I found this story in Slate Magazine this morning, seems pretty interesting. What do you guys think?
Heres the URL in case the link doesn’t work: http://www.slate.com/id/2191702/.
Gravity Works…
The story said it was due to “Human Error”… I thought that’s what computers were for… LOL [:-^]
Naw - Computers are human error multipliers. Make a little error and a computer will magnify it for you…
I thought the article used a lot of words, but didn’t really say much…
What’s this about the “Rock and Roll”? I’m not buying the vibrations thing. I’ve seen cars shake, rattle, and roll. they weren’t close to derailing. I know the center beam cars have wrnings but that’s about it.
You can believe that. We have a problem with the harmonics on one stretch of track. Not enough to put us on the ground, but the cars (and the passengers therein) do get to rocking… The engineers will usually adjust an MPH or two up or down and that settles things down.
Flanged wheel follows path of least resistance.
Boy do the officials get irate if above cause is on the accident report.
Man, I hate it when those crossties get lose…it takes forever to round them up!
I thought the article was inefficient too, and wandered over to standard gauge and someone trying to trace it back to the Romans (ha!). I’d tell Cecil Adams rail spans five feet measured by the outside, but I don’t want to join yet another website. If any of you belong to straightdope.com, you might correct the masses.
The gauge bit made me chuckle [:D]
out of the whole article it said nothing and included the harmonic . on jointed track we are told to refrain from running 18-21 mph for this not 12-24. if those numbers were correct you never get anywhere. then the crossties getting loose, i didnt know those got loose ed do they bite? if bitten do we need to get shots? there goes the harriman award and my ns bonus.
I thought it was a reasonably accurate and informative article, especially compared to similar discussion originating from those who are not close to the industry. Most people close to the industry realize that moving freight trains can derail at any time for a very large variety of reasons. I have noticed that with every derailment that makes the news, the report always says officials have not determined the cause. I never hear a follow-up report where the cause is finally discovered and disclosed, so to the general public, derailments in general must seem like somewhat of an enigma. By contrast, collisions are easy for the public to understand.
I think it is an interesting topic, and would like to see an extremely in-depth article (perhaps in Trains) that goes into all of the possible causes, and including descriptions of the most unique oddball causes. Particularly interesting are cases where a train derails at track speed, and then re-rails and continues on without the derailment being witnessed. I recall a derailment near Eden Prairie, MN where a lead ingot broke through the floor of a wooden gondola. The cause was the selection of that car for the load of ingots.
I watched a train switching over to another track recently at a decent clip, and let me tell ya the urge to jump way back was there. But it occurs to me that it really is as lot more difficult for a derailment than one would think.I’ve seen trains travel on some pretty bad stretches of track and have no problems, but seen derailments mostly on sidings where they only crawl.
We are gonna put out a job bulletin for a tie wrangler…same rate as a carman, but you get a bigger scooter!
And we are stocking up on tie anti-venom[:D]
Once ties get loose, aren’t they too dangerous to put back in tracks? I always thought they were beyond rehab and had to be sent to the garden supply center.
It;s easier when the mellow out
It depends if they are main line ties…if this is their first offense, they are put on probation and serve time in a yard or siding…
Now, if they are yard ties, already on probation, then its all over with…we pack ‘em off to Home Depot!
A group of us were doing some (sanctioned) RR archeology and found a young one hiding in a culvert. We decided to leave it alone.
On lesser used lines the ties tend to stay home longer. We’ve got some we kind of wish would run off, but they’re still sticking around. Then there’s those who personify the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” thing - they’re mostly dust. Even the home supply store wouldn’t want them…
And then cross ties become happy ties?
Over the years I’ve always noticed that when there’s a derailment and there’s something nasty in a tank car and an area or entire small town has to be evacutated it’s always on the national news for 3 days.
In Feburary of 2001 I was living in Volga, South Dakota population 1435, when the cheese processing plant right in town had a major leak in one of their underground propane tanks, creating a huge underground pocket of propane. (They called it the largest known propane leak anywhere in the the world). If it had ignited, it could have blown the whole town off of the map. The town was evacutated for 3 days until they got the situation under control.
All of the motels in nearby Brookings were jammed, others were staying with friends or relatives and at least a hundred people were staying at the Nationnal Guard armory, BUT I never saw a TV camera from CNN or any of the usual suspects who would have come running if it had been a derailment evacution.
What was the difference?