Steam & Excursion > When Water Eats At The Trestle Bad Things Are Bound To Happen!

August 9, 1944 proved to be a rough day for the crew of Alaska Railroad #702 as they tried to cross this bridge at milepost 287.7 as we see here.

The heavy rains in the area had called out #702 and her work extra train. #702 was a big 2-8-2 built by Baldwin in 1926 for the ARR. She began to cross the raging river on this bridge only to find out that some of the bridge pilings had been scoured out by the torrent of water coming down the river channel.

The weight of the engines tender and fist cars behind her proved more than the undermined bridge could support.

Needless to say, now another work train was called out to save this work train.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/17 04:14 by LoggerHogger.

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Amazing the engine stayed on the rails.

I'm just guessing, here...

The typical engine-tender connection ( on locos after the mid-'teens ) was comprised of a drawbar, proper, and a 'safety' bar. The safety bar had an elongated (rear) drawbar-pin hole,
so that the 'safety bar' had no strain while in normal service....
Whereas, the drawbar, (the upper bar) had two round holes, fitted with hardened-steel bushings.

In the rare event of a complete failure of the drawbar, the "safety bar" carries the normal strain ....
Previous practice used a couple of chain links&hooks...
As also used in older passenger cars .... Safety Chains were phased-out, over time.

It looks to me that the tender has been dropped, earlier,by the wrecking crew ---- using a cutting torch to cut the two drawbars... Thus, dropping the tender into the creek...

I'd be surprised if the small weight of the derailed cars was sufficient to break the both of the draw bars....

I'm just sayin'....

W.

Posted from iPhone

Wes,

I don't think I can agree that the tender was dropped by an earlier crew. This is a single track bridge and both ends are blocked, one by the engine and the other by the cars. No crane could have gotten in there to pick up and then drop the tender.

I have another shot of the rear of the engine. I will look to see if the drawbar in fact broke or was merely torn from it's pocket.

Martin

Here is the photo of the rear of the engine



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/17 16:32 by LoggerHogger.

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I'm presuming that the tender was under strain, and that they cut the two draw bars --- without using any supporting scheme...

Agreed, that a derrick would only be able to work off its front, and one car at a time.

Is the engine house ahead of, or behind the engine?

The anchors/supports for the bridge: on solid rock surface, or can you drive pilings?

W.

Posted from iPhone

It is amazing that the locomotive didn't go into the drink, too. If the drawbars didn't just crack off from the strain, then it's still hard to imagine that somebody had to get a cutting torch to that position. That would be tough to do from either end, unless you had really long hoses, and just carried the torch. Can you imagine being the poor sucker that had to crawl between the engine and tender while standing on shreaded timbers ? Then you'd have to maintain your balance, as you cut loose the tender. As it fell away, praying that the loco. didn't follow it, and you, into the river.

Also check out the guy on the ladder that's climbing onto the angled surface of the flat car. I wonder if he forgot his lunch in the tool car, above him ?

In any case it doesn't look like a fun day for any of those guys.

It would really be interesting to see follow up photos of the repairs and recovery of this train.

Craig Hanson
Vay, Idaho

Just imagine the panic in the minds of the engineer and fireman when their tender disappears behind them, and they're wondering if the engine is going in next. That doesn't look like a nice swimming environment, to say nothing of the water temperature.

Having been in some situations where there was a good bit of tension on what I was cutting, I would really hate to be the guy that would have been called on to cut the tender draw bars. Given that's probably 200K(ish) pounds hanging on those bars, no thanks, let them fall.

Wow, lots going on in this photo! Noticed the two separate workers standing on the boards going from tender up to the bridge timber, then another to right of that. Also assuming the rails may have slipped out from under at least the rear engine wheels? And the timbers stacked on rails in front of the engine, are going to be placed underneath it for re-railing, moving the engine forward?

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

Re: hawkinsun. ....

" If the drawbars didn't just
> crack off from the strain,..."

Drawbars are made from tough steels, not brittle, tool steel.
They will take the draft-battering very well.

So, drawbars will not simply break. ( " crack off") ---besides, there's not much actual weight hanging off the tender's coupler ... surely, that light load would not break Two drawbars of duplicate tensile strength .

I can't make out what's hanging out the front of the tender, at a 45-deg. angle....? Stoker conveyor tube???

W.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/17 15:19 by wcamp1472.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
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> I can't make out what's hanging out the front of
> the tender, at a 45-deg. angle....? Stoker conveyor tube???

Yeah, Wes, I think a stoker.

-LD

One of the tools in a Wreckmaster's toolbox is a cutting torch with very long. straight tubes...
There were also tubes fitted with the tip parallel to the tubes--- for straight cutting....

You also had to be prepared for the last bit of steel ( of the 'target' ) to suddenly snap under the strain... releasing the load to recoil wildly...
The long cutting torches aided in providing better stand-off capability ....

As mechanics, loco repairmen hated it when drawbars were first things to go. !!!
Master Mechanics often wore the Wreckmaster's hat.... as part of their Mechanical Dept duties....
They were charged with getting the rails restored to service----- costs of rerouted trains, costs of delayed trains were raising rapidly with every minute of line blockage...-- the wrecked equipment was obstructing the re-opening the main lines.
So, for the MM, the drawbars were often the first things cut....
( logging roads have different priorities , so these factors might have given logging roads different choices..)

For mechanics restoring wrecked locos for return to service, forging new, huge draw-bars was a hard task... ( once cut, they were not repairable)...

W.

At this point in time, the Alaska RR was being ran by the US Army, I think

Interesting, I didn't think they had anything bigger than 2-8-0s.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Oh! Didn't see 2nd photo till now, looks like they laid those timbers along sides of rails, plus I forgot about the inner "guard rails" usually installed on most bridges. Still that looks a very slim marigine for the engineer and fireman to be standing on, while the tender slipped away! Wonder if any part of locomotive's cab floor was taken away during the separation?

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

Boomer92...

Re: Cab floor....

Typically, the floor of the cab and the front, cross walkway of the tender are separated by approx 12" to 18" inches.

There are (center) "buffer castings", low-down, just above the tender frame, that transmit the buff forces between the two masses.

The draft forces are handled by the drawbar, and it's mate-- the safety bar. The buffer mounts directly over the draw bars.

The walk space between the cab floor and the tender gang-way is covered by a hinged, slightly arched, steel 'apron' plate. It typically has the raised 'safety diamond' tread surface. The suspension hinges are often made of rectangular steel loops
( fastened to the rear cab walls, at the outer ends of the diamond plate).

The floor is then made-up of three surfaces: the fixed cab floor, the tender front gangway, and the 'floating' apron covering the open space between the cab & tender.

When the two ( tender & loco) are separated for maintenance & repairs, the 'apron plate', still attached the the rear cab walls, droops--- hanging by its two steel suspension links.

In these pics, the apron plate is not visible ---- probably removed ( torched) by the re-railing crews.

W.

Posted from iPhone

I never knew the Alaska railroad used any engine with trailing truck booster but, this one certainly has one.