Western Railroad Discussion > Cascade Summit derailment

Early this AM, (06/25) southbound freight derailed 12 cars at Cascade Summit, evidently, propane leak from a switch heater tank.

YM

QPDRV-24 derailed approximately 14 cars, mostly empties, on what used to be the north switch of Cascade Summit. The cars were located roughly 20-34 from rear of train. Cars also damaged propane tanks for the switch heaters at North Cascade Summit requiring a partial evacuation of a nearby campground at West Odell Lake. Cause is unknown.

The ZLCBR-24 was re-routed from Chemult north through Bend on the BNSF.


On a side note, and this has NOTHING to do with the derailment as far as cause, the train was yet ANOTHER failed DP train coming up the hill. Failures on distributed power trains on the hill are becoming an almost daily occurrence. In this case the computers "froze" and the train went into emergency and the only way to move the train was to have the engineer walk to the rear of the train, place the DP units into conventional mode, and then with another engineer off another train run the train conventionally the rest of the way up the hill (until they derailed).

Railbaron Wrote:
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>
> On a side note, and this has NOTHING to do with
> the derailment as far as cause, the train was yet
> ANOTHER failed DP train coming up the hill.
> Failures on distributed power trains on the hill
> are becoming an almost daily occurrence. In this
> case the computers "froze" and the train went into
> emergency and the only way to move the train was
> to have the engineer walk to the rear of the
> train, place the DP units into conventional mode,
> and then with another engineer off another train
> run the train conventionally the rest of the way
> up the hill (until they derailed).

Yeah, but think of all the money they saved by not having to call a helper engineer! [snicker] Roseville had another RCL versus RCL "incident" last week, but they saved about four hundred bucks by not needing two engineers.

You know what really cracks me up is something that I was told my a UP manager, and the ONLY UP manager I have ever had any respect for, and that was his explanation for how UP does things. The scary part is that every time I see something stupid his explanation comes back to me and it is true.

He said (not an exact quote mind you): "Union Pacific is run by numbers. It makes NO difference what is happening in the real world on the Union Pacific as long as the numbers make it look good." He went on to tell me that good managers learn early how to tweak numbers so that no matter how screwed up things are, the numbers will make it look perfect. And of course each level of managers up the ladder has to tweak those same numbers over and over again to make them look good for the person above them so by the time the people in Omaha see the numbers UP is the best run, most efficient railroad in the world!

Back to DP trains or RCL jobs: all they care about are the "numbers". In both cases a reduction in the NUMBER of people, even though in reality it's costing them much more in lost productivity and higher equipment costs, still looks good to Omaha and that's all they care about. The people "in the field" know better but what do we know; we're just numbers!

RB

Railbaron Wrote:
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> He said: "Union Pacific is run by numbers."

With the current one being the number 75, as in Project 75.

By the way, big changes be a-comin' this summer to Warm Springs, Mulford, East Oakland, West Oakland and Ozol. Be glad you're no longer down this-a-way!

topper Wrote:
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> By the way, big changes be a-comin' this summer to
> Warm Springs, Mulford, East Oakland, West Oakland
> and Ozol. Be glad you're no longer down
> this-a-way!


Uh-oh, any hints as to their next move in my old stomping grounds? I miss the old SP jobs down there but I'm sure I wouldn't recognize the jobs now that UP has had their way with them.

Railbaron Wrote:
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> any hints as to their next move in my old
> stomping grounds?

Guess you've heard that Toyota is extremely unhappy with UP's service at Warm Springs and has threatened to move all the traffic over to the BNSF. If UP's plan for Warm Springs goes as well as some of their other plans, this should do it, fer sure!

And on it goes...

topper Wrote:
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> If UP's plan for Warm Springs goes as well
> as some of their other plans, this should do it,
> fer sure!
>
> And on it goes...


Oh wonderful - but the numbers will look good!!! ;-)

Railbaron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> topper Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > If UP's plan for Warm Springs goes as well
> > as some of their other plans, this should do
> it,
> > fer sure!
> >
> > And on it goes...
>
>
> Oh wonderful - but the numbers will look good!!!
> ;-)

The June 7th RCL "incident" at Ozol had an unexpected consequence. Got 'em thinking about why we're even switching at Ozol in the first place. And have yardmasters there, to boot. I'm sure you can guess where this is heading...

topper Wrote:

> By the way, big changes be a-comin' this summer to
> Warm Springs, Mulford, East Oakland, West Oakland
> and Ozol. Be glad you're no longer down
> this-a-way!



Well, "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Gieco!"

...And the held-way rolls on.

YM

So you are saying the cavemen are running the railroad and switching to Geico?

Bob

The compulsion to 'Manage' is most definitly the second oldest Profession. The intent for so many Managers to influence the Budget is intended to 'empower' the middle managers and to motivate them to make correct decisions. The dis-connect is the off-budget events, in this case off-track events, that are expedited by not being included in the cost-accounting process until some high level in the Accounting office. In most Companies and it sounds like in this case, the famous bottom line is those famous shareholders and investors, everything else is CYA and scheming for the next promotion or raise. As long as the ball keeps rolling nobody gets their undie's in a twist, few vacations get cancelled, few tee-times get delayed, Investor money has to go somewhere 'why not this nice railroad'?
The down side is pretty obvious, in this case it effects morale, safety, customer inventories, scheduling and spot prices, possible ecological problems (obvious problems with a fire risk in the Forest, that would be off-budget too). Once again the phrase 'it's all crap now' seems to fit. Sounds like nobody was hurt, that's a good thing.

Did I nail it?

topper Wrote:
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> Guess you've heard that Toyota is extremely
> unhappy with UP's service at Warm Springs and has
> threatened to move all the traffic over to the
> BNSF. If UP's plan for Warm Springs goes as well
> as some of their other plans, this should do it,
> fer sure!

OK, so just what got Toyota in such a tizzy???


AM

Register Guard - June 26, 2007

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/06/26/a1.derailed.0626.p1.php?section=cityregion

Train ARE running as of this morning already.

atsfman Wrote:
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> So you are saying the cavemen are running the
> railroad and switching to Geico?
>
> Bob

If this really is how the RR is running things, maybe those cavemen really CAN do it better. IMHO. And they'd STILL stick with Geico. LOL.

Update: While it has been a month since the derailment things are still not back to "normal". The derailed equipment is gone but the north switch on the siding still hasn't been replaced. The "house" (instrument case) has been replaced and the ground graded for the switch but no switch in sight.

The downside is that while none of the signals themselves were damaged in the derailment, nor was the SP style signal bridge damaged, North Cascade Summit will soon be "UP-ized". The signal bridge will soon be gone being replaced by UP style tri-light ground based signals rather than having the signals mounted on the signal bridge (not good for crews as this will reduce visibility). I don't know if this might be a sign of the future or not but maybe the signal bridges should be photographed while they can be.

BTW, as a side note, last year UP installed 2 of their tri-light signals between Abernathy and Cruzatte. As of now they still haven't been placed in service yet but once they are that will eliminate 3 of the older SP style US&S signals so this may also bode ill for the future of anything SP.

RB