Western Railroad Discussion > BNSF Derailment in OK

Q-LACNWH6-08 just blew over at Gage, Oklahoma. Both mains blocked. Engines & head 5 cars still on the rail is what is being reported. Not sure of details at this time.

The Iron Horse

Oklahoma City TV station storm chaser was covering the severe storm in the area. He
says derailment was about a mile west of Gage. He thinks 20 to 30 cars derailed.

Ken
 

From local TV News:

"Emergency crews are responding to a train derailment after straight line damaging winds of up to 70 mph reportedly caused an estimated 15 to 25 rail cars to overturn Monday night near Gage, Oklahoma.News 9 StormTracker Marty Logan was tracking storms in the area in Ellis County at the time of the derailment.Firefighters estimate the overturned cars extends about a half mile long.The fire officials said there were no injuries or fatalities

https://www.news9.com/story/5f321116e19fd50b8a661154/several-rail-cars-overturned-in-train-derailment-in-ellis-county-due-to-damaging-winds



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/20 04:02 by cinder.

Even tho BNSF hires weather people to try to prevent this it still happens because no one can pin point possible high winds from thunderstorms to a small area.

The question is: was the train stopped by a storm warning? 

Because both the trains and the weather move, if a train is in the middle of an approaching or developing (sometimes dangerous weather coincidentally develops very near tracks) zone, they will stop the train. If the train is very near the edges of a wind warning, they will allow it to exit the warning area. 

If that train was stopped, the warning was a success. Far less damage is done if the train was stopped than if the train was moving at 70 mph when it was blown over. 

I thought the readers of Trainorders might find it interesting to learn a little about the weather surrounding this event. Given the growth in the use of double stacks, autoracks and trailers-on-flatcars, it is not an exaggeration to say that modern railroading, like modern aviation, could not successfully operate without modern meteorology. 

I am the retired Sr. VP of AccuWeather Enterprises Solutions and a retired certified consulting meteorologist. I worked with every class one railroad during my career on methods to constantly improve the quality of warnings of extreme weather. As I am retired I have no knowledge as to whether there was a warning in this situation, the quality of the warning, or whether BNSF responded correctly to the warning.* This is simply a generalized discussion about storm warnings. 

Extreme weather is complex to warn of. In this case, we know what happened as the Gage, OK airport is a stone's throw from the Transcon in just about the area of the derailment. It clocked a peak gust of 70 mph at 8:19pm CDT. Often, when the track and thunderstorm are in the middle of nowhere it can be very difficult to determine what actually occurred.

The first image below is the radar at the time of the 70 mph gust. This is what we call the "reflectivity" data and it is the type of radar that is most often displayed on television. The blowover was 1 mile southwest of Gage. Double stacks blow over with about a 55mph with a 90° cross wind. It takes a higher wind speed if the wind is not 90° from the track orientation. In this case, the winds would have been close to 90°.

The next image below is the Doppler wind display. The highest wind shown in the area is just 40 mph! Why? The closest radar is 96 miles away in Grant Co., Oklahoma. Because of the earth's curvature, the radar's beam is 9,000 ft. about the ground. So, it cannot see the winds close to the ground that blew over the train. There are times when damaging winds are less than 5 miles in diameter. Literally a meteorological needle in a haystack. 

The meteorologist must use his or her's expertise to forecast what the winds will do. They take into account the condition of the atmosphere from the ground to 10,000 ft. and look for signatures of strong winds such as an "Inverted-Vee Sounding" as well as their years of experience. While warning of yesterday's Midwest derecho was relatively straightford (and I have not heard of any derailments), warning of winds in a situation like this is very difficult. 

Hope this insight into the warning process is useful. 

* There is a famous video of a tornado blowing over a Union Pacific train. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYubpuIe3cw  What you may not know is that we issued a correct warning of that tornado. There was, however, an issue with the dispatching. One of the trains was given our warning and stopped. The other train was not given the warning and continued into the the path of the tornado as shown in the video. 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/20 14:18 by MSE.

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Does anyone know the lead unit number? I shot or saw a number of westbound stackers yesterday afternoon while shooting pics for my latest (upcoming) Flint Hills DT report update...

Lance/199

It was an eastbound that derailed and they were moving at the time inside a high wind warning. One Main is already open and the other other should be open in a few hours



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/20 16:04 by Milw_E70.

Interesting post MSE. Thank you for a glimpse into that aspect of railroading.

Tom Loftus
Omaha, NE

MSE ...a most interesting explanation . Thanks for sharing !

Took place 8:00 Mon night. 6546 ft Q train w/39 well cars. The 16th-39th cars is what derailed. After a four hr delay, the train departed w/15 cars--2720 ft. Hultcher and Corman did the contract clean up. W/both mains being blocked into the following day, this created an out of balance pool crew boards w/crews stranded in Wellks and Amaril. Massive deadheading took place on Tue. In fact there were at least two, Amaril to Wellks deadhead moves that was done on chartered Village Tour bus that took just over 7 hrs to travel. Both main tracks at mp 408 are now under a 40 mph TSR until further notice.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/20 01:56 by sfbrkmn.