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Of course, we don't know "the rest of the story", yet.  And the train was traveling rather slow.  And the adjacent field looks like a nice soft landing area.  And it's adjacent to a road for relatively fast/easy response and recovery.

But, if those roly-poly tank cars maintained their tank-integrity and held their contents safely through it all, then kudos to their design/manufacturing. 

Just looking for the positives.

OTOH, they might want to heed that flippin' tie at the crossing!  It could've punched a hole in the passing car and created a much, much worse ending.   

Kudos, also, to the vehicle driver/passenger/railfan? who happened to be recording the event.  I hope he/she is rewarded handsomely for providing great documentation!

@dkdkrd posted:

OTOH, they might want to heed that flippin' tie at the crossing!  It could've punched a hole in the passing car and created a much, much worse ending.   



That's what the NTSB is for.  Bear in mind one cannot predict every possible action that takes place in a derailment.  A few seconds either way and that tie may not have split.  The age of the tie, ambient temperature, condition of the roadbed and the force and direction by which the tie is struck are all variables.

Rusty

About a week ago Virtual Railfan showed a crew installing a grade crossing like this one as part of their "grab bag", don't recall the exact date. I agree it most likely is a piece of that, and that it is either rubber or something with a rubber covering. The workers placed it where they wanted it and tapped it with I think a shovel to work it down into place. Something like this:

https://hirail.com/hirail-rubber-grade-crossing/

Last edited by wjstix
@mark s posted:

Curious.  The train was going slowly - bad order track?  Broken rail?   What railroad?  How could the public have anything but a negative view of railroading with such events occurring?  A product of downsized MOW employees?

Well, looks a lot better than that disaster on I35W SB managed lanes in Ft. Worth during Ice Storm Uri!

Last edited by Dominic Mazoch

This is a 2 year old post, but the video is still working, and is an interesting thing to watch the derailment unfold.  Some mentioned a tie at the crossing, but that looks more like a section of concrete pavement on the edge or in between the track.  There is another interesting WW II training film you can view on Youtube that show how to sabotage rail lines, and it was found that simply blowing up the track did not work in some cases.  The video shows a section blown up, and the train from loco to last car traverse the gap with hardly slowing down, much like these cars did in the spot the rail was obviously out of gauge, that is until they rolled over.

I just saw a news report that said, "Federal investigators and police have not determined the cause of the derailment."

Is it just me, or could the tie that flipped up under the tanker be the cause?

Derailment investigation is not as simple as it seems.  It requires training and a lot of shoe leather.  First, the actual point of derailment must be identified and clues searched for.  This could be some distance previous to the secondary derailment, in which case you have to follow  marks on ties and rails to find it.  Then, the secondary derailment (typically, the place where the derailment produces a pileup or something going into the ditch) has to be investigated.  

I filled out plenty of BNSF Accident/Derailment Forms.  There were lots of questions and measurements had to be furnished.  Many of the questions had to do with tie condition, rail condition, spike condition, wheel flange measurement, uneven loading of cars, speed, train handling, and all parts broken should be found and inspected for metal fatigue.

When I was a new official, I naively furnished a very simple 1-car, low speed, derailment closeout on a rickety industrial spur as "Spread Rail".  My phone rang, and the Superintendent's first word was not "hello."  The greeting, if you would call it that, began with, "Mister, I just got your closeout."  And that was the nice part of the phone call.

Last edited by Number 90
@Number 90 posted:
When I was a new official, I naively furnished a derailment closeout on a rickety industrial spur as "Spread Rail".  My phone rang, and the Superintendent's first word was not "hello."  The greeting, if you would call it that, began with, "Mister, I just got your closeout."  And that was the nice part of the phone call.

I was involved one time in an aircraft crash investigation since it was a fuel system that I was the project engineer on.  The resulting accident investigation took four years and resulted in tons of changes to aircraft fuel systems industry wide.

I have no doubt that a big train accident can have a similar lengthy process, lots of subtle factors can enter into an accident.  There is almost never a single factor in an accident, it's almost always a chain of events that lead up to the incident.

…investigation is not as simple as it seems.  It requires training and a lot of shoe leather.  First, the actual point of derailment must be identified and clues searched for.  This could be some distance previous to the secondary derailment, in which case you have to follow  marks on ties and rails to find it.  

To back up Tom’s point.

Sometime in 1981 there was a pileup at Tuttle, OK on the Frisco Chickasha sub. One wheelset of a car near the middle of the train came off the track and cut ties for dozens of miles until it came to a facing-point switch and “went flying”.  The conductor on this job was not a very observant man nor a talented railroader. He should have seen the problem from the caboose.

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