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Holy crap, Batman !
Enough spilled iron ore to open a mine !
Wow. That is some long twisted mess!
Looks like they are gonna be using trucks for a while.
Ready ore not, here it comes! 
Wait'll they get that unmanned train in operation...bet they have some beauts of disasters...
That incident could be considered a "resume generating event".
Unstoppable?
Looks like they stopped it to me...
Rusty
That was an expensive mistake, I wonder how long the engineer is going to take to pay for four locomotives and a bunch of cars? 
Farmer_Bill posted:Ready ore not, here it comes!
That pun was ore-ible! 
Mitch
One good thing is that there is nobody out there in the Pilbarra region of Australia, and thus no significant danger to the public.
However, it appears almost certain that the Driver did not properly secure the train in the manner prescribed by the Company rules before stepping off for the inspection. The chance that this resulted from an equipment failure is minuscule.
I am surprised that the dispatching office was not able to initiate an emergency brake application by radio. The technology for that exists, and due to the remoteness of the area served by this railroad, it would seem that there would be options for stopping a train in the case of incapacitation of the Driver. And surely this locomotive is equipped with an electronic alertness device requiring periodic acknowledgment from the Driver when the train is moving (and at least tattling by radio if disabled by anyone). (?)
There are questions not answered by the news release.
Interesting...For discussion's sake lets say a hose bag lets go 250 cars from the engine on this 268 ore train with a one man crew,(as tom mentioned driver). (PS I have no idea of tonnage of the train except it must have happen on a down grade.
How would you go about fixing the problem?
Would you not need air flowing through the train line to find the leak? The train is now stopped in emergency.
Does the Driver have to tie on about 30 0r 40 handbrakes before he can recover the air and then walk the train to find and change the hose bag .???Once the hose bag is changed what's the next move?? If he reconnects the hose bag to the rear of the train the brakes on the whole train are going to charge up and release. The Driver is still back 200 cars from the engine.... Comments??
No takers?? Oh well. Here's my comment.... I really enjoyed my time on the railway with a full 4 man crew & caboose...... No cameras, no Safety vests. Just about everyone smoked, (I don't miss that)
The above scenario re the hose bag letting go would have been about a 20 minute fixed from the tail end.
I can't imagine having a one man crews....I'm glad I 'm retired.
Looks like at least 4 ore 5 cars are still good.
OK, if the engines are tied down, is that enough braking to keep it from moving?
And if not, how can a train stay put while the one crew person is tieing down some of the ore cars?
In my scenario the train brakes would be in emergency if an air line lets go. The problem is.... How are we going to fix the problem..
In the original post the the Driver stopped to inspect something, He has the option of applying the train brakes so nothings going to move,,,, However that\s the 64 thousand question. Why did the train move..??.. Improper brake application? unintentional release??
The engine brakes may not be enough to hold the train.
Gregg posted:In my scenario the train brakeless would be in emergency if an air line lets go. The problem is.... How are we going to fix the problem...
Two words...Utility Man.
I guess I've been out the loop too long, What's an Utility man Rich? (ps I can't correct the above quote , It should say " In my scenario the train's brakes would be in emergency "...... Not the train brakeless would be in emergency.
Good afternoon and Happy Thanksgiving, with my work I have dealt with BHP and it will never be their or the drivers "as they refer to the engineer" of the wrecked ore trains fault.
The blame will be placed on everybody and everything but BHP personal and their equipment.
I can just imagine the paperwork and reports that will be put together because some one made a mistake.
Our drilling equipment has so many safety decals on themwhen it goes to the mines in Australia that in most places we don't even have to paint the area because it is covered with safety decals that are hard to believe you have warn someone not to do this or that or they could be injured or killed.
Gotta love it !
Why didn't they just call Denzel Washington? He could have coupled on the rear and ran across the tops of the ore cars (they are pretty small cars, at least here in the U.S. they are). Jumped on the engines and brought the train to a nice smooth stop. Yeah, piece of cake!! I saw it in a movie once.
Rick
An update -
"The Federal rail safety regulator has issued an urgent alert over heavy freight trains after the spectacular derailment of a BHP iron ore train in the Pilbara, warning of “serious safety concerns” over some electronic brakes."
A “Utility Man” is someone in a truck that patrols the railroad specifically to assist the train crew in situations like this.
Rich,
Someone better. A second person in the cab!
This railroad moves very long trains, and there is not what we would think of as heavy traffic. Thus a long delay to repair a broken air hose would not cause the panic that would result on a U S main line. So, although I am not privy to the details, the railroad certainly has a process for securement of the train if the Driver has to walk the train.
The locomotive hand brakes will barely hold the engine at rest (only one wheel set is secured). You can't rely on the locomotive handbrakes to secure the train.
