment and functions.
I’ve noticed the usual media-bashing in this situation, mostly because those of us in the hobby are a little more conversant with the technology than most people. As an exercise, try to describe this event to your friends, co-workers, etc who DO NOT share our hobby and are not very familiar with the terminology or technology. Use of inside jargon when speaking to an outsider is considered to be poor communication.
You have not worked on the operating side of a railroad in cold weather. Rail steel, while very strong is also rather brittle. Cold weather makes the rail even more brittle. The impact from a broken wheel - a wheel with a chunk of the tread missing, will create a tremendous impact - a very sharp and localized impact on the rail with the edge of the broken wheel acting very much like a chisel at the point of impact. In the CSSB case we are dealing with a broken wheel on a LOADED coal train, with each car having a gross weight of somewhere between 260000 & 280000 pounds (130 to 140 tons) - that weight makes for a mighty powerful hammer in driving the chisel point of the broken rail into cold brittle rail. The impact of the wheel itself may not break the rail at the instant of impact, however, it sets up a major stress riser in the rail - like scoring a line on a piece of glass to make a break line - the movement of the balance of the loaded coal train and the wave action stresses it applies to t
How far apart are the blocks on the south shore? If you’re breaking the rail, you’re probably going to be leaving behind TOLs. (track occupancy lights) . Our rule books says if you leave two TOLs behind… you have to stop and take a walk to make sure you still have round wheels.
In fact I have as a steam locomotive fireman on the IC but that was over 50 years ago and I never had any experience involving a broken wheel. Even if I had any first hand knowledge, I doubt it would be relevant given the light carload weights of that time relative to todays coal loads and the advances that I presume have been made over the intervening years in both rail and wheel metallurgy.
While the truck frame may have withstood the pounding, I still find it hard to believe that blows hard enough to cause 22 rail breaks repeated time and again over the course of 10 miles wouldn’t have completely destroyed the wheel. I’d think this would cause the truck frame to drop and snag a tie, crossing plank or slab, turnout frog or rail or something of the like and derail the car. Though I can see that if it were a trailing rather than a leading wheel in a truck assembly the frame might simply drag and never snag anything. I’ll bow to those of you who have current knowledge of such incidents.
