Western Railroad Discussion > UP Phoenix Line Severed

Large derailment and fire on Tempe Lake Bridge in Tempe Arizona. The bridge has collapsed. Time to open the West Line.

One span down - 5 or 6 on fire

https://bit.ly/2X9e66z?fbclid=IwAR3ZijihVMqR9uf6Lpt746GoRlqu549rJfKSuadnu0fMRm3leaC1dF1kmHI

News chopper view screen caps...

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Holy crap! Saw the smoke this morning and didn't give it much thought!

More views...

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mococomike Wrote:
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> Large derailment and fire on Tempe Lake Bridge in
> Tempe Arizona. The bridge has collapsed. Time to
> open the West Line.

I was there during the July 4th weekend, and documented IKCPX going over the bridge. Let's see how badly damaged the remaining sections of the bridge are. The collpased section is over land, so if UP wants to, they can repair it relatively quickly.

I wonder if the collapse of the bridge is the cause or result of the incident?
I also wonder what the UP willl do; quick rebuild of the bridge, get the west line going, or detour over BNSF?

Looks like the wooden bridge on the land is where things took place.
 

Is the crew okay?
Were they able to cut off the power and move it away?
Phil

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philhoov Wrote:
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> Is the crew okay?
> Were they able to cut off the power and move it
> away?
> Phil

From the chopper feed, Union Pacific power was seen north and west of the bridge a good 20+ car lengths away from the derailment and fire.

~ Mr. MRL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/20 05:30 by MrMRL.

That's nasty.

Detours are the easiest thing to do.

UP will probably have the bridge rebuilt before it could get the closed section fit to run on.

How would the UP be able to detour around this mess?

The Line west to Yuma, I think is still being used to store cars.
And at Tempe going east. U dont think there is any other way to get around
this mess, Going east from the Phoenix Area.

Does the UP have much traffic going to and from Phoenix?
If they don't have too much traffic. I do not think they would 
want any detours. They might just have all Phoenix traffic wait
until the line is open again.
 

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

Guessing it will be hard to arrange detours since Tucson yard is used to gather traffic from both west and east and assemble into trains for Phoenix.  A lot of cars come from Englewood, Dallas, North Little Rock, Herrington KS, etc.   I suspect BNSF may start getting some of their auto business.  UP doesn't do intermodal in PX.

Just off the top of my head, if quick detours were needed, here are a couple. Trains from the East could be interchanged to the BNSF at El Paso and run North to Belen to the interchange with the Transcon.  From there to Williams Junction down the Peavine to Phoenix.   Trains from the west could take the BNSF to Cadiz, then the Arizona and California to the BNSF connection at Matthie and from there to Phoenix. (The Sunset used this route on a couple of occasions when the line was blocked west of Phoenix) Since the BNSF built a new yard complex Northwest of Glendale, the trains would most likely terminate there and a transfer run made to the UP yard in downtown Phoenix.  Becasue I don't live in Phoenix any more, this is just my best guess.  If anyone knows of better routes, please feel free to correct me. Since the UP has no interest in the line west of Buckeye, I doubt they would spend the time or money to fix it up for short term use.

agent1522 Wrote:
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> Just off the top of my head, if quick detours were
> needed, here are a couple. Trains from the East
> could be interchanged to the BNSF at El Paso and
> run North to Belen to the interchange with the
> Transcon.  From there to Williams Junction down
> the Peavine to Phoenix.   Trains from the west
> could take the BNSF to Cadiz, then the Arizona and
> California to the BNSF connection at Matthie and
> from there to Phoenix. (The Sunset used this
> route on a couple of occasions when the line was
> blocked west of Phoenix) Since the BNSF built a
> new yard complex Northwest of Glendale, the trains
> would most likely terminate there and a transfer
> run made to the UP yard in downtown.

Thanks, your best guess is my best guess, also. If the repairs look like they will take an extended time, UP could change around some internal blocking and maybe route the traffic via a junction other than El Paso. 
 

Dumb question alert:
Is it feasable to divert trains onto the light rail bridges using temporary connections on either end? I would assume that "light" transit bridges are built to a lesser weight capability, but is that capacity high enough to get these trains across, even in sections?
Edit: Can autoracks even fit under the light rail catenary?
/dumbquestion



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/20 10:04 by jtbrandt.

To me it appears that the loaded centerbeam that is halfway across the bridge derailed coming onto the bridge, probably a wheel with a journal that burned off on the rear truck. That ripped up the track and sparked all the fires across the bridge. The following cars derailed on the ripped up track and collapsed the truss span. The span where the two loaded centerbeams burned shows some major warpage and likely will be written off as well. Not sure about the other spans with just the ties on fire. It's ironic the centerbeam that caused the derailment sits there relatively unscathed.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

funnelfan Wrote:
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> To me it appears that the loaded centerbeam that
> is halfway across the bridge derailed coming onto
> the bridge, probably a wheel with a journal that
> burned off on the rear truck. That ripped up the
> track and sparked all the fires across the bridge.
> The following cars derailed on the ripped up track
> and collapsed the truss span. The span where the
> two loaded centerbeams burned shows some major
> warpage and likely will be written off as well.
> Not sure about the other spans with just the ties
> on fire. It's ironic the centerbeam that caused
> the derailment sits there relatively unscathed.
A closeup from a helicopter showed an axle/wheels just behind that car at an angle. I was thinking the same thing being the only thing that could have caused the immediate fire to the unoccupied section of bridge.

Unless UP traffic to/from Phoenix could be handled in existing BNSF trains, I question whether BNSF’s crew board on the Peavine could support much in the way of detoured traffic.

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