What’s the closest disance to stand from a stack car train and still be safe? I live in WA and most of the trains here are the BNSF stack car trains. [8][X-)][oops] [zzz]
Standing outside the old fence line should provide enough safety and will keep you from getting a ticket for trespassing should a BNSF special agent be so inclined.
If I remember my safety rules correcty, 30 feet is the minimum distance you want to stand from a passing train on a main line. You just never know when something can fly off or a bad wheel could cause a derailment. No matter how close you are always make sure have a way out in case things go bad quickly, you just never know.
oops, ive gotten close enough to touch one! but it was stopped[:D]
I mean a boxcar!
How fast can you run? Consider that in the case of a derailment, cars often accordian up - meaning that anything closer than a car length could be living dangerously…
Since such catastrophic derailments are rare, staying off railroad property and far enough away to avoid the above mentioned hazards should be enough.
Speed is a factor, too. A “gentle nudge” from a protruding piece of lumber at a few miles per hour will be fatal at track speed…
The hallmark phrase in the HazMat business (especially nuclear) is “Time, Distance, Shielding”. I think you can apply that to railfanning dangers as well.
If you have to ask, you have no business any where close to the tracks!!!
Remember, too, that it’s not just stuff protruding from or falling off the trains that’s an issue. Ballast and other stuff can be caught up by the slipstream or part of the undercarriage, and be whipped out with surprising force even if the train isn’t moving quickly.
I also had the privilege of seeing exactly how far an !SO series 1 marine container could roll on its side. I was in a convertible on tne New Jersey Turnpike, and looked up to see one merrily rolling along parallel to me (at about 55mph – watched it go around about six times, then sped up to be sure it wasn’t going to veer down the hill and ‘surprise’ me. All told, the thing rolled more than a quarter mile before stopping. You would have a much harder time trying to evade a rolling container on foot, I think… and remember that often it’s only gravity, not a positive corner-casting twistlock, that’s keeping the containers on the train…
Anyway, the consensus so far is right: the closest you should get is on the ‘public’ side of the railroad’s ROW boundary. I’d almost be more concerned with keeping free space behind you than about how close you are to the train: be sure you have some freedom in the paths you can take as well as the distance you can cover in minimum time if you see something worrisome…
Just an example, as kids we stood by the tracks waiting for a freight train to wave at the engineer (steam) one of the kids with us noticed a lot of dust 1/2 way down the train, he was about 60 or 70 mph going down a slight grade, well we moved back quite a way and the cause of the dust was a flat of rails was dragging 2 rails with most of the rail dragging in the roadbed plowing a trench about 2 feet deep all along the r/w, the rails then hit a bridge and slide along the track slicing off track joiners and spikes. the crew was unaware of anything wrong, we reported it to a section gang who shut down the track. So, the closest distance I would stand would be about 1000 feet !
“Feets don’t fail me now!”
How close do you want to stand?
THAT’S WHY I’M ASKING! [D)][D)][D)][B)][B)]
At least more that 100 feet from the Track.
Perhaps you should not stand any closer to some forum posters than you want to stand to a fast moving freight train. You gotta get a pretty thick skin sometimes to be on the Internet row.
Stay back of the right of way fence line, that is about 50 feet on a 100’ row. Use a telephoto lens if you think you need to be any closer. Various individuals have different comfort levels with how close they want to be to tens of thousands of tons of fast moving equipment. Factors influencing their comfort level come from train speed, experience, skills, knowledge, intelligence, risk aversion and alcohol levels. The row fence is the best defining mark I can give you. I know the edge of the ballast is way too close. If you are not comfortable at that distance, move farther back. If you want to be closer, go buy a roller coaster ticket.
A middle school student in Spokane took the dare of his friends a couple of years ago and reached out to touch a train doing about 25 mph. His arm was ripped out of it’s socket at the shoulder. When he was thrown to the ground one of his legs was severed when it fell over the rail in front of the wheels. Neither could be reattached.
Alan, paid to stand close to moving trains at all speeds since 1969
Stay safe and don’t attract special attention. Have fun.
Atleast 100 ft from the trk
I would say at least 30 feet. Double stacks are 20 feet about from the ground and if it tips over, you have an extra 10 feet of distance and time to adjust distance if it is moving on the ground. If the stack train is going over 60mph, stay back until you are comfortable and prey nothing bad happens. That is what I do.
OK, lets say I am not standing, but in my car. I see plenty of times cars that are pulled all of the way to the crossing gates. I do not have a tape measure but it sure seems that most gates are lot closer than 50 ft. Personally I try and gauge the speed of the train before pulling up, but isnt sitting in a car 15 ft. from a crossing just as dangerous? Has anyone ever been killed sitting at a crossing by a derailment?
Well since the highest containers are 9’6" hi X 2 would be 19’ total so 20’ or more would make you “safe” without taking into account any sliding action. [:o)][:D][:p]
Needs to be some better physics education in this country, perhaps.
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Exactly what do you think is the mechanism by which the container on top of the stack is going to “reach trackside”? It’s not just going to flap down and go “wham” and stop; the top container will at some point acquire differential speed at its top and bottom if the car is tipping over (in a sense it’s like an orbit, with the top going faster than the bottom as it’s moving through a larger arc) and this will turn quite nicely into lateral roll when the container hits the ground… that little clown-face smiley now applies in a different context, I humbly submit…
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“Sliding action”? You think that a container is going to come off a train moving at some forward speed, wham down within the 20’, and then slide in a straight line???
Why not go outside and slide a few bricks along a patch of gravel and see what they do? Hint: The front end digs in, as the center of mass and the center of rotation are both well behind the point of incidence; the container then pivots (around its effective centroid) and is probably extremely likely to wind up rolling sideways due to coupled effects (it would much rather spin around the 4’ to 5’ radius from the effective container mass centerline than it would flip end-over-end … or, for that matter, just keep sliding on its side or whatever).
For a variety of reasons, a container that comes off the train – whether or not the car carrying it has tipped over itself – is more likely to diverge from the ROW than stay close to the rails if the train is moving.
There’s a certain amount of Chicken Little in any “safety” analysis of stack-train accident, but I’d expect that grade crossings are often places where mistuning or mismatched rail profile (etc.) can cause sharp roll or bounce to railcars… and it only takes one time to really spoil your day if you’re on the side the steel overcast begins to precipitate out!
I have been at grade crossing designed and built by Mudchicken’s “buddies” in in the highway engineering business. Even though it provides the best view of the bouncing frieght cars, I do prefer to be 5-10 cars back from the gate.
Jay
I was thinking not so much of the car going overboard as I was thinking of the containers just taking a flop from the car. Look at these pix as a example of what I mean
http://vgalleries.com/members/railfan1/The+Trainfan.vrg
Look up the tornado incident & you will see the containers did not go far from the tracks.
What if the train if the train is only doing 5MPH then a whole different scenerio would be in place.
I would say if you are in a place where they are running at 70MPH then more then 20’ would be required due to sliding action. However, OTH 5 MPH or so 20/30’ should get you by safely.
I would sort of joking by just using simple math of 2X9’6" containers = 19’ feet so if you 20" feet from the track using just simple math you are OK. Also I told him to take into effect your P lesson by using the words sliding action.
[:o)][:D][:p]
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Originally posted by Overmod