dave buccolo Wrote:
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> You said you were backing up, was this the 1st
> back up move shoving the train and was any air set
> while backing as this will add to the L/V forces
> on the rail. Did the high rail roll out or was it
> the low rail.

I just found this discussion board at the suggestion of Terry Kimzey. Dave, we were backing up shoving the outbound move of the first train of the day. I had no air set and the speed was 8 MPH as Shortline Sammie needed time during the run to make a presentation to the invited guests. The public runs were to start at 1 PM. The rolled rail was on the river side on the south end of the short tangent at the north end of the curve on which we derailed a year ago. As I recall, it took a little more than an engine length to get stopped after I felt the engine go down. It was so gentle that it took a bit to realize there was a problem. Look at the 12th picture on the webpage [www.sps700.org] and you will see that the engineer's side rail is still straight as far as you can see beyond Matt Baccitich's knee while the fireman's side rail (which can be seen farther into the distance because of the angle of view) appears to be just starting to curve as it goes out of sight. I believe that we had totally exited the point of entry to the curve when the first marks appeared on the railhead indicating a problem. There had been about 50 round trips over this road by the 700 and the 4449 in slightly over two weeks so the track structure had received a much greater than normal amount of stress in a very short period of time.