Locomotive Insanity: Murder on the BNSF Mixed Consist doesnt have the same ring to it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Locomotive Insanity: Murder on the BNSF Mixed Consist doesnt have the same ring to it

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iospace: Jan 19, 2038

TITTIEKISSER69 posted:

Awesome, I'm hoping to go see it this Sunday.

They blew the whistle constantly.

You can feel it as it goes off :hellyeah:

# ? Jul 24, 2019 05:20

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# ? May 10, 2024 03:34

pseudorandom: Jun 16, 2010; Yam Slacker

Disgruntled Bovine posted:

Here's some other footage from my trip in May, this time not of the Big Boy but a couple of BNSF trains in Wind River Canyon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqw6M_sgSv4

I'm pretty sure this is one of the first times I've been able to actually utilize the 4K support on my TV. (Though I don't think it supports 60fps, sadly). Good video!

This has also reminded me that Wyoming is a place that exists and is apparently beautiful as gently caress.

# ? Jul 24, 2019 06:34

Disgruntled Bovine: Jul 5, 2010

pseudorandom posted:

I'm pretty sure this is one of the first times I've been able to actually utilize the 4K support on my TV. (Though I don't think it supports 60fps, sadly). Good video!

This has also reminded me that Wyoming is a place that exists and is apparently beautiful as gently caress.

Beautiful as gently caress and empty as gently caress. It has the second lowest population density next to Alaska and coming from the third highest population density state (Massachusetts) being able to drive 80 mph and not see another car for 3-5 minutes at a time was amazing.

# ? Jul 24, 2019 17:02

mekilljoydammit: Jan 28, 2016; Me have motors that scream to 10,000rpm. Me have more cars than Pick and Pull

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDEjZsNdq3Y

edit: DSLR shots

mekilljoydammit fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jul 25, 2019

# ? Jul 25, 2019 20:02

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

More please.

# ? Jul 26, 2019 03:18

Log082: Nov 8, 2008

Livestreams caught a train derailment on horseshoe curve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LedfGZCz7t0

Timestamp is 16:08 by the time at the top of the video (not youtube's time.)

# ? Jul 27, 2019 00:40

Disgruntled Bovine: Jul 5, 2010

That's the second stringline derailment there in the past few weeks. Someone's in trouble.

# ? Jul 27, 2019 04:03

Log082: Nov 8, 2008

Disgruntled Bovine posted:

That's the second stringline derailment there in the past few weeks. Someone's in trouble.

Chatter from the youtube watchers is that they had light cars at the front of the train, which is bad because of the way the forces build up? I'm not really knowledgeable on the subject but it makes sense to me, and it IS the light centerline cars that derailed.

# ? Jul 27, 2019 04:28

Disgruntled Bovine: Jul 5, 2010

Yep, basically the train behind the empty cars is too heavy and the inward pull on the curve is stronger than their weight keeping them on the track so they lift off the track on the inside of the curve. It was the exact same thing that happened in almost the same spot 2 weeks ago.

# ? Jul 27, 2019 04:45

Terrible Robot: Jul 2, 2010; FRIED CHICKEN; Slippery Tilde

Log082 posted:

Chatter from the youtube watchers is that they had light cars at the front of the train, which is bad because of the way the forces build up? I'm not really knowledgeable on the subject but it makes sense to me, and it IS the light centerline cars that derailed.

B4Ctom1 posted:

It is hard to explain not just the physics, but the amounts of forces involved.

We use throttle to create stretching or "draft" forces and dynamic braking (think of downhill engine braking in a car) to create bunching or "buff" forces.

To start with, when you are running the train, you are feathering the throttle or dynamic braking to keep "in train forces" at acceptable levels. This is based upon the terrain each part of the train is passing over.

Even small changes in grade, if there are enough of them under the length of the train, are enough to break knuckles, rip out draw bars, or derail cars simply by doing "nothing at all" at the wrong time.

In these situations heavier applications of power or dynamic brake are required to keep these "in train forces" down.

Think of a large sliced loaf of bread. I take the wrapper off of it and ask you to carry it across the room. One hand on each end should suffice. A small amount of pressure to keep the bread from being crushed and across the room you go.

The knuckle and drawbar connections between the cars seem very strong to the layman, but when compared to the amount of weight of loaded freight cars, and all of the cars behind them piled upon it, it may as well be dental floss.

You can break dental floss easily, but the difference is that it is hard to "crush" dental floss.

The poster I have quoted above is addressing something we call "train make up". THe "in train forces" can be additionally effected by the way cars or groups of cars are placed in the train. Long cars next to short cars, loads next to empties.

Generally freight trains that are not hauling a bulk of the same commodity are mixed freight. A bulk commodity train would be an entire train of wheat or coal. These trains are very heavy, and have their own set of problems, but in general do not have any issue of train make up because all of the cars are generally the same weight and type. Mixed freight trains are the most common types of trains on the main rail thoroughfares.

A mixed freight train I haul might have 25 heavy loaded lumber cars, 15 empty or loaded auto racks, 20 empty or loaded tank cars of various lengths, 30 empty or loaded covered hopper cars of various lengths, and 30 loaded or empty boxcars of two different lengths.

So for this example train of 120 cars. Lets say it weighs 7900 tons and is 9000 feet (2.75KM) long.

I am traveling along at 50 MPH.

The "head end" of the train has passed the bottom of the grade and the train is still descending the grade. As about half of the train leaves the grade I am looking ahead at the next grade to climb directly ahead. I have been using dynamic brake and need to "transition" from braking to power. I move the lever into the idle position and begin waiting my 10 seconds. In my my mind, from experience, I know that I need to rapidly, but gently begin notching through my power notches without allowing my train to accelerate past 50 MPH which I am restricted to.

