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Train crash in Ohio 19

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spsalso

spsalso

Electrical
Jun 27, 2021
943

Note the mention of extremely low temperatures.

I suspect that is the cause*.

And I suspect the train crew should have been told to operate at restricted speed, because of that possibility.

And/or the trackage should have been installed taking into account these temperatures.



spsalso


*I'm talking about the effects of rail contraction at cold temperatures. A rail joint could have failed. Or rail could have been pulled up on a curve. I suppose a rail could even have snapped.

Besides restricted speed, there's also the running of an inspection car ahead of the train.
 
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There is a POSSIBILITY that the reason there is a 20/5 minute remaining bit of video is that, due to employee privacy concerns, all other data is automatically wiped by the equipment. As in: not retained.

If that is not the case, one could ask just how far back DOES the equipment save the recording. The whole trip? And when does it stop recording?

And if someone wiped the video because the locomotive was being put back in service, how is it that they neglected to wipe the whole thing? How is it that they left that interesting 20/5 minute bit?

Sebastian does not appear to have done any research for his article; he only parroted what the NTSB rep said. Of course, he could have felt the need to get this important news out right away; and he is, at this very moment, researching this matter to get ALL the information.

Go Sebastian, go!


spsalso
 
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Reminds me of a program from Byte Magazine over 30 years back that would transform a text program; the transformation was syntactically correct, but gibberish... It was a real 'hoot' back then... and probably used by politicians for speech writing... the program was titled, 'Travesty' and was written as a lark...

It's still out there...



-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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I'll have to try the program... I think it's been modified to run in a GUI... the old one ran in DOS... It was really neat back then...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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I can see the defense now. You can't blame us for the pollution because you don't have a baseline.

EPA really opened a can of worms when they used that excuse for not testing for dioxins.
 
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A very nice video.

I'll emphasize (as he did not) that many mainline sidings used to have manually controlled switches that needed to be thrown by a person. So when a train was sent into a siding so another could pass, the head end brakeman got down and threw the switch for the train to enter the siding. When the caboose had entered that siding, the rear end brakeman threw the switch back, and the other train could roll through without stopping.

The crew names probably should have been changed from brakeman to switchman, but that term was already used by a somewhat different trade. And then there's tradition.

If you finally get to the point where all appropriate mainline sidings are remotely controlled by a central dispatcher (CTC), then you now have no work for the two brakemen, except for emergencies.

As the video guy noted, trains that do a lot of switching might have a caboose assigned. The Union Pacific still has about 150 available for that task and others.


spsalso
 
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I used to live about a half mile north of a train track and would routinely have to wait for a train to pass to get to/from work; early 90's so still saw cabooses on the ends of trains.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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I had heard a radio report yesterday ( NPR) that the USA's Federal Railroad Admninistration FRA does not keep ANY records of train derailments or analysis of what caused each derailment. If this is a true summary of what that organization does not accomplish, then it is an incredible waste of money and a lost opportunity to improve operations, and a prime reason for the frequent derailments in the USA railroad system.In other words, our 175 yr old rail network is condemned to poor availability and frequent environmental catastrophes due to simple stupidity.The claimed reason for their forced stupidity is that the onwers of the rail system do not want to invest in the improvements needed to minimize derailments, and so the political pressure on the FRA is " to see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil".

There is the old saying " if it can be measured, it can be improved". More to the point, the use of modern statistical quality control measures can find , and fix the top 3 reasons for derailments if they were to indeed keep records. At a minimum, one should compare the frequency of US railroad derailments on a normalized basis with other countries, such as derailments per ton*mile of freight shipment . Perhaps the insurance industry could provide the data that the FRA refuses to keep.


"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick
 
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It would appear the Propublica article is in error when it claims that accident reports don't include data on train length.

Here is form FRA F 6180.97:


Note box 24. "Total of Cars in Equipment Consist"

Here is form FRA F 6180.54:


Note box 35 calls for the total number of cars in consist. Note also box 29, where it requests tonnage of train.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like the writers are way uninformed about the subject.

Perhaps they could argue that the number of cars in the train does not reveal the length of the train. To an extent, that's true. Car length generally ranges from 60' to 90', these days; which is a broad range. However, I suggest that the number of cars is more important than the length, because (1) the weight of the load and of the car is generally independent of the length, and (2) problems in this instance are generally caused by the quantity of trucks and couplers in the train, not the length of the train.


spsalso
 
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Perhaps this should have been posted this in the 'pub', but...

3 former GOP operatives to pay $50K for roles in a fake charity tied to E. Palestine derailment

Three former Republican political operatives have agreed to pay over $50,000 in restitution and penalties for their roles in operating a fake charity tied to the East Palestine train derailment


An excerpt from the above item:

Three men who have worked as Republican political operatives agreed to pay more than $50,000 in restitution and penalties in Ohio for their roles in operating a phony charity that collected cash purportedly to help victims of the East Palestine train derailment.

The settlement, announced Thursday by Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, requires Isaiah Wartman and Luke Mahoney of WAMA Strategies to pay more than $22,000 to a local food bank, plus $3,000 in investigative costs and fees.

Under the deal, Michael Peppel, co-founder of the fraudulent charity, Ohio Clean Water Fund, must pay a $25,000 civil penalty and agree to a lifetime ban on starting, running or soliciting for any charity in the state, Yost announced.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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JohnRBaker, wherever you might have chosen to post it, I have no argument. It is still true and another sad commentary on how quickly thieves can take advantage of people. A couple of centuries ago, con men relied on the very slow dissipation of news and information to move rapidly about their society from one pigeon to the next. Today they rely on the very fast dissipation of news and information to reel in the pigeons before someone digs into their chicanery. At least in this case the thieves were caught. I have no law enforcement or legal background so I wonder, but don't know, if all the donators can be made whole again.
 
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This sort of thing is unfortunately becoming the norm, i.e., graft and corruption, particularly at the local level.

We have police raiding and confiscating equipment and materials from a local newspaper because someone influential convinced the local police to gain a warrant based on false allegations of identity theft in a complete violation of the 1st and 4th amendments.

We have another local police stopping out-of-state travelers and abusing asset forfeiture laws to benefit themselves. This one is particularly egregious because asset forfeiture laws don't require conviction of any crimes, or even a semi-valid criminal case.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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