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Post by roadkill on May 29, 2019 12:13:42 GMT -8
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Post by brakie on May 30, 2019 15:16:40 GMT -8
Now that crew will need to take a drug test and answer fifty thousands questions from CSX and STB. I hope they don't get a TOS letter.
And follow railfans wonder why I stay back at least fifty feet and watch trains.
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Post by roadkill on May 30, 2019 16:06:14 GMT -8
A good friend of mine is an engineer for CSX and knows the engineer from that train well... it was his first run since getting his engineer's card!
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Post by brakie on May 31, 2019 13:28:44 GMT -8
A good friend of mine is an engineer for CSX and knows the engineer from that train well... it was his first run since getting his engineer's card! Ouch! CSX and STB will be looking hard to see if he was to blame.. I wish him the best of luck. When I was a rookie brakeman on the PRR we had a boxcar to roll over and derailed two other cars on a industrial lead.. As I was heading toward the Division Superintendent office two days later I thinking mine was a happy but, short railroading career.. It turned out to be a formality meeting with the Superintendent because a rail turn under the weight of the car after several days of rain. |
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Post by bnsf971 on May 31, 2019 14:43:07 GMT -8
A good friend of mine is an engineer for CSX and knows the engineer from that train well... it was his first run since getting his engineer's card! Ouch! CSX and STB will be looking hard to see if he was to blame.. I wish him the best of luck. When I was a rookie brakeman on the PRR we had a boxcar to roll over and derailed two other cars on a industrial lead.. As I was heading toward the Division Superintendent office two days later I thinking mine was a happy but, short railroading career.. It turned out to be a formality meeting with the Superintendent because a rail turn under the weight of the car after several days of rain. The area has had record rainfall, and several inches of rain over the weekend prior to the derailment. Everything is still a virtual sea of mud and water. |
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Post by roadkill on May 31, 2019 14:56:31 GMT -8
"Word on the street" is the second unit picked a switch, and judging by the sparks it seems to be showering all over the right-of-way in that vid I think that's pretty plausible.
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Post by ncrc5315 on May 31, 2019 18:12:05 GMT -8
I remember one time down in Arkansas, I was backing a cut of cars into an industry, and derailed the second locomotive at 3:30 AM. Maintenance of Way, came out to re-rail the locomotive. The MoW Foreman was throwing a fit, calling everybody, and telling everyone how I was obviously speeding, and wanted someone to come out and and download the box. Well the Trainmaster and the CMO came out, downloaded the box, and analyzed it. The MoW foreman looks at them and says, well!!. They looked at each other, and and the CMO says, according to the data, the train was standing still when it derailed. We re-railed the locomotive, and I started creeping back again, and the locomotive just fell off. Rotten ties, and wide gauge.
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Post by brakie on Jun 1, 2019 12:05:49 GMT -8
Ouch! CSX and STB will be looking hard to see if he was to blame.. I wish him the best of luck. When I was a rookie brakeman on the PRR we had a boxcar to roll over and derailed two other cars on a industrial lead.. As I was heading toward the Division Superintendent office two days later I thinking mine was a happy but, short railroading career.. It turned out to be a formality meeting with the Superintendent because a rail turn under the weight of the car after several days of rain. The area has had record rainfall, and several inches of rain over the weekend prior to the derailment. Everything is still a virtual sea of mud and water. That's good for the crew since the soggy ground will take some of the blame game pressure off. Years ago the railroads would have chalk it up to the rainy weather with soggy ground and poor drainage. Today I'm not sure how some railroads and the FRA will react. |
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Post by roadkill on Jun 1, 2019 12:48:59 GMT -8
I believe I know what happened and it wasn't due to soggy ground or poor train handling. Went down there today to take some pics and noticed that the second unit, GP40-3 6539, was sitting on the ground (still on its trucks) parallel to the tracks a short ways east of the main pileup and across the tracks from it was a Blomberg truck with two axles marked "idler". The 6539 showed virtually no damage besides one slightly bent stanchion right above the left rear jacking pad. When I was taking pics of the 6539 I noticed something odd, the leaf spring that Blomberg trucks use for their secondary suspension was broken, completely missing the top half of the leaf spring. What I noticed was that the break in the spring was quite rusty and had obviously been broken for some time. When I got home this afternoon I watched the vid again and there is was, plain as day! The 6539 was the second unit in the consist and was traveling long hood forward, the video shows sparks flying from the lead axle on it right before the train came to the Magyar St. grade crossing. After the train hit the crossing is when all hell broke loose. My belief based on the video and the evidence is that the 6539 had that broken spring for quite some time and it took something to finally cause it to break apart... that being the Wheeling & Lake Erie crossing no more than a few hundred feet west of the derailment. When the spring finally came apart the right rear corner of the 6539 dropped causing a part (lower part of the bolster perhaps?) of the rear (leading) truck to drag on the railhead until it struck the Magyar St. crossing.
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Post by brakie on Jun 1, 2019 17:55:20 GMT -8
Roger,There is indeed something amiss under the second unit because of the flying sparks. You can see sparks under the reefers as they begin to derail.
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Post by roadkill on Jun 1, 2019 18:55:50 GMT -8
When I saw the broken spring on the 6539 a light bulb went off in my head and it all began to make sense. I can't say as to which particular part of the rear truck from the 6539 caused the derailment but I can say with confidence that the broken spring was indeed the cause of the derailment.
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