So, this railroad must surely have a process to be followed. Without doubt, the first step is to leave the automatic brake valve handle in the Emergency position and the independent brake valve handle in the Fully Applied position. You can take no chance on any train line air being furnished by head-end or remote locomotives until after the train has been secured by hand brakes. There will be a formula* for the number of train hand brakes that must be applied (while the air brakes remain applied). Only then can the driver safely send air back through the train, in order to find the source of the air leak. It might be as simple as air hoses becoming disconnected, or it might be a ruptured air hose or broken pipe on a car or remote locomotive, or a train separation with or without derailment or mechanical damage. The Driver can replace an air hose by himself and return to the head end, where he must apply the train air brakes and then walk back to release the train hand brakes and return to the locomotive. If it is more than that, he definitely needs help. In any event, help should presumably arrive to assist with making required repairs, if any, and any required air brake tests, as well as releasing the train hand brakes, so the train can proceed. And a roll-by inspection to check for flattened wheels or undetected mechanical defects is standard procedure. This is such a laborious process that, even if it's just an air hose problem, doing it all alone in the Pilbera desert could be life-threatening to the lone employee. So there is surely also a process for getting the assistance of other railroad personnel after a reasonable response time. Even if this equipment is equipped with couplers that have integral brake pipe connections, somebody has to inspect the train and one employee cannot safely re-couple the train and proceed.
Maybe the actual instructions and the Driver's actual actions will come out in an investigation report made public. I'd definitely like to read it. It's a private railroad, so they may not want the details to become public. On the other hand, the government may have some authority in this, or the mining company may wish to make the results of investigation public for the greater good.
* Since the Driver is not simply securing an intact train in this case, a formula has to be used. It will specify the number of hand brakes to apply, based on the ruling grade between the respective control points and the total train tonnage. To secure an intact train, the crew applies the train air brakes, then applies what they believe is an adequate number of train hand brakes, and releases the train air brakes to determine that the train will remain stationary. If it rolls at all, the air brakes must be reapplied, additional hand brakes applied, and the air brakes released again. Thus, crews normally try to get it right on the first attempt. The formula will be based on the calculated tonnage that each hand brake can secure, under the conditions at that location on that train, and, for safety, will undoubtedly require more hand brakes than might be required under the intact train scenario I just described.
Recall the incident in Canada not too long ago with an oil tank car train parked and secured with a few hand brakes and still rolled away (after the loco died & the air leaked off) and it destroyed a town, killing many people. Governments are partly to blame for lax rules and spotty enforcement. Railroads are universally greedy and cavaliere towards enforcing their own safety rules and only apply them to those who they want to target or harass. Firemen were unnecessary after the steam engines were gone but the job should have been renamed asst. engineer or something. They often ran the engines, anyway if the engineer was ailing or needed to use the head. Can you imagine a commercial jet with only one qualified pilot? It may not be exactly the same but still, there's huge responsibility in running any kind of train and that only comes to light after one of these horrible incidents. The incident in Canada may not have been prevented by having another guy on the crew but who knows. Another guy might have set twice as many hand brakes and prevented dozens of deaths. The Genie is out of the bottle so it's not likely that governments will go backwards and force railroads to have two-person crews on all locomotives.
In rethinking the Canadian oil train disaster, I think there may have been more than one person on that crew. My bad. But the thought of parking trains on grades and leaving them unattended gripes me as I'm sure it does others that have worked in the industry. Portable wheel chocks are used all the time for temporarily keeping equipment from moving. Why they are not required is/was above my pay grade, I guess.
I think there's a lot going on re the Canadian oil train disaster that didn't come up in the investigation.
Every one seem to think that because the Engine shut down the air leaked off the train . This may be the case with the engines brakes but not the actual rail cars..... If the air leaks off, the brakes apply on a fully charged train line. I suppose the cars will eventually bleed off but not over night. (that's just my opinion) Yes insufficient hand brakes caused the accident.
EX. If you tried to let a cut of cars go into a yard track with the air bottled , a car may leak the air and the brakes apply not release and the cut doesn't go clear...(might as well shove it in the clear in the first place.)
Then there's the unintentional releases. Anyone any stories??
This company is running a one person crew. Saves labour costs.
BUT, when the bean counters do there number crunching, do they figure what it would cost if something like a train wreck happens. And after what happened in Canada?
Only one hour reserve on electronic braking controls? I think it would take that long to secure and walk the train.
Doesn't the US have unmanned ore or coal trains in the mid west?
Tom Tee posted:Doesn't the US have unmanned ore or coal trains in the mid west?
Nope.
Dominic Mazoch posted:Only one hour reserve on electronic braking controls? I think it would take that long to secure and walk the train.
If the automatic brake handle, electronic or not, of modern brake equipment is placed in the 20 psi reduction position, it will maintain that brake pipe pressure indefinitely. With the brake pipe charged, all reservoirs will be recharged if they need a trickle of compressed air, and they, in turn, will keep the brake cylinder pressure of each car constant. The leakage, if tested before departure and within guidelines, will not be so great as to cause any problems with the locomotives maintaining brake pipe pressure when a reduction is in effect. The locomotive pressure maintaining feature is easily checked by reviewing event recorder data of times when the locomotive sat for some time with a brake pipe reduction. It's a maintenance issue, and most of today's locomotive brake systems do properly maintain brake pipe pressure.
