Well I was thinking of some sort of question.
Here it is what are some of the biggest derailments anyone has ever been to or have seen on T. V
In all of my years I have not seen any derailments upclose but I have seen them on tv and they. Have been pretty bad ones So I figure to open this one up and see what some of you guys and girls have seen in past. But I have seen damaged rail cars being transported on flat cars to the repair house and some of the ones I have seen were pretty bad.
The BN stacked one up in a cut at the bottom of Nonpariel Hill east of Marsland, NE that was pretty good. I think there were more than 50 cars derailed but little coal spilled since most of the cars remained upright. They ended up perpindicular to the rails and packed in so tight there were trucks between the car sides yet the top chords of the hoppers were tight together. Memorable. Thankfully, no injuries.
A rotary drawbar failed just as the car was cresting Crawford Hill but stayed in the draft gear while the engineer bunched the train. The helpers were cut out and the train continued down hill. At the bottom of the grade where the tracks started up the next hill to Nonpariel, the engineer stretched the slack with the train doing 45 mph. The air dumped on the head end of the train and the rear end but the head end stopped first and the rear end ran into it within the cut.
I’ve only seen 2 derailments in my life,1st, In 1996(i think)BNSF had a derailment in Milledgeville,IL and many cars derailed including a few tank cars the were hauling some sort of liquid.The area smelled like heck for awhile.They just moved the cars to the side and fixed the track so they could get trains running again.Awhile after that I saw some of those tank cars on flatbeds headed east towards Chicago.
The 2nd was in Freeport ,IL just after CN bought IC.Apparently they were moving some grain cars around in the yard and the cars derailed and tipped on their sides.Grain spilled but they cleaned it up and moved the cars to the side to be taken care of later.
About a year ago an eastbound CN/IC train lost a few of its cars but luckily they didn’t smash into the rear of the train when the train stopped.All they did was back up,hook them up and move east about a mile and did its switching in the yard.
One of the only ones ive seen, the coal train derailment at New Brighton. I walk over there now and still see piles of coal that they never cleaned up.
Alec
One of the only ones ive seen, the coal train derailment at New Brighton. I walk over there now and still see piles of coal that they never cleaned up.
Alec
Weyawega Wis
In 1996, I saw the remnants of a major derailment at Effingham Illinois. 3 Conrail trains, operating under CTC signals, ran into each other and derailed causing a major fire. Last year about this time, at Benton Illinois a UP Coal train on CN tracks was crossing over the heavily used Interstate 57 when several coal cars fell from the bridge and landed onto the Interstate spilling coal all over the road. Traffic had to be diverted on another road for about a week. In 1998, a minor derailment occurred at Sims Illinois, an eastbound NS train hit a fallen tree on the track and derailed the first engine.
During 1968 I was attending a small college at Susanville in the northeastern section of California. I was living on $100.00 a month, needless to say towards the end of the month the budget was stretched thin. I’d looked for part time work to no avail, most of the part time jobs where held by the local kids. October of that year I found some day work with a Southern Pacific contractor out near Horse Lake (MP 388.0) on the Modoc line.
Apparently the derailment happened when the engineer on this westbound manifest powered by 4 F-7s fell asleep in run 5 after clearing the summit at Crest (MP392.5). The engineer awoke as the train hit 50 MPH, the speed limit in this section is 25 MPH. He put the train into emergency then the cars started to derail, 85 of the 117 cars in this manifest hit the dirt. Luck was with the crew neither the locomotives nor the caboose left the rails and nobody was injured.
My day work consisted of unloading these rail cars onto trucks. A cat would pull the cars upright and a semi would back as close to the car as possible and the unloading/loading would begin, it was all hand muck. On the case goods we’d separate the good from the bad, same with the lumber. It was hard work with long hours, but the contractor paid cash at the end of each day.
The budget at the end of October, November and December wasn’t so tight. Its kind of funny, I’d forgotten about that temporary job and the derailment until I purchased Jack Bowden and Tom Dill’s book titled “The Modoc.” That’s the biggest railroad derailment I’ve ever seen.
Jim - Lawton, NV MP 236
A 100 car train of coal smashed into the rear end of a auto rack transfer at Riverdale on the Illinois Central, somewhere around 1970. The engineer and fireman died in the crash and their remains were not recovered for several days buried under hundreds of tons of coal. The impact knocked the transfer caboose off the tracks and down the high embankment at that location. Everything above the frame of the first locomotive was stripped clean and the short end and cab of the second unit was gone. At least 10 to 15 cars of coal were dumped with many more dreailed upright. I don’t remember how many cars of Corvettes were trashed. I know that some went off the bridge and into the Calumet River.
Jay
Conrail had a pretty good pile-up in Palmer, MA in either 1999 or 2000. There had been a bridge replacement where main street crossed over the west end of the Palmer yard. The construction company that built the new bridge took the granite blocks that made up the abutments from the old bridge and made a retaining wall out of them.
