Steam & Excursion > This Was Amazingly Not The End Of This Locomotive's Service!

I hope some of our readers can help us fill in the history on this terrible wreck.  All I have is what was written on the negative sleeve by Ralph Demoro who took the photo.

We see Northwestern Pacific #2339 lying in a creek bed at Petaluma, California in 1941.  She clearly has hit the broken rail shown on the short trestle which caused her to crash into the water.

SP #2339 was leased to the NWP from 1940 until 1950 so we know that she was repaired after this wreck an put back into service.

Let's see if anyone here knows more about the wreck and the fate of her crew on that day.


Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/15 03:15 by LoggerHogger.

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And for those of you who think train crews had a cushy job which one of you would have liked to be in the cab when this happened. I have ridden in a few steam engines and to guarantee they will stay on the track at times is something I wondered about. Knew an engineer that worked out of LaGrande OR he said leaving there with a Challenger one would put everything in full go ahead and run for the hill damn the speed as ever what you could get you would need climbing the Blue Mountains.

Some time back, I posted a "where is it" post featuring a picture of this wreck, from a slightly different angle....http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3188690,3189130#msg-3189130....As mentioned in the post, I questioned why this SP steam locomotive was on what I believed at the time to be the P & SR electric line. With this new angle, the lack of the Hunt & Berhens grain mill which should be visible in the background straddling the track, has me suspecting this may be the NWP main, & not the P&SR, meaning that this photo was taken a couple hundred yards upstream from the trestle I originally suspected was the one pictured (which, incidentally also had a turnout built into its (timetable) western end) but now I wonder, why was there a turnout built partially on this bridge? I know about 1/2 mi. to the west of this location, there used to be two tracks in front of the Petaluma NWP depot (which still stands today). Maybe this is where that second track diverged from the main line? Not to hijack this thread, but does anyone have a circa-1940's railroad map of Petaluma to answer this?

Desmond Praetzel, "4451 Puff"

Sorry I'm jumping in late... I had rules testing to worry about today (passed with flying colors).

I have to wonder about the statement that this derailment was clearly caused by the broken rail.  It would seem more likely that the rail was ripped to the side by the locomotive going over the side.

The one thing I would offer as obvious is that there is not enough information in this photo to say what caused the derailment.  Looking at the location of the broken rail to the location of the locomotive, I would think it is unlikely that the derailment would have originated at that point.

The locomotive would have had forward momentum, and for that to be the point of derailment the locomotive would have had to essentially made a right angle; changing from moving forward to instantaneously moving sideways.  Had that rail been the point of derailment, it should have ridden along the ties for at least a short distance before leaving the roadbed.  With a little luck, it may have even managed to get past the bridge before rolling into the ditch.

I think it is more likely that the derailment occurred before the engine went off the bridge.  The rail was probably yanked off to the side as the right side of the engine left the roadbed, and as the engine tilted to the right the left side drivers pulled the rail along with it.

If we could get a look at the track, I would expect to find damage to the ties for at least some distance prior to the point the locomotive left the bridge.

Could the wreck have been caused by a broken rail?  Certainly.  I seriously doubt it happened in the frame of this photo.

Any thoughts?

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/15 22:20 by MaryMcPherson.

Anyone trying to determine the cause of the wreck from this one photo should remember that the National Transportation Safety Board can take days and sometimes weeks of on-site investigation and analysis to determine the true story of a rail (or aircraft) disaster.