Passenger Trains > The Haunting of Big Bayou Canot

You know I'm not really that superstitious, however I had some extra time, and I looked up the cars involved in the Big Bayou Canot derailment of Train No 2 on 09/22/93. Then I looked up their disposition on the "unofficial" Amtrak Roster. Two of the four cars that survived the derailment were involved in other mishaps later. Here is the list:

Superliner I Coach 34040: Was Wrecked in Boise, ID on Train 26, and is still out of service, the only piece of equipment to be damaged in that derailment.
Superliner I Diner 38030: "Heat Damage" Sledge, MS on Train 59, current disposition unknown.

Equipment involved in derailment, no known incidents:

Heritage Lounge 39973, Currently Pacific Parlor Car "St. Lucia Highlands": Still in service, recently overhauled.
Superliner I Sleeper 32067: Currently in Service.


I found it strange that half the cars had mishaps after the worst accident in Amtrak's history, some might say these cars are "bad luck". I'm not trying to imply one way or the other, just thought it would be interesting to point out.

The other equipment involved in the derailment were badly damaged and scrapped:

Engine 819, GE P40
Engine 262, EMD F40
Engine 312, EMD F40
Heritage Baggage Car 1139
Heritage Trans/Dorm 39908
Superliner I Coach 34083
Superliner I Coach 34068


References:

http://www.trainweb.org/vangab/bigbayou.htm
http://www.trainweb.org/web_lurker/AmtrakSuperliner/

Correction: Superliner I Diner 38030 was damaged on 4/23/07 in Sledge, Mississippi (not Missouri) in a Grade Crossing accident involving lead engine GE P42 180.

Spooooooky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shouldn't we be trying to resolve that Kennedy Assassination conspiracy, Roswell, Bigfoot, Big Oil, Loch Ness Monster, Elvis (if still alive), 9/11, Bermuda Triangle, A Faked moon landing, David Cook winning American Idol, Stonehenge, Crop Circles, and Global Warming. etc, etc,...............I give up. -Matt

BTW: History records facts, while coincidence breeds conspiracy's.

EDIT!!!!!!!!!!: Back when I worked in the aerospace industry,there was a story about the Eastern Airlines L-1011 that crashed in the everglades, they used salvaged parts from the wreckage for other aircraft that (coincidence?) ended up having similar bad incidents.............

Misfit138 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Spooooooky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Shouldn't we be trying to resolve that Kennedy
> Assassination conspiracy, Roswell, Bigfoot, Big
> Oil, Loch Ness Monster, Elvis (if still alive),
> 9/11, Bermuda Triangle, A Faked moon landing,
> David Cook winning American Idol, Stonehenge, Crop
> Circles, and Global Warming. etc,
> etc,...............I give up. -Matt
>
> BTW: History records facts, while coincidence
> breeds conspiracy's.
>
> EDIT!!!!!!!!!!: Back when I worked in the
> aerospace industry,there was a story about the
> Eastern Airlines L-1011 that crashed in the
> everglades, they used salvaged parts from the
> wreckage for other aircraft that (coincidence?)
> ended up having similar bad incidents.............

I know, David Cook winning American Idol, the Bush administration had to be behind that one! BTW the Eastern Air 401 Parts reuse incident got so widespread that a book was written on it. I heard a story that a flight attendant saw one of the dead pilots on an L1011. Apparently the dead pilot warned of trouble, and the plane did indeed experience a malfunction. They did research, and sure enough they found out that the plane had recycled parts from the flight 401 plane, weird.

http://www.subversiveelement.com/Flight401EasternAirLines.html

Have a good time in the St Lucia Highlands parlor car!

Maybe the 39971 and the 32067 are just waiting to be on the same train again, and with 11 and 14 using refurbished Superliner I cars, it is possible, eeeww creepy.

ats90mph Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I know, David Cook winning American Idol, the Bush
> administration had to be behind that one!

Great minds think alike.
>
> http://www.subversiveelement.com/Flight401EasternA
> irLines.html

Cool Story, I never heard of that version (However, David Cook scares me more)

> Have a good time in the St Lucia Highlands parlor
> car!

Thanks, but I think I'll go Greyhound if it's on my train.

