Nostalgia & History > High-Car Incident - Potomac Yard 1994

This video is from August 7, 1994.  I was trainwatching at Potomac Yard, Alexandria, Virginia.  I was watching CSX train S400 (2nd Section of Q400) Hamlet, NC to Cumberland, MD, when I noticed some full-size autoracks in the middle of the train.  This was a problem, since the full-size autoracks are too high for the Virginia Avenue Tunnel located 2 miles ahead in DC.  The shorter autoracks will fit, but not the full-size ones.  Sure enough, the high-car detector at RO Interlocking alerted the crew and they had to set them off at the industrial siding there.  It was later discovered that three autoracks were added by mistake at the yard in Rocky Mount, NC and the crew did not spot them on the train.

The high car detector at RO frequently would activate when trash containers were on a train and the tarp they used to cover them would be loose and blow in the air causing the activation. As a result, crews would be given permission from the dispatcher to ignore the warning.  Luckily, this time the detector saved the train from having a big problem in the tunnel ahead.

This video also records the radio transmissions from the crew to the dispatcher after the train passed.  It makes for some interesting listening...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/16 06:08 by RFandPFan.

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Interesting listening, thanks

When I was in train service in 1970, here was a high-wide detector not far north of the Delaware and Hudson's Belden Hill grade (north of Binghaton, N.Y.) , atop which was a retsricted height tunnel.  (The tunnel is still in service today, but expanded in height capacity since those days.)

Frisky crew members in the caboose would upon occasion get up on the roof and waive a broom through the detector beams, so as to amuse the dispatcher.

Art House

the crew specifiaclly the cndr should've had the empty 19' high car auto racks in his paperwork that they got from Rocky Mount ... it's a must read for any crew / cndr taking over from a crew change .... 

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the crew specifiaclly the cndr should've had the
> empty 19' high car auto racks in his paperwork
> that they got from Rocky Mount ... it's a must
> read for any crew / cndr taking over from a crew
> change .... 

According to the radio transmissions, it was not in his paperwork and they noted 3 extra cars from a previous defect detector axle count.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/16 08:45 by RFandPFan.

When I was at FRA in the early '80s we walked through the B&P Tunnel in Baltimore - there wear all kinds if scratches on the overhead from autoracks...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

What kind of conductor doesnt carry his keys at all times.

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