Eastern Railroad Discussion > When YOUR train derails...

When your train picks a switch, the rail rolls over,  or a wheel falls off, etc and the back 10 cars of your 50 or 100 car train derail, what do you feel / see in the cab?  I'm guessing alarms go off, the air  dumps, the train jolts to a stop, etc.

Do you feel a fishtail motion, like your car skidding on an ice patch? Or just a maximum G full stop?

Just a slight tug like a trout on a line  then the air goes, you bail off the engines,  and you continue to a relatively smooth stop............no further jerking, swaying, etc  Momentum takes you forward.  If it's a break in two you might get a bump from behind if the rear portion has a bunch of loads

Years ago I had a long train with lots of long TOFC cars. Oddly enough I happened to glance at the CDU display just as the tail-end readout went to zero along with a low pressure alarm. The Locotrol panel was just below the CDU panel and the air pressure went to zero and then the gauge on the lead unit went to zero as well as PC trip.It was all sort in sequence slow motion of the three readouts going to zero. We came to a nice smooth stop and the Conductor had a long walk back for a hose bag near the tail-end.
Doug

And not always, buddy of mine had a rail break and come up into the car, stop was a bit more abrupt.

Out 

Saturday, February 5, 1994. About 8:30 AM. I was in the lead unit with the Engineer. My Conductor was in the second/middle unit. We were only doing about 30 MPH. We were moving east. We had just come out of a CTC Siding on the north side of the Main Track, where we met a westbound. The tail-end had just cleared the siding so we were picking up speed. I don't think you can see it in these photographs, but there used to be a siding along in there on the south side of the Main Track.

The Westbound we met was a CSX Train that had trackage rights on this portion of the GTW. We heard the Engineer ask a Crew Member on the Caboose to let him know how the cab rode passing over the siding switch. The guy on the Cab said "WHAT?" The Engineer again asked him to let him know how the cab rode passing over the siding switch. And he again answered "What?" The Engineer then said never mind. When they passed us in the siding they never said anything about that siding switch.

We got a signal to proceed, so we did. When we passed over that switch the locomotive rocked back and forth a little bit. My Engineer looked in his mirror and said we were on the ground, and he dumped the air. I stood up and turned around looking out the window to the rear at what became this huge mess. It only took about 15 seconds. Didn't really feel anything out of the ordinary. We couldn't hear anything over the noise of the locomotive, but it must of made a hell of a lot of noise, because we had people in cars at the nearest crossing within minutes.

We had three locomotives. First up behind the locomotives was a 5-pack intermodal car with one trailer on it. The rest of the train was just mixed freight. There were two tank cars in the derailed portion, both empty Haz-Mat. I think there was a total of 25 or 26 cars derailed.

There was a broken rail within one of the hand throw switches at the siding.

Ron
 

---

---

---

Well I didn't derail yesterday, but the inbound crew of my train unbeknownst to them lost the support plate of a rotating coupler and the keeper fell out. They were coming in bunched up so it caused no problem...but when I released the brakes to go, gravity pushed the train a little way but I had to add a touch of power by and by and the train started to stretch....then....free of half of the tonnage the train surged ahead for about one second and then stopped dead....drawhead of disabled car slid out of it's pocket with nothing to hold it., and so the air dumped....quite uneventful. 

I was shoving two cars with two GPs and the idiot brakeman threw the switch under the two cars. Since he is an idiot we had to keep an eye on him. I set the independent brakes and watched the cars tear out the switch. Didn't feel a thing.

callum_out Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And not always, buddy of mine had a rail break and
> come up into the car, stop was a bit more abrupt.
>
> Out 

Rail breaks can be quite scary.....

Even more interesting when you are called by the tower and told you have a derailed car in the middle of the train. Fortunately we were able to stop before anything else derailed.

Oops, train came in just fine, now derailed, short day go take your test.

Out

Thanks for all the perspectives. Lots to consider.

I had guessed it would be more like a sudden stop.

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I had guessed it would be more like a sudden stop.

Back many years ago when the GTW still had a caboose on every train, you would sometimes hear on the radio someone saying: "Now"   Which was a Train Crew on one end of a train telling the crew on the other end of the train when that portion of the train stopped. As in the train went into emergency for no apparent reason, and when the train stopped, they would communicate with each other that way. If the tailend crew, Conductor said 'Now" and the headend stopped at the same time, they knew the train was in one piece, probably just a parted airhose, or maybe a "Kicker" in the train. That's a car that has a defective air system that will dump the air for no reason. They are hard to find in a train.

But, I can remember one time the Conductor said "Now" and the Engineer said oh oh, we're still doing 45 mph up here. And yes, that would be a real sudden stop, could hurt you if you weren't holding on to something.

These days without a caboose and crew on the rearend of a train, what happens on the tailend of a train when a portion of it derails, nobody there to tell the story!

Ron