Western Railroad Discussion > Denver Thunderstorm - BNSF 6851 Damage

Lightning struck Denver skyline over Denver Union Station August 6, 2009 during rush hour.

BNSF SD40-2 6851 damaged in grade crossing collision with ethanol tank truck near Suncor Refinery at 56th Avenue weathered the storm at BNSF's Denver Diesel Shop. Unit was working the afternoon Market Street job running long hood forward when grade crossing accident happened. Crew jumped - minor injuries. BNSF 6851 didn't fare too well in the resulting fire ball.

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My employer had a report with photos of that accident with the ethanol truck at work last week. Damaged the crossing signals as well; they looked a bit like a Salvador Dali painting.

Really nice capture on the image of lightning.

Looks like Union Station had an "AHA" moment...."it came to me like a bolt out of the blue!" AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

cozephyr Wrote:
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> Lightning struck Denver skyline over Denver Union
> Station August 6, 2009 during rush hour.
>
> BNSF SD40-2 6851 damaged in grade crossing
> collision with ethanol tank truck near Suncor
> Refinery at 56th Avenue weathered the storm at
> BNSF's Denver Diesel Shop. Unit was working the
> afternoon Market Street job running long hood
> forward when grade crossing accident happened.
> Crew jumped - minor injuries. BNSF 6851 didn't
> fare too well in the resulting fire ball.

Maybe the old N & W was ahead of their time with regards to crew safety--they set up their units for "long-hood forward" operation for reasons like this. If that had been cab forward, they would have been in the fireball!

Ahead of their time? More like stuck in the old days. Way back when diesels were setup long hood forward on most railroads, which was a carryover trait from steam locomotives. SOU and N&W both did this late in the game, but eventually even N&W switched to the current preferred option of long hood forward. Some railroads like CN and NS bought engines with safety cabs and AAR control stands set up bi-directionally along with ditch lights on the long hood end before both builders switched back to AAR control stands as a standard option. KCS also has AC4400CW's with ditch lights on the long hood end, but as far as I know they have desktop controls.

Pump

Coach Wrote:
>
> Maybe the old N & W was ahead of their time with
> regards to crew safety--they set up their units
> for "long-hood forward" operation for reasons like
> this. If that had been cab forward, they would
> have been in the fireball!

It's my understanding that N&W no longer orders new units with "long-hood forward" set up. They still have old engines around that do, but not new ones--as I've read. Could be wrong.

I have been on NS Dash 9's and SD70's that had a speedo on the back wall of the cab. It is really handy when you are going backwords to not have to keep turning around to look at the Seedo. I wish BNSF would do this too.
KEvin

Coach Wrote:
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> It's my understanding that N&W no longer orders
> new units with "long-hood forward" set up.


Yeah, because they ceased to exist in 1982! Just a joke :-)