As has been pointed out, track authority is for the track and the vehicles thereon.
If someone knows they are going to have an issue such as this, they need to contact the railroad ahead of time. By doing so, the dispatcher can issue instructions accordingly, be it to hold trains, advise them to keep an eye out, move slowly, or whatever may be necessary. Odds are a railroad supervisor will be on the scene for something like this.
This is often done for things like parades. I’m sure that Lake States RR issued an advisory for the event I just attended in Michigan, as there would be more than the usual number of folks (especially pedestrians) just at the crossings, never mind anywhere else.
On the other hand, a situation such as we are discussing here calls for calling the number on the blue placard on the crossing to advise them that the crossing is fouled. This would apply to any short notice situation, such as a stalled car or a high-centered semi. That’s why the number is posted, along with specific crossing information.
Perhaps I should have been clearer. The permitting, positive route assurance, and initial scheduling for these high/wide/overlength moves would continue just as they do now; the difference is that at the timethe vehicle reaches the crossing area they phone in toget specific foul authority from the railroad. Only when that is assured in some safe, unambiguous way would the driver actually start to approach or occupy the crossing.
it would’ve nice to have an instant hold or emergency button (or equivalent) that would command all the rail traffic to slow, stop, or go to restricted speed until ‘cleared’. It is pretty easy to see why that is unworkable. To me it’s a different thing to re-confirm arrangements before any emergency can, well, begin to emerge, as it can quickly catch many problems or concerns not recognized in the initial planning… this accident apparently being a good example in a number of respects.
I am not sure what all is covered in the permitting process. Grade crossings with signals and gates are capable of offering permission to cross without any notice or preparations other than complying with the applicable driving laws.
A slightly oversize load, such as a dozer with a slightly over-width blade requiring a permit; might not require any special procedure in passing through a grade crossing. It could just be driven through as usual while obeying the traffic laws. It could pass over the crossing as quickly as other vehicles.
But consider a greatly oversize load such as the wind mill blade or one of those gigantic industrial products riding on those big multi-wheeled platforms with hydraulic steering and position shifting. This could be a load that weighs say 500-1000 tons. That might require the full road width and it would require movement with no interaction with the general road traffic. And it certainly would not allow the load to operate over a grade crossing with the contingency of a possible train arrival.
A very large load may simply be incapable of passing over the grade crossing within the allotted time of a grade crossing warning, should a train arrive. Obviously this is what occurred with the wind mill blade.
The permitting process should be required to contact the railroad ahead of time, and seek formal permission from the railroad, and be granted that permission in a formal documentation covering all times and other details. Such a certified process has no place for informal phone calls by the truck driver, upon arrival at the crossing,
I agree that the company transiting such a load should be required to notify the raiload(s) ahead of time so that the dispatchers can notify any trains approaching such a grade crossing will know that there is an oversize load be approaching the crossing at such and such an hour.
I don’t know how this may have been permitted or who the permitting authority was. But if the county highway bubba made the decision to close the original route which had a workable crossing for this move, then I would say it was Bubba’s fault. The cops were just following County Bubba’s orders. Although there may be a case to be made that the cops should not have followed Bubba’s orders. Likewise, there may be a case to be made that the truck driver should have also not followed the orders. By not following orders, I mean simply refusing to drive the new route until the railroad and the permitting authority gave their permission.
So we can’t say who is to blame. It is possible that the driver, the cops, the country bubba, or even the permitting authority are at fault for failing to discharge their responsibilities. It is also possible that the railroad is at fault for failing to adhere to a commitment to hold trains, if they had made such a commitment.
… at least the majority of it. (that bubba managed to pass a civil service test?)…If moving outsize loads is the outfit’s bread and butter, their insurance carrier may be saying bye-bye. Moving blades and/or moving houses has a set procedure, which was not followed. (not Bucky’s fairy-tale version - Irony being that UP’s recently designated contractor consultant is not that far away in Irving…the bonehead that thought they were saving time and money might be rethinking that?) … Hope certain trucking company supervision is invited to the whuppin’ out behind the woodshed for cutting corners on the spreadsheet.)
