Western Railroad Discussion > Texas Runaway Train Collision

UPDATED. From what I've been able to gather, around 8 cars of pipe rolled out onto the BNSF mainline eastbound from Slaton, TX heading toward Post, TX. A westbound train crew was told of the runaway cars and came to a stop on the mainline and vacated the train. There is a significant downgrade between Southland and Post and caused the cars to gain a lot of speed before they slammed into the westbound near the siding at Buenos, TX. The collision occured about 1:45am Sunday morning. The flying natural gas pipe destroyed the cab of both the lead unit and the second unit of the westbound train. A covered hopper car behind the two lead units on the westbound train was rolled off the tracks.

https://www.everythinglubbock.com/news/local-news/train-crash-in-garza-co-appeared-to-be-caused-by-runaway-boxcars/

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/23 23:52 by funnelfan.

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That was a fierce collision. Other sources say the crew of the impacted locomotive was able to evacuate before the collision. Likely saved their lives

Posted from Android

What a big damaged the runaway caused. Glad the crew could stop the train and leave the location in time. 

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

Scarry

Posted from Android

There's nothing as bad as a heavy load getting loose.  Anti-climbers and other safety build-ins are ineffectual.

Is this line PTC equipped ?
If so, would a hand operated switch being run through trigger warning ?

           Yes, original poster noted the crew stopped and got away from their train in plenty of time.

How often does 'mixed freight get loose' and roll out onto the mainline? Getting loose implies brakes not holding the cut of cars sitting on a grade. Maybe the local crew dropped the cars and didn't tighten the hand brakes in sufficient quantity to secure the cars., but wouldn't they have noticed the cars moving and tightened more hand brakes? Wouldn't there be a derail near the siding switch?

Newton's first law comes into effect here. Why did the cars 'roll out onto the mainline'?

dragoon Wrote:
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> How often does 'mixed freight get loose' and roll
> out onto the mainline? Getting loose implies
> brakes not holding the cut of cars sitting on a
> grade. Maybe the local crew dropped the cars and
> didn't tighten the hand brakes in sufficient
> quantity to secure the cars., but wouldn't they
> have noticed the cars moving and tightened more
> hand brakes? Wouldn't there be a derail near the
> siding switch?
>
> Newton's first law comes into effect here. Why did
> the cars 'roll out onto the mainline'?

Could be several causes. Vandalism meaning someone knocked off the handbrake s and bled the air out of the cars. Could be a crew members fault without going into all of the scenarios. Let the railroad do its investigation and the cause will come out. The load of pipe cut through the engine like a knife. Glad there wasn't any injuries.

Posted from Android

Average 0.3% downgrade Slaton to Buenos --
wonder how fast it got going.

Looking at Google Maps this appears to be CTC territory and there is a power derail at the east end of the yard so either the cars rolled off the mainline or for some reason the switch and derail was lined for movement out of the yard. No matter, it's just lucky the cars were noticed rolling away and the crew on the train was warned to stop and vacate.

Glad the crew wasn't hurt on the train that was rammed into with WOW results.

Larry

Ritzville Wrote:
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> Glad the crew wasn't hurt on the train that was
> rammed into with WOW results.
>
> Larry


EXACTLY!      In the dark of night the crew likely would not have noticed the cars coming at them in time to safely stop and evacuate.  


Nickatnight

 

"Like a knife through butter" really describes that mess.

Posted from Android

Wow…JC was lookin’ out for those guys that day! That pretty bad.

But…not the first time this has happened, won’t be the last. I can think of at least one situation since I have worked for Big Orange where cars have rolled out of a yard out onto the main. In the mid 2000’s, a cut of cars rolled 8.5 miles out of Auburn Yard onto the main reaching speeds of over 25 mph…luckily nobody was injured then either.

It's always interesting those videos where a single car is just cruising along miles and miles of track. 

Going through crossings like nobody's business. 

Would imagine running a locomotive to catch up and capture such a car would be quite exciting.  

Chuck

Remember2003 the runaway at Montclair, CA cars ran all the way to UP Commerce yard , Los Angeles. The cars were derailed and damaged the surrounding homes.

Posted from Android

Notice in the 2nd photo, above the engine, lays another toppled car.  That means those loose cars hit so hard they buckled the train backwards enough to push cars behind the engines off the rail and tumble over into the dirt.  That is a huge impact force.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/23 16:16 by coach.

Texican65 Wrote:
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> Wow…JC was lookin’ out for those guys that
> day! That pretty bad.

It's amazing with the kind of territory and workload dispatchers have that Spatch just happened to be looking there and figured out what (s)he was seeing.

>
> But…not the first time this has happened,
> won’t be the last. I can think of at least one
> situation since I have worked for Big Orange where
> cars have rolled out of a yard out onto the main.
> In the mid 2000’s, a cut of cars rolled 8.5
> miles out of Auburn Yard onto the main reaching
> speeds of over 25 mph…luckily nobody was injured
> then either.

Way back before CTC, there was a real small time coal loading operation at Ravensdale. Cars were loaded on the siding by a front end loader. There was a portable Hayes derail installed on the west end of the siding. Somebody knocked off the brakes and away they went. They tore out the derail and kept on truckin'. At Auburn, they ran out on the northbound and kept on keepin' on. Some guy in Kent riding by on a bicycle saw them. By then, they had slowed enough that he was able to get on and put a brake on them. He then called the cops and they called the dispatcher. All ABS and fortunately no trains around and no cars or pedestrians hit at crossings.

TAW

And anyone remember the tragic runaway about a cut of hoppers that got going and the Kyle Railroad freight that had no warning which collided together in the middle of nowhere during the night in Western Kansas(or was it Eastern Colorado). Those Kyle guys never had a chance, but this latest one, thank goodness they had advance warning.