One night about 1:00 am a westbound doublestack train approching the bridge noticed that the retaining wall had collapsed onto the track. They dumped the air, but at track speed it was far too late. The lead locomotive hit the granite blocks and actually went airborne under the bridge just missing hitting the girders. One of the trailling engines landed on top of a block rupturing its fuel tank which then caught fire. The well cars accordianed up behind the engines completly blocking the main, control siding and the yard lead.
The engines came to rest in front of the old Palmer depot. I worked second shift at the time and would often stop by the depot after work to catch this train. Right where I usually parked my truck, a piece of broken rail had been bent and twisted far enough off the right of way that had I been parked there it would have ended up in my passenger seat!!! The image of that comes to mind every time I’m railfanning close to the tracks.
The next morning I watched as Hulcher crews cleaned up the mess. It was amazing to watch as there modified dozers with the boom on one side and the counerweight on the other worked to clear the mess. They hauled off one container, then the other, and went back for the well cars and their trucks. It was a well coordinated operation as empty flatbed trailer trucks waited in line to pick up the containers. The well cars were left in the depot parking lot to be taken care of later. No sooner did they have the last of the cars out of the way that the American rail crane and a flatcar of panel track went to work. The first train to go past the wreck site went by at 11:00 AM the next morning - less than 12 hours
The worst derailment I was ever involved in dumped 15 cars–I was fired for that one, but got back to work after sixty days (no, it wasn’t just a suspension).
Worst one I ever saw at Proviso involved two trains sideswiping each other. Anybody who knows Proviso will appreciate this one–cars derailed on both 19 Main and 20 Main the entire distance from the Spring Switch coming off Track 1 in the hump to the North Avenue bridge. To the layperson, that was probably 80 to 100 cars on the ground. I guess neither train knew what was going on until one of the cars went over on its side and dumped the air. One of the trains was an inbound Penn Central job, and this was in the days before radio communication with foreign lines was common–so they couldn’t get him stopped.
The UPRR rearender in May west of Clinton NE, 2 locos in the ditch coal all over the ROW & contractors cutting up the damaged coal cars (at least 5 & maybe as many as 10 damaged cars). You can see the results of the accident on my web site. Just click on the rearender gallery[:o)][:p][:)]
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Originally posted by railfan619
spring 1983. a hot bearing on a car caused a chessie train to derail in defiance.a flat car went through a boxcar with canned vegatables like a hot knife through butter.saw the B&O 200 ton crane saturday morning to come and clean up the mess.
stay safe
Joe
When I was just a kid, in the winter of 1994, a CP freight derailed in the small town of Churchbridge, Saskatchewan, about a 10 minute drive from where I live. Quite a few cars (mainly intermodal cars hauling containers) jumped the track. The major concern was that there was a cemetery very close to the track where this occured and that all these containers and flatcars went flying for it. They landed right at the edge of the cemetery, but didn’t do any damage there. A couple of tank cars came off the rails, but they weren’t damaged and there were no hazmat concerns. The engines didn’t go off the rails and no one was hurt.
In the summer of '95, when my family was driving somewhere on a vacation, we found a truckless Canada grain hopper car lying on its side by a crossing on a track that bordered the highway. There’s a picture of me standing beside it. You could see way down the tracks (the road didn’t go by there, though) a CN caboose that was off the track and a crane lifting it up.
A few years later, somewhere really close to Saskatoon, I saw the remnants of a derailment. There were a few freight cars and some trucks laying beside the track.
The only other derailment I’ve encountered was a single hopper car that tipped over on its side in the yards at Bredenbury this year.
When did that happen? I was on the CNW from '69 to '72 and I’m trying to remember the incident.
Mitch
The worst incident I was in was the head-onder at the Gary Gantlet (Pennsy Overhead in SSL speak) in January of '93. I was deadheading to Chicago and was on the head end of number 12 when we cornered number 7 account they blew the signal.
Mitch
Mitch, I’m pretty sure it was later than 1972 (I hired out in 71, and had been there a little while by then). The inbound was PC (I’m pretty sure it was pre-Conrail), and the train on 20 Main was 298’s cars. Won’t name names, but the wreck was probably caused by the cut from 298–that engineer really had 'em rocking!
Glad you survived the Gary incident–I remember seeing the cleanup from that one.
Around 1967 the Sunset Limited hit a steel truck about 15 miles east of Los Angeles.Locos and cars were spread all over the place.I also saw the wreck at Duffy street at the foot of SP Cajon Pass cutoff.
Funny it should be 298’s extra involved. That was the second train I ever worked. 297-298 up to Fon du Lac and return. Slept like a baby on the way up, got the air hose against the cabinet reatment on the way home.
Mitch
Ahh, yes, the Weyuwega BBQ, got really lucky those LP cars didn’t go up. Still waiting for the WSOR equivelant with ethanol.
Saw the aftermath of one on the WSOR that happened last Memorial day, had about 7-8 cars of corn pile up at 30mph, pretty impressive damage to cars. Was also on a train that derailed near Madison, lost about 5 cars, but took out a small bridge over a creek.
Only saw one other derailment on the old WC, 3rd car from rear of train dropped on ground with train blocking all but one crossing in Burlington, got point across that we needed overpass in town.
Randy