Thanks for the info ats90mph. -Matt

I have friends in railroading, many are superstitious when it comes to their work.

ats90mph Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You know I'm not really that superstitious,
> however I had some extra time, and I looked up the
> cars involved in the Big Bayou Canot derailment of
> Train No 2 on 09/22/93. Then I looked up their
> disposition on the "unofficial" Amtrak Roster.
> Two of the four cars that survived the derailment
> were involved in other mishaps later. Here is the
> list:
>
> Superliner I Coach 34040: Was Wrecked in Boise,
> ID on Train 26, and is still out of service, the
> only piece of equipment to be damaged in that
> derailment.
> Superliner I Diner 38030: "Heat Damage" Sledge, MO
> on Train 59, current disposition unknown.
>
> Equipment involved in derailment, no known
> incidents:
>
> Heritage Lounge 39973, Currently Pacific Parlor
> Car "St. Lucia Highlands": Still in service,
> recently overhauled.
> Superliner I Sleeper 32067: Currently in Service.
>
>
>
> I found it strange that half the cars had mishaps
> after the worst accident in Amtrak's history, some
> might say these cars are "bad luck". I'm not
> trying to imply one way or the other, just thought
> it would be interesting to point out.
>
> The other equipment involved in the derailment
> were badly damaged and scrapped:
>
> Engine 819, GE P40
> Engine 262, EMD F40
> Engine 312, EMD F40
> Heritage Baggage Car 1139
> Heritage Trans/Dorm 39908
> Superliner I Coach 34083
> Superliner I Coach 34068
>
>
> References:
>
> http://www.trainweb.org/vangab/bigbayou.htm
> http://www.trainweb.org/web_lurker/AmtrakSuperline
> r/


Re: Superliner Diner 38030 "heat damage" Sledge MO? Train 59 is southbound "City of New Orleans". Doesn't go through MO,unless it was being detoured?

It's not superstitious because any rail car that has been in service for decades has "stories to tell."

Although I've also been "in service for decades", I think train derailments are a myth because I have never been in one. On the other hand, I have a dreadful fear of slack action, low-speed collisions, poor footing when dismounting a train, etc., because those events ARE in my repertoire.

:)

Bob

Parlour Car 39973 not only was the lounge car on the Sunset Limited disaster, but it was also the car that was vandalized near Klamath Falls a few years ago, only to be sent back to Beech Grove and get stripped down for sale. It also was the lounge car on train #6, the California Zephyr, several years ago when passing through Sacramento, California and the front end of the car went in one direction, and the rear end of the car took a different track and went in another direction!

(Source: Tom Anderson/Amtrak "original" Parlour Car Attendant)

Take the case of Amtrak Budd diner 8502. Built in 1952 as CB&Q Silver Cuisine, the car went to Amtrak in 1971. I believe the car was only recently stored by Amtrak after a 55-year, approximately 10 million mile career. One of about twenty revenue-service survivors of a U.S. post-war fleet that once numbered in the thousands. Amazing? Even more amazing is that the car was involved in at least two serious derailments (one in 1965 on the Q and one in the 1980s on the Amtrak Crescent). The car also had a serious kitchen fire in 1967 where a local fire department cut out a section of the roof to quench the fire. The roof patch was still visible 40 years later. Knowing the car's history, I've never been afraid of getting food poisoning or having to pull out the emergency windows while eating dinner in the Silver Cuisine!

For another philosophical insight (and a late Memorial Day remembrance) a 90-year old Pearl Harbor survivor told me recently:

"Please don't make me out to be a hero because I am still here. There are no heroes in war, only those who were lucky and those who are dead. Better men than me never got the chance to come home and live a long life and talk to you now."

"Yes, I was burned and damn-near drowned on December 7th. Then the Navy had the audacity to patch me up and make me fight in the Pacific for another five years!!:). I think I am as lucky to have survived the typhoon that hit our ship in 1944, than I was to make it through Pearl Harbor."

Bob

Choose ANY four random cars in the current Amtrak fleet.

If you trace back through the histories of all four cars, how many will you find that have been in the consist of a train that derailed, crashed, or had some other major incident? I wouldn't be too surprised if the answer is that one or two of the four have been.

If that's the case for any four random cars in the Amtrak fleet, then there is absolutely no significance to finding the same result for the four particular cars that were on one particular train on one particular (tragic) trip. You're merely finding that those four cars are statistically indistinguishable from any other four Amtrak cars.

(And with a sample size of four, the error or uncertainty in the result is comparatively high. Your finding of "two out of four" for the cars whose histories you chose to trace probably is statistically "equal" to a fleet-wide result of anywhere from 20% to 80% of cars that have been in the consist of a train that had a major incident. For example, suppose that in reality, 50% of the people in my city are under 35 years old. If I walk out my door and ask the next four people I see how old they are and find three who are under 20 years old, does that mean that the 50% statistic is false? Not at all. Maybe I live near a school, or the ice-cream truck is coming down the block, or whatever. Finding that something is true of three of the first four people I encounter is not predictive of the population as a whole. If I spent the next four hours and checked the ages of a few thousand people I encounter, the result probably would become remarkably close to the overall 50%-under-35 statistic. Likewise, if two of the four cars you researched have this characteristic (that's 50% of them), and out of all 1505 of Amtrak's passenger cars (source) perhaps 450 of them have been in the consist of a crashed train (that's 30%), there probably is no statistical difference between the 50% result for a small sample and the actual 30% result for the entire sample.)

