European Railroad Discussion > Freightliner Class 70 dropped during UK unloading

UK discussion boards were all alight with this last weekend, chains snapped during lifting from the ships hold and fell on one end anywhere from 10-30 feet. A picture has surfaced of the loco close up finally as it was being loaded for transport via lorry for disposition.

Best thing that could ever happen to an "Ugly Betty" as they are nicknamed.

Fixable, sure, but would be as expensive as getting another new one to do so. Would guess they'd just part it out and scrap the remains.

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Sure hope she was insured!

Incidentally, I am sure about the Ugly Betty monicker having seen a Bombardier TRAXX at close quarters today. That is one Plain Jane.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/11 11:31 by Focalplane.

Doesn't look fixable to me - looks like a bent frame.

Wow...the insurance agents will be arguing this for awhile...meantime, start building another one....

PumpkinHogger Wrote:
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> Best thing that could ever happen to an "Ugly
> Betty" as they are nicknamed.

That's the polite nickname - they are also called 'Fuglys' :-)

Yea thats bent, Don't see that getting fixed.

Can anyone recall any similar incidents, which would have resulted in a newly built loco never actually running on the mainline?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/11 04:11 by rubblehead.

During WW2 there were cases of newly built locomotives being shipped across the Atlantic or shipped from the UK to the Middle East which were lost when the ship was torpedoed. Not sure that counts though.

Sort of similar was the fate of the Turbomotive - the LMS turbine 4-6-2 which was converted into a reciprocal 4-6-2 in 1952 and named Princess Anne. It was in service for 8 weeks before being wrecked beyond economical repair at Harrow and Wealdstone in October 1952, it was the train engine on the Liverpool and Manchester express which ran into the wreckage of the commuter train and the Perth to Euston overnight train.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/11 05:06 by 86235.

86235 Wrote:>
> Sort of similar was the fate of the Turbomotive -
> the LMS turbine 4-6-2 which was converted into a
> reciprocal 4-6-2 in 1952 and named Princess Anne.
> It was in service for 8 weeks before being wrecked
> beyond economical repair at Harrow and Wealdstone
> in October 1952, it was the train engine on the
> Liverpool and Manchester express which ran into
> the wreckage of the commuter train and the Perth
> to Euston overnight train.

see this site for details

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=108

there is a discussion on this theme on the UK WNXX forum, a couple of the Class 47's only lasted a few months before being written off in the 60's. In the US, BNSF 4499 must have had a very short life, meeting a fiery end in a rear-end collision at Bellemont AZ

Southern Pacific U33C 8642 is believed to hold the US record. Delivered running to Conrail at Erie, PA, then to Rock Island at Chicago, and then Southern Pacific at Tucumcari, NM it made it to Indio, CA on its third day operating, and was destroyed in a head-on accident.

Getting back to the picture, check out the rust on the roof of the near end cab.
A new paint job that couldn't handle 7 - 10 days at sea?

SOO6617 Wrote:
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> Southern Pacific U33C 8642 is believed to hold the
> US record. Delivered running to Conrail at Erie,
> PA, then to Rock Island at Chicago, and then
> Southern Pacific at Tucumcari, NM it made it to
> Indio, CA on its third day operating, and was
> destroyed in a head-on accident.

I remember pictures in Extra 2200 South magazine of Alco's on their delivery run to Mexico, along with a Lehigh & Hudson River C420 piled up somewhere in the Eastern US perhaps a day out of the factory. They looked to be write offs. No one hurt though.

eminence_grise Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SOO6617 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Southern Pacific U33C 8642 is believed to hold
> the
> > US record. Delivered running to Conrail at
> Erie,
> > PA, then to Rock Island at Chicago, and then
> > Southern Pacific at Tucumcari, NM it made it to
> > Indio, CA on its third day operating, and was
> > destroyed in a head-on accident.
>
> I remember pictures in Extra 2200 South magazine
> of Alco's on their delivery run to Mexico, along
> with a Lehigh & Hudson River C420 piled up
> somewhere in the Eastern US perhaps a day out of
> the factory. They looked to be write offs. No one
> hurt though.

Seems to me SP does hold the title on another locomotive....an E9, shipped from EMD in January 1955 me an untimely accident on the way west to California when it was involved in a switching accident resulting in a bent frame behind the cab. It was returned to EMD and rebuilt. It never turned a wheel in revenue service the first time around.

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Getting back to the picture, check out the rust on
> the roof of the near end cab.
> A new paint job that couldn't handle 7 - 10 days
> at sea?


Looks like the paint was rubbed off by the loading cable to me.

