[:O] What is the procedure for a train crew if they come upon a tornado?
Pick a religon and pray, duck, and hold on.
Be my guess.
depends on the situation but I know for bnsf its to stop the train and wait it out, I know the newest locomotives with widecabs the nose is considered a tornado shelter, an older engine with a regular nose I’m not sure what protection you would get. There was a train that was hit by a tornado outside brush colorado on the bnsf line, hit the dp units of the train locomotives were 500-600 feet from track also derialed some coal cars.
Get out and get in a low area or if near an area with buildings get ot a sturdy one FAST!
The DS is usually pretty good at telling you if high winds and or storms are in your area. Some trains under the SSI are not allowed to move if winds are above 50 mph so if your on one of them you can at least hang out and get your pac set to the weather channel and do as stated above. Find religion fast as I am not about to sit in the short hood of a loco. Could care less what the safety gurus say here I will empower myself to get the hell off and in a ditch! But I have the diesel shop right next to me so I will be in there.
I’m going to go with the engine as an option over the ditch. If I was an engineer and hit the ditch in a severe weather situation, I would be worried about my train, or parts of it, following me into the ditch.
CC
Put it in Emergency and hold on!
If it was me I would much rather be inside the cab than outside the cab… cause if its coming right at you aint’ gonna outrun it even if you had Wiley Coyotes Acme patented rocket boots on! Tornados catch cars racing away let alone a guy running !
A modern engine weighs so much it might get blown over but thats all that will happen. If the cars behind get blown over that doesnt necessarily mean the engines will.
Chris, I like your point.
Question: can anyone guess how much wind does it take to blow over an engine? As in MPH. Here is California we get the Santa Ana’s though they’ve blown over trucks and once I thought that it was going to pick up my pick-up, I’ve never heard about a wind that knocked over a train.
I agree w/Chris30…I’ll take my chances in the well of the cab …Danny
I don’t think I’d want to be in the nose when the loco tips over and all that blue water comes bubblin up.
According to Train orders I have read, take cover in the Locomotive.
Question: can anyone guess how much wind does it take to blow over an engine? As in MPH. Here is California we get the Santa Ana’s though they’ve blown over trucks and once I thought that it was going to pick up my pick-up, I’ve never heard about a wind that knocked over a train.
My guess would be 250 mph when the locomotive was on the track but once it fell off its not going anywhere the day a 200 ton locomtive gets airborn is the day pigs fly!!![angel] [angel]
Hit the brakes and hold on for a wild ride!!!
According to a metorologist friend of mine:
Only the largest and most powerful tornados (high end F4s and F5s) can pick up modern locomotives, they’re just way too heavy. The major issue in tornado situation isn’t being sucked up into it but instead being turned into pulp by flying debris. The metal skin of a locomotive won’t offer protection from a direct hit, a 2’x’4’ flying at speed can punch a hole in a concrete wall, but it should be enough to get out alive in a near miss.
The best course of action I could think of would be exactly what’s been said, stop, get in the nose and pray to your deity of choice that it’s not a direct hit, because even if it’s not big enough to move the engine itself, it’s still going to shoot a lot of junk through the sheetmetal.
Cheers!
~METRO
Thanks Metro for that kind of info. If any of you in the midwest ever get the chance to see an F4 or F5 pick up an engine make sure you get your video camera and shoot some footage for me.
Boy I didn’t even think about what debri would do to an engine. Boy would that scary the Hell out of me sitting in a cab, or anywhere for that matter, and have a tornado come through. We just don’t get those around here.
…as in “Here, YOU hold the camera! I’m headin’ thataway!”
What happens if the rails or a car is struck by lightning?
funny about the lightning, lightning hits the tracks during big storms around here plays havoc on the signals and power switches, as in they dont work till they get a signal guy out there at 3 am. The other night when we went through Belle Plaine, same place the train derailed on tuesday, our fred was struck by lighting, they ended up cutting fred off. No other problems with the locomotive or cars, but fred was litlle black and the hadle to unscrew fred was budging.
The problem with a locomotive is a lot of “sail area” is presented to broadside winds, and the base isn’t all that wide. Given enough wind the locomotive will get pushed over its center of gravity and … Head or tail-on, the engine will probably stand its ground, although the winds in a tornado aren’t usually that simple.
I once saw a picture of a bunch of hoppers parked on a track parallel to the main track (it was on a curve, to boot). The caption said the hoppers had been welded to the track as a windbreak, as that particular location had a reputation for blowing cars off the track.
An empty boxcar or hopper is going to take a ride fairly easily. Given the funky winds in a tornado, empty flats (including bulkhead, and especially centerbeam) are probably going to behave badly as well…
Blue stuff notwithstanding, I’d take the nose, too. The collision protection built into the nose will also keep some of the airborne stiff out, and even if it blows over in an F5, a locomotive isn’t going to travel far. I’d feel safer there than in an open ditch with nothing between me and all that wind and debris but my coveralls…
LOL! I agree! [:D][(-D][(-D]
If you don’t think the nose of a locomotive would not withstand a direct hit, then you have never been in the nose of a locomotive. Let’s just say they are made from some serious amounts of steel. Nothing a tornado could throw at it is going to get through steel that thick. A wide nose locomotive has 20,000 - 25,000 lbs of steel in the nose alone.
It’s true a tornado can throw a 2 x 4 through a concrete block wall. That’s because the blocks are hollow and brittle. If you have a storm room in your house made from concrete, most experts recommend to line the outside of the wall with metal–you only need sheet metal a little thicker that what autos are made of. Tests have shown that the sheet metal + concrete will stop a 2 x 4 at 400 mph.
I dunno- this is what trailing autoracks did to this unit when the train it was a part of rear-ended a loaded coal train…
I would imagine a tornado could wreak the same havoc by picking up autoracks and throwing them into the engine.