From last Sunday’s NY Times (7/29). Just curious. Is an incident like this “not unusual” as stated in the story? Who’s to blame, if anyone?
The News: Two unattended freight cars loaded with military equipment rolled out of the Army base at Fort Drum, N.Y., Monday morning, and coasted about eight miles down a rail line to the outskirts of Watertown, where they bumped into a stopped railroad work train and jumped of the rails, starting a small fire.
Behind the News: Damage and injuries in the incident turned out to be fairly minor, with one railroad worker suffered a sprained ankle. The Army said that nothing very dangerous was in the cargo; it was mostly maintenance equipment and personal belongings of a unit of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, that is due to deploy to Iraq in September. Even so, the incident alarmed local officials, who noted that it could have been much worse, since the cars had picked up considerable speed along the way, had crossed several highways and were headed toward the center of town. Railroad experts said it was not unusual for uncoupled freight cars to start rolling once the air bleeds out of their air brakes, if hand brakes on the cars are not set – in fact, railroads depend on it to sort cars and make up trains in some switching yards. Still, they aren’t supposed to leave military bases all by themselves. The state police and federal officials are investigating.
Runaway freight cars in a BNSF railyard in Denver, CO earlier this year colided with and literaly destroyed two Geeps, completely ripping off the frame of an ex-ATSF GP35 #2505.
It certainly IS unusual, as you don’t hear about it often, and when it does happen, it makes the papers. It shouldn’t happen, because it indicates either brake failure or bad train handling. As to what the exact cause of this accident, I can’t say for sure, but usually brake failure will cause a single car to get away from you - it’s unlikely that the brakes on two cars would fail at the same time (though it’s certainly a possibility, especially if the cars were left unattended for a long time without handbrakes). However, these cars got away and went down a MAIN LINE, which is usually protected by derails and such at the yard, so it could be that a switcher crew was moving the cars around with the brakes disabled (which is a common practice), so the derails would be disabled to allow for switch moves. Very mysterious.
The cause of this one was pretty obvious; someone did not securely tie down the hand brakes on the two railcars. Army personnel were responsible for the loading process, but I didn’t see who spotted the cars in any of the reports; Army or CSX. Whoever it was didn’t do their job.
Suppose this happened at night and motorist at a crossing, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, ventured across and got hit by the freight cars. Do you think the railroad would have been held liable, or maybe the army?
Did the crossings have any type of warning devices or did they just have signs?
I thought brakes without air would automatically be in the stop mode and that is why engines have to pump up the brake systems before moving. To get one to move, does someone have to manually turn the brake wheel to pull the shoes back from the wheel?
A decrease in brake pipe pressure, causes the car’s brake valve to increase pressure in the brake cylinder. Thereby applying the brakes. Unless connected to a continuous supply of air, the pressure in the brake cylinder will eventually bleed off, causing the air brakes to release.
It’s also possible to manually release the air brakes. Either purposefully, for switching purposes. Or accidentally, by snagging the bleed rod by mistake.
That’s why you’re suppose to set the hand brake as well, when leaving cars standing.
CSX spotted the cars nearly three months earlier. A number of things could have happened - any number of people could have released the brakes and/or pulled a cut lever.
The cars had enough speed that they ran straight over at least one, and possibly two derails.
All crossings except two near the point of origin had crossing protection, however the cars could well have over run it. There was at least one close call, as a motorist was stopped on the crossing and moved only when warned, and then only after said disbelieving motorist had the oncoming cars pointed out to him.
The cars were being loaded when they took off. One school of thought is that the loading process caused the apparently unsecured cars to start rolling. They were right at the top of a hill in the yard. Had they rolled in the other direction they would have simply set into the adjoining cars, which they were ostensibly coupled to.
Had one switch been set the other way, they would have travelled less than a half mile before hitting cars in another yard on the post, and probably at a speed under 20.
Some reports had the cars hitting speeds of 60 on their downhill run. A curve just before the point of impact probably took some speed off.