Definitely an item for the "Some Days Are Heck" file.
Santa Fe used to have a frame straightening bay in their San Bernardino (Southern California) shops. It was a monolithic structure of reinforced concrete set into the floor. It had rails on which the damaged frame could be rolled in. There were very heavy eyebars set into the structure that would be used to secure chains laid over the "high" areas of the frame. Huge hydraulic jacks would be set under the low spots and pumped up to bring it back to normal. They could "unbend" a wrecked locomotive if the "number crunchers" determined that it was worth the effort. The shops are long gone, but I suspect the straightening structure is still there, covered up for some future archaeologist to puzzle over.

It's interesting to me to note that a big truck was required to clean up the mess. Keep on truckin'! Another thing I wondered about here, I wonder if a Freightliner of the rubber tired type was pulling this trailer? Naw, probably not, I reckon that that type of Freightliner, commonly known as a "Freightshaker" isn't seen very often outside of North America or possibly Australia.

Con

AMTK 819, an Amtrak P40, was destroyed when three weeks old, in the infamous Sunset Limited wreck at Big Bayou Canot, AL in September 1993. A wayward barge under the command of a confused captain hit a bridge on CSX, knocking it out of alignment and bending but not breaking the rails, minutes before the Sunset came along at 70mph, struck a bridge girder and ran off the bridge.

The following story and photo are from Mike Palmieri's onetime Louisiana Rail Site. Sadly his material was lost in Hurricane Katrina.

> Their builder's plates are labeled Dash 8-40BP, but most Amtrak
> people identify these units as P40's. The first one rolled out of the
> General Electric plant at Erie, Pennsylvania in April of 1993, but
> the units did not enter regular service until June. Their first
> regular assignment was on the Auto Train between Lorton, Virginia and
> Sanford, Florida; but all of the units were initially assigned to the
> New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal diesel shop for maintenance and
> inspections. The very first P40 in New Orleans was the 806, which
> arrived here on the Crescent on 15 June for crew and Mechanical
> Department training.
>
> When Amtrak 819 was photographed leaving New Orleans on the City of
> New Orleans at 2:40 p.m. on Saturday 11 September 1993, it was the
> newest P40 in service; but on that day, it was just another P40. The
> 819 began its first revenue run on Friday evening 3 September 1993 —
> just seven days earlier — when it departed from Chicago on the
> southbound City of New Orleans.
>
> The 819 arrived in New Orleans for the first time on Saturday the
> fourth and remained in continuous service out of here for the next 15
> days. It made two trips to Washington, DC and back on the Crescent,
> two trips to Chicago and back on the City (as seen here), and one
> more round trip to Washington, arriving back in New Orleans on the
> evening of Sunday the nineteenth. The locomotive's first day of rest
> was Monday the twentieth; then, the next evening, it was put on the
> eastbound Sunset for movement to Sanford, Florida and service on the
> Auto Train.
>
> At 11:34 p.m. on Tuesday 21 September, the 819 left New Orleans Union
> Passenger Terminal on the front of train No. 2 — the eastbound Sunset
> — as the train continued on its journey from Los Angeles to Miami.
> Behind it were F40's 262 and 312 and eight cars. The train was 34
> minutes late because of mechanical problems with one of the cars.
> Three hours later, the train made its usual station stop at Mobile,
> still running about half an hour late.
>
> At CSX milepost 656.7 — exactly 10 miles north of the Mobile depot —
> the railroad crosses Big Bayou Canot on bridge No. 196. On the
> morning of 22 September 1993, bridge No. 196 consisted on a 166-foot
> through truss span, a 140-foot through girder span, and a 192-foot
> ballasted-deck trestle.
>
> As the Sunset was leaving Mobile, the Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co.
> towboat Mauvilla was pushing six barges up the Mobile River.
> Unfortunately, the Mauvilla was lost in dense fog. The tow
> accidentally turned into Big Bayou Canot and two of its barges struck
> the CSX bridge. The west end of the girder span was pushed over about
> 4 feet, placing the south girder directly in the path of train No. 2.
>
>
> At 2:47 Wednesday morning, the Sunset thundered out onto bridge No.
> 196. Moving at 70 mph, the 819 struck the west end of the south
> girder, became airborne, and landed 150 feet away on the north side
> of the trestle. The locomotive landed nose-first, dove through 15
> feet of water, and buried itself halfway into the bottom of the
> bayou. Both of the F40's, the baggage car, dormitory car, and two
> coaches followed the 819 into the water. Leaking diesel fuel
> ignited, setting the surface of the bayou ablaze. All three of the
> crewmen on the 819 died, as did two dining car workers in the
> dormitory car and 42 passengers.
>
> The 819 was removed from the bayou on Friday the twenty-fourth and
> placed on a barge. One of the submerged coaches was salvaged, but the
> rest of the damaged equipment was moved to Blakely Island in Mobile
> and scrapped. The 819 was no longer just another P40; it was the
> first P40 to be retired. It had worked for Amtrak for just 20 days.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/11 07:39 by GenePoon.

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