In short, it is extremely likely that any objective analysis of those four cars will find that they have absolutely no statistical difference in accident history than any other Amtrak car. And any idea that some event in the history of an inanimate assembly of stainless steel and other materials could be remembered by that inanimate object or could somehow cause a different probability of being involved in future crashes would be incredibly difficult to consider credible.

ats90mph Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

The other equipment involved in the derailment
were badly damaged and scrapped:

Engine 819, GE P40
Engine 262, EMD F40
Engine 312, EMD F40
Heritage Baggage Car 1139
Heritage Trans/Dorm 39908
Superliner I Coach 34083
Superliner I Coach 34068


I wonder if ALL of the locomotives were scrapped. There are two
crumpled, rusting engines located within the Beech Grove
complex, which I was told were two of the units heavily damaged
at Bayou Canot, by an Amtrak employee no less.

While this may not be the Gospel Truth, the engines can be
seen quite well from Emerson Ave. in Beech Grove, at about
the 3000 block, just north of the Speedway gas station.

PWB Wrote:
>
> Re: Superliner Diner 38030 "heat damage" Sledge
> MO? Train 59 is southbound "City of New Orleans".
> Doesn't go through MO,unless it was being
> detoured?

It was Sledge Mississippi, not Missouri, original post corrected.

#34040 was rebuilt and is back in service. I saw it in Portland just a few months ago.

I believe the two hulks in question were from the 2002? Wendover, UT derailment, as one unit is # 149 and was in Phase V paint when I was there last............
EDSTANLEY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ats90mph Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> The other equipment involved in the derailment
> were badly damaged and scrapped:
>
> Engine 819, GE P40
> Engine 262, EMD F40
> Engine 312, EMD F40
> Heritage Baggage Car 1139
> Heritage Trans/Dorm 39908
> Superliner I Coach 34083
> Superliner I Coach 34068
>
>
> I wonder if ALL of the locomotives were scrapped.
> There are two
> crumpled, rusting engines located within the Beech
> Grove
> complex, which I was told were two of the units
> heavily damaged
> at Bayou Canot, by an Amtrak employee no less.
>
> While this may not be the Gospel Truth, the
> engines can be
> seen quite well from Emerson Ave. in Beech Grove,
> at about
> the 3000 block, just north of the Speedway gas
> station.

F40PHR231 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> #34040 was rebuilt and is back in service. I saw
> it in Portland just a few months ago.


Uh oh, well if there is an 11 or 14 consist with Coach 34040, Diner 38030, sleeper 32067, and Heritage Lounge (Pacific Parlor Car) 39973 "St Lucia highlands", you are riding at your own risk. However let logic prevail.

adamauxier Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I believe the two hulks in question were from the
> 2002? Wendover, UT derailment,

2001. (I had a ticket to ride the #6 it would have become.)

Sandra in Davis

Misfit138 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ats90mph Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > I know, David Cook winning American Idol, the
> Bush
> > administration had to be behind that one!
>
> Great minds think alike.
> >
> >
> http://www.subversiveelement.com/Flight401EasternA
>
> > irLines.html
>
> Cool Story, I never heard of that version
> (However, David Cook scares me more)
>
> > Have a good time in the St Lucia Highlands
> parlor
> > car!
>
> Thanks, but I think I'll go Greyhound if it's on
> my train.
>
> Thanks for the info ats90mph. -Matt

Who's David Cook? Was he a Bush appointee? I never heard of him.

ProRail Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Misfit138 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > ats90mph Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> >
> > > I know, David Cook winning American Idol, the
> > Bush
> > > administration had to be behind that one!
> >
> > Great minds think alike.
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.subversiveelement.com/Flight401EasternA
>
> >
> > > irLines.html
> >
> > Cool Story, I never heard of that version
> > (However, David Cook scares me more)
> >
> > > Have a good time in the St Lucia Highlands
> > parlor
> > > car!
> >
> > Thanks, but I think I'll go Greyhound if it's
> on
> > my train.
> >
> > Thanks for the info ats90mph. -Matt
>
> Who's David Cook? Was he a Bush appointee? I
> never heard of him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cook_(singer)

Ryan Seacrest: "This is American Idol!"