Eastern Railroad Discussion > Tornado derails a moving train.

I'm told this is somewhere in Ill. A friend emailed it to me today and it's scary to watch. The tornado hits from right to left and of course, it happens on a bridge. The camera is on the rear unit. The trestle was moved out of alignment to the left 18 inches -- the tank
car was a load of Ethylene Oxide -- nasty stuff ---

If anyone out there knows more about this, please post it.

You must be a registered subscriber to watch videos. Join Today!

All ready posted on TO.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1967426

Thanks.

Wow. It takes quite a bit to make me pucker up but that just did it. The only other video that did that was the head on.

-Joe

WOW

John Gezelius
Tustin, CA

WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!! Amazing but scary video. Watching that tank car barreling down on the engines is just scary!

Nothing like watching that bouncing sparking tank car flying toward you is there!

This video is also on YouTube and the background it had was as follows:

"January 7, 2008 ...The tornado started at 3:30 pm about 1.2 miles north of Poplar Grove in Boone county and ended at 3:48 pm about 3.2 miles north northeast of Harvard in McHenry county, Illinois.
The first signs of damage were at Quail Trap road where trees were damaged and sections of roofing were removed from a shed. A large barn was destroyed and other buildings were severely damaged. Large trees were snapped or uprooted. The tornado reached its maximum intensity of EF3 at the northeast corner of Centerville road and Beaverton road. A two story farm house and garage were leveled and large trees were stripped of all branches. The tornado was about 100 yards wide through this area.

There was damage to trees, power lines, barns, and sheds. The tornado then crossed the Boone/McHenry county line as a weak EF0 tornado with just minor tree damage at this point. It crossed Hunter road and continued to track northeast across Ryan road as an EF0 and caused mainly minor tree damage. It crossed White Oaks road then it uprooted a hardwood tree and snapped off pine trees at their base along Maxon road. The tornado intensified as it moved toward the town of Lawrence where it produced the worst damage. Significant damage occurred in the town of Lawrence particularly at a house that had more than half of its roof ripped off and garage blown out.

The tornado then moved across the Chicago and Northwestern railroad where it blew 12 railroad freight cars off the track. The train was moving at the time the tornado hit it...so as the main engine stopped...the remaining cars on the track continued along it and slammed into the front part of the train. This caused a few more cars to derail...including one containing hazardous materials that caused the evacuation of the town of Lawrence.

As the tornado moved east of Lawrence it once again started to weaken with some tree damage and shingles off of a few houses on the northeast side of town. It then ran along Oak Grove road for a stretch where it produced EF1 damage with a hardwood tree snapped at its base and knocked over an old...weakly structured barn with estimated winds around 100 mph. It then headed across farm fields and headed for hwy 14 where it damaged a metal barn and sheared a few trees. As it crossed highway 14 it flipped a semi-trailer and injured the driver at a truck stop weigh station."

tinytrains Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All ready posted on TO.
>
> http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1
> 967426
>
> Thanks.


Sorry the western board doesn't exist to me.

Yeah but since there is no general board most general discussion ends up there so you're missing a lot by not reading it. Is the east/west break with Chicago or the Mississippi? But either way it's of general interest so belongs on the general...er...I mean Western board.

What were they doing running through a tornado warning area?

I posted that video on some other railfan lists a couple of a days ago. All the replies focused on whether it was a tornado or a downburst as if the spectacular-ness of the trainwreck wasn't interesting enough.

Danny Harmon
Tampa

A tornado can drop without much warning...my guess is no one was expecting this in January.

CG Tower



Nick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What were they doing running through a tornado
> warning area?