Eastern Railroad Discussion > Another Derailment at Horseshoe Curve

Happened just minutes ago........222 car westbound 35A

3 empty centerbeams behind the power.  Train is on Track 3, fouling Track 2.....

slow speed, engines appear to be on the rail, conductor was out checking 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/19 13:29 by markyk.

Conductor said first 6 on the ground and looked to be upright from what I could see on the web cam.

Posted from iPhone

Same scenario as last time; empty centerbeams at the head of a long, heavy train.  Is no one paying attention?

Running a 222 car train up and down a mountain has insanity written all over it. On CSX's water level route, it could be feasible. But with the ruling grade up and around HSC, forces of nature will prevail more often.

Posted from Android

Guess I’ll take a look at the camera when I get home from work tonight. Any idea if it was also without helpers or a DPU like 34A was?

Posted from iPhone

It's a test train to see if that really does cause a derailment.

Our children have a large set of the BRIO wooden trains. They learned this "stringline" lesson very early when you had to many cars tacked onto the rear of a "empty" string of BRIO cars. Perhaps a set should be issued to those in decision making roles as homework.

CG Tower

What’s the old adage that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing the same way each time but expect a different result?

Posted from iPhone

Walla183 Wrote:
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> Running a 222 car train up and down a mountain has
> insanity written all over it. On CSX's water level
> route, it could be feasible. But with the ruling
> grade up and around HSC, forces of nature will
> prevail more often.
>
> Posted from Android

Burlington Northern Santa Fe does it dam near daily on Cajon  pass. They seem to do it right. Its all in how its done. BNSF and Union Pacific  have improved on Tehatchapi a little . Norfolk Southern doesn't get it
 They rely on these college educated fools from uneducated schools to call the shots regarding train makeup who have zero knowledge on how the railroad really works. NS and others will recruit these busters from some college vs recruit from the operating crafts where those guys and gals actually know how to run trains/railroads.
Two weeks ago when this same scenario played out , there were these cats with their analytically BS trying to explain away why it was OK  to have empty centerbeam cars near the front of a long freight train. He said it wae legal to have these center beam cars where they were. Its physics folks. Don't need a degree to know this.
Guess what, physics apply in 1:87 scale as it does in 1:1 scale. Model railroaders figured this out long ago. You don't put empty center beam cars up front with 190/200 trailing cars going up an approximately 1.8 percent grade and around a 220 degree curve like Horseshoe curve is. Some one really needs to be disciplined. Wake Up NS.

SantaFeRuss







 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/19 17:43 by SantaFeRuss.

The first change EHH made on CSX was for all Road Foreman of Engines to exercise their right, and eliminated the job, then he eliminated most of the Trainmasters and filled a few road foreman jobs with them working double. Next he fired every Division Superintendent. These were the men with knowledge who knew what the customers wanted and how to serve them.  So the result of PSR is how to wreck trains.101.  Customer conference also shows the PSR railroads have ignored the 1st and last mile of service.

In Timothy Jacobs' book History of the Pennsylvania Railroad there are photos of a PRR train with 2 big steam locomotives up front, followed by several empty flat cars, making horseshoe curve. 3 pushers behind the cabin, 2 of which were shoving tender first (which is irrelevant, just neat). So I guess train make up rules have been ignored by many generations, not just today's college grads.

Dave

Posted from Android



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/19 16:08 by puddlejumper.

puddlejumper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In Timothy Jacobs' book History of the
> Pennsylvania Railroad there are photos of a PRR
> train with 2 big steam locomotives up front,
> followed by several empty flat cars, making
> horseshoe curve. 3 pushers behind the cabin, 2 of
> which were shoving tender first (which is
> irrelevant, just neat). So I guess train make up
> rules have been ignored by many generations, not
> just today's college grads.
>
> Dave
>
> Posted from Android

A forty or fifty feet flatcar has a lower center of gravity than a seventy feet centerbeam car. Not the same. Way diferent.
Railroaders back then knew better than these college folks do now. And besides this NS 220 car train had NO helper. Contributing factor. The steam train you reference had helpers. I understand the "slabs" went up the hill with 2 sets of helpers to this trains no rearend support and this train was first into Altoona. The slab train went west first out of Altoona. Strange.

SantaFeRuss
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/19 16:56 by SantaFeRuss.

PRR1361 Wrote:
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> Same scenario as last time; empty centerbeams at
> the head of a long, heavy train.  Is no one
> paying attention?

I thought the pictures from the webcam looked similar to the last one.

Geez 2 westbound derailments and luckily nothing coming right close by on the other track! 🙄😮

SNY1337 Wrote:
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> Geez 2 westbound derailments and luckily nothing
> coming right close by on the other track! 🙄😮
Lucky for sure and not because EHH was looking (down or up?) 

Does NS do a "lessons learned" exercise on derailment like this? It would seem like a good idea.

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Does NS do a "lessons learned" exercise on
> derailment like this? It would seem like a good
> idea.
>
> Posted from Android

I think they need a full out corrective action starting from identifying the problem, short term containment, root cause analysis, then move into long term containment and monitoring for effectiveness before considering the corrective action complete.

That or they could just go back to how Norfolk Southern, Conrail, Penn Central, and the Pennsylvania Railroad ran trains around that curve for 150+ years up until a few weeks ago.

Dan

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/19 17:51 by dschlegel.

SantaFeRuss wrote
>
> A forty or fifty feet flatcar has a lower center
> of gravity than a seventy feet centerbeam car. Not
> the same. Way diferent.
> Railroaders back then knew better than these
> college folks do now. And besides this NS 220 car
> train had NO helper. Contributing factor. The
> steam train you reference had helpers. I
> understand the "slabs" went up the hill with 2
> sets of helpers to this trains no rearend support
> and this train was first into Altoona. The slab
> train went west first out of Altoona. Strange.
>
> SantaFeRuss
>  

Thank you for the explanation. I had not considered center of gravity, nor that those cast steel flats were heavy for their size, nor that the helpers would take some strain off the head end.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/19 17:56 by puddlejumper.

Can't tell management anything. Shaded of UP's take over of SP in TX. "We know what we're doing". Another point on the steam train is it WAY shorter and WAY lighter!
JB

NO Helpers, 15 loads and 207 empties!