Western Railroad Discussion > UP main line back in service - Kelso CA

Union Pacific announced the line is open -- "within 26 hours of derailment".
That's pretty impressive.  Who needs detours.

hotrail Wrote:
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> Union Pacific announced the line is open --
> "within 26 hours of derailment".
> That's pretty impressive.  Who needs detours.
Just shove it all off into the desert

WAF Wrote:
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> hotrail Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Union Pacific announced the line is open --
> > "within 26 hours of derailment".
> > That's pretty impressive.  Who needs detours.
> Just shove it all off into the desert


Shove the wreckage out of the way. Put in the snap track and run the choo choos

Posted from Android

They didn't have to move much.  The train flew off the curve and piled up some distance from where the track had been.

With that kind of speed in a curve, not much to clean up on the road bed. This derailment gives a whole new meaning to flying off the rails into a pile. Not much left but chunks of scrap metal and aluminum. Maybe a few more engines pulled out of the dead lines to sufficiently power the trains would have helped just a wee bit. PSR is great, isn't it.
For the UP, tomorrow is a new day, and all has been forgotten about this one.
 

radar Wrote:
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> They didn't have to move much.  The train flew
> off the curve and piled up some distance from
> where the track had been.

Its almost like a "Precision Derailment" -- clear of the ROW and no injuries. 

MILW-E78 Wrote:
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> With that kind of speed in a curve, not much to
> clean up on the road bed. This derailment gives a
> whole new meaning to flying off the rails into a
> pile. Not much left but chunks of scrap metal and
> aluminum. 
 
Same the thoughts here.  Looks like the train was going so fast it went air born off the curve into the desert.

It passed the detector at 118 with nearly 12 miles of additional downgrade ahead, just
need the formula for terminal velocity of a freight train and we'd give you a number.

Out 

So how far, and how long, did that thing roll once it left the scene of the broken knuckle?   
SR

That's a good question and especially considering the speed that it passed the detector. It had to be accelerating
pretty hard to reach that from Cima. I dunno, got a stinking hunch that the train was a little fast leaving the top and
the hoghead upped the dynos to slow it, the remotes with a more distributed load slowed quicker and that brought
the knuckle. But it's still hard to explain the speed at the detector.

Out 

I would of loved to be sitting in kelso station when it went byive seem amtrak in NEC but this would of been way different...Scoobydoobydoo in OHIO

Is the 118mph perhaps an upper limit for that type of detector?

Have seen that 118 number floating around on another incident it seems.  

Does putting max brakes on a locomotive cause the locomotive wheels to "lock-up" and skid?

Still trying to understand how this can runaway when there are train systems and procedures to prevent it. 

It's all about the air it seems but am still watching and learning. 

Chuck

It seems UP saved money by not assigning more engines to this train.  Now, they have to replace the entire train, and engines.  Thank the Lord the crew is safe.

As another poster asked:  "Why weren't retainers set up before the descent?  Does UP no longer do that?"

There's a good description here of railroad speed rules and the point of no return on steep grades- 
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,690459,690626#msg-690626  Look for the second post by "airbrake" near the middle of the first page.

mapboy

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, that I know of, is the rear of the train.  How many cars were left behind and I would imagine there was a DP unit on the rear.  fI got a hunch that the head end power didn't have enough moxie to push the heavy train back to a joint.  Then something happened.  From there, we know the rest.  

RR

there may have been midtrain dpu.s and a rear unit , talked about in the derailment discussion, as well as the bulk of the train

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SanJoaquinEngr Wrote:
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> WAF Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > hotrail Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Union Pacific announced the line is open --
> > > "within 26 hours of derailment".
> > > That's pretty impressive.  Who needs
> detours.
> > Just shove it all off into the desert
>
>
> Shove the wreckage out of the way. Put in the snap
> track and run the choo choos

That plus only a handful of mostly non-important trains to run on this line and the derailment is only a small hiccup in normal ops. Heck, it may be just the same as normal ops, running time-wise sans derailment...

JG

Scary just looking at that photo. Decision to bail off early on was a excellent one. Can't wait for the in cab camera footage to be released on this one!
 

Hmmm, never figured the Union Pacific to be the first to implement High Speed Rail in California...

S_W

Posted from Android

Stevo_Weimario Wrote:
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> Hmmm, never figured the Union Pacific to be the
> first to implement High Speed Rail in
> California...
>
> S_W
>
> Posted from Android

Flex tape won't fix that damage...literally!