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Re: Recent derailments - speculation as to cause
Author: Shortline Sammie
Date: 12-02-2013 - 16:53
I'm of the same opinion as SP5103 as to being s runaway and have some thoughts of my own.
Primarily I have a problem with the rest of the train continuing on for some distance and then derailing to the high side of the curve. My experience is much like SP5103's...the train goes into emergency and comes to a fairly sudden stop (depending on loads vs mtys) at 10 - 15 mph. This is assuming that they had the air cut in and had made the proper air test before departing.
In photos of the derailed locomotive it appears to be somewhere around 115 lb JOINTED rail whereas the photo of the train is resting on CWR. A possibility could be that violent harmonic rocking occurred on the jointed rail which caused the loci to just "rock and roll off the track"? This still doesn't explain why the train continued on for some distance and probably would have continued rolling except that its excessive speed was too great to negotiate the curve and it derailed and partially overturned.
I'm sure that the FRA will come up with the cause and hopefully not mandate new rules as a result.
Dick Samuels
Oregon Pacific Railroad
Primarily I have a problem with the rest of the train continuing on for some distance and then derailing to the high side of the curve. My experience is much like SP5103's...the train goes into emergency and comes to a fairly sudden stop (depending on loads vs mtys) at 10 - 15 mph. This is assuming that they had the air cut in and had made the proper air test before departing.
In photos of the derailed locomotive it appears to be somewhere around 115 lb JOINTED rail whereas the photo of the train is resting on CWR. A possibility could be that violent harmonic rocking occurred on the jointed rail which caused the loci to just "rock and roll off the track"? This still doesn't explain why the train continued on for some distance and probably would have continued rolling except that its excessive speed was too great to negotiate the curve and it derailed and partially overturned.
I'm sure that the FRA will come up with the cause and hopefully not mandate new rules as a result.
Dick Samuels
Oregon Pacific Railroad