Not that our opinions really matter, but let’s face it, someone here always blame the (unnecessary pejorative used) or driver and never the rail folks. We don’t know all the data.
Something’s not quite right. A company that hauls wind blades down the highway would have experienced personel, a set procedure, a lot of expensive equipment, and they would have pilot cars front and back. If an official said the road’s closed, take a different route, the truck driver doesn’t just say “okie-dokie”.
Maybe there’s some irony we’re just not seeing? Perhaps the police closed the road because there was a long, awkward load permitted to come through at about that time… like a wind blade. [:-,]
The profanity laced video has been pulled from the internet, but it showed a lead pilot car. The one shot from the gas station shows two more pilot cars quickly pulling up.
We know the visible data. Trucks length with the blade would not let the vehicle make the turn from the parallel road across the crossing without damaging the crossing protection. That is in the hands of the trucker. The whys of him being put in that position will be food for a novella.
There was a similar crash at Intercession City, FL. In the mid-1990s. It involved a truckload of a large and heavy power plant generator. At the last turn of the road into the plant, the trailer bottomed out because the track was double and banked for a curve, so very uneven at the surface.
I once looked for references to the permitting process and the determined cause of the collision. There was no request to the railroad (CSX) for a time slot guaranteed to have no trains pass. There was no notification to CSX about the move.
The trailer hung up and they started working with jacks and blocking to raise the trailer. They called CSX and a dispatcher told them that an Amtrak train was the next train due at the crossing in about 30 minutes. Neither the moving crew nor the dispatcher said anything about holding the train even though they all knew that the trailer and generator were sitting dead center on the mainline and had no way of knowing how soon they could move it into the clear.
The train would be approaching from the south and would encounter a curve maybe ¼-mile from the crossing. So the approaching train offered no advanced view which might have giving time to slow down or even stop in time.
There was an escort crew plus the State Highway Patrol who made no attempt to flag the train even though they knew which way it would approach from and the approximate time it would arrive.
As it turned out, the train came around the curve at 75 mph after only 15 minutes ins
I live about three miles from where windmill blades coming from the south turn west onto I-80. Besides police stopping all traffic at the intersection (and making all the traffic back up with angry drivers), the rear wheels on the blade are steerable.
I can’t tell from the video, but was the rear of this blade on a steerable set of wheels?
With the mess we go through everytime those blades come through here and tie up traffic when they turn, I can’t imagine this happening unless the pilots, the driver, and the police all messed up.
Anyone know where they were coming from and going to (the windmill blade, not the train)? If they were on I-10 and headed west, one more exit and they would have had a straight shot across the crossing…
That may have been the route they planned on. If they did that they would be crossing the tracks at highway speed and probably didn’t worry about an extended foul time.
I see no proof that the driver was unable to make the turn due to the constraints of the road intersection. I do see that the gates have dropped onto or near to the windmill blade. The driver may have stopped because he did not want to damage the gates, or possibly damage the big blade. I am sure he reaslized that just scratches on that blade would result in enormous damage claims.
My bet is that while the truck move was obviously required to be permitted, and had escorts; the railroad was never notified of the move or asked for a crossing time slot free of trains passages.
Even if the truck did not strike other things besides the gates, or had to stop in order to avoid striking other things; the issue was that, with such a large load, there were just too many uncertain contingencies that could increase the crossing time to more than the maximum 25 seconds allowed by the warning lights and gates. So in that case, attempting to cross was a gamble that a train would not show up in a crossing timframe that might easily take 15 minutes instead of 25 seconds.
The circumatances were identical to the Intercession City, FL collision I mentioned above. In that case, it was reported that the trucking company had the duty to notify the CSX to protect the crossing during the movement of the oversize/weight load. The trucking company failed to make the notification, so CSX had no knowledge of it.
And also in that case, the truck got hung up, thus extendeing their foul time beyond the 25-second limit.
But there was an odd twist to that collision. This information comes to me via an aquaintence who was the crane operator who picked up the derailed and overturned locomotive. Others who were part of the trucking crew and CSX told him that they called CSX after the truck got hung up on the cr