The very head of the train is traveling around a slight curvature in the track. I also need to see that the next signal is green "clear" so that I do not have to formulate an entire other plan as a reduction of speed might be required instead. I see that the signal is flashing yellow "advanced approach". This will mean a reduction of speed to 40 MPH and a possible stop short of the second signal ahead.

As I am thinking of what I am to do next and waiting for the 10 seconds to pass, the next crossing becomes visible and I see that there is a truck hauling a low slung trailer with a heavy piece of equipment on it. He is blocking the crossing because his low slung trailer is stuck on the raised rail and crossing lumber that you drive across.

Without hesitation or further consideration, I slam the brake handle into the emergency position, dumping all the trainline air. I reach up and toggle the switch that ensures that the "End Of Train" device dumps from the rear as well. I bail off the locomotive air brakes because they are so powerful in a situation like this, that they can cause such a massive buff forces which will certainly derail a train. Additionally they can crumple or destroy the track beneath them.

While in earlier transition from dynamic braking to power "slack" had developed in the train. Slack is neither draft or buff, but more of a null position like rail cars standing in a yard not connected to a train. A developed space between cars where they are sort of relaxed.

As the air dumped from the train-line, the brake valves on each car sense this emergency and dump the full value of air contained within their emergency reservoir into the large cylinder that applies the brakes giving each car higher than usual stopping power.

Somewhere near the head end of the train a group of empty tank cars having such massive braking power begin to stop the train, but right behind them a group of heavy loaded hoppers presses against them, their own braking being less substantial. A tank car of Anhydrous Ammonia right between the groups which has been taking the brunt of these two opposing forces has a wheel that lifts off the rail as it is being pressed around a curve. This car, the car ahead of it, and nine of the loaded hopper cars behind it all leave the rail and head into a tiny quiet suburb in the middle of the night.

Half way back in the train where the most of the box cars are, they settle down for their stop. Still bunched because they were still descending the hill. The heavy loads of lumber fighting them as they come to a stop. Even though on straight track the, one end of an empty boxcar in the group begins to lift into the air. The opposing force of the heavy lumber cars and the stopping train ahead of it is too much. As it sets back down the wheels miss the track and begin to erase the track, all of the cars behind it having no track to ride on begin to take paths of their own in each direction.

Near the back of the train the auto-rack settle down hard. Harder than the group of heavy lumber cars ahead of them. This causes one of the long 500+ pound (230kg) draw-bars in the third auto-rack to be sheared from place. For a moment it tumbles through space, whistling though the wind in contact with only the air. Then it strikes a tie and the car passing above it is vaulted, only inches off of the rail, and a carload of new rangerovers tumbles end over end into a reservoir of drinking water.

The drawbar is angry, propelled by its last impact it drops onto the rail for a moment derailing a load of mini coopers, a load of corvettes, a load of ford diesel pickups, and a load of prius. The last of the autoracks ram into those derailed and the drawbar impales itself through the bottom of a boxcar piercing 20 cases of aged Glenfiddich.

Back on the locomotive, pressed forward by the loads behind, we cover the half mile to the stuck trailer in about 45 seconds. My conductor sees that the piece of equipment is a D9 Caterpillar bulldozer and screams like a woman as he jumps from his window at 35 mph. The fall from 15 feet in the air certainly would have killed him but instead he tumbled and struck feet first shattering his legs in 20 places and cartwheeling to his death as his head exploded when it struck the hard granite ballast some 20 times or so in the cartwheeling tumble. It takes 24 hours for them to find his body under crumpled boxcars.

I run out the back door to the second locomotive where I lay down in the cab. The impact at 35 mph is brutal. The second locomotive which I am on climbs under the front locomotive. The third locomotive does the same to mine. When the locomotive comes to a rest, it is on its side, and both my arms are broken.

I drown, face down, in 200 gallons of brownish, blueish sewage from a chemical toilet long overdue for a cleaning. But my dignity is preserved because a fire from the combined 12,000 gallons (45.5 Kiloliters) of fuel burns for 3 days incinerating me and most of the locomotives completely.

The undocumented worker driving the truck with the wedged trailer disappears.

During the conductor's autopsy, trace amounts of THC from a brownie he consumed 3 weeks earlier while on vacation in Amsterdam are found to be the cause of the accident.

It was also noted in the government report that the cellphone of an engineer on a different train following ours was "on" at the time of our impact, and this may have contributed to the wreck.

# ? Jul 27, 2019 04:45

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Disgruntled Bovine posted:

Yep, basically the train behind the empty cars is too heavy and the inward pull on the curve is stronger than their weight keeping them on the track so they lift off the track on the inside of the curve. It was the exact same thing that happened in almost the same spot 2 weeks ago.

This was a problem with my brio trains when I was a kid.

# ? Jul 27, 2019 05:10

Disgruntled Bovine: Jul 5, 2010

nm posted:

This was a problem with my brio trains when I was a kid.

Probably should have hired a competent yardmaster.

# ? Jul 27, 2019 14:36

ChickenOfTomorrow: Nov 11, 2012; god damn it, you've got to be kind

Log082 posted:

Livestreams caught a train derailment on horseshoe curve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LedfGZCz7t0

Timestamp is 16:08 by the time at the top of the video (not youtube's time.)

wha?

The video goes from 00:30 to 12:30 for me, so there's no 16:08. Could someone post a timestamped link for the YT video, or a trimmed version? Thanks.

# ? Jul 28, 2019 17:38

Log082: Nov 8, 2008

ChickenOfTomorrow posted:

wha?

The video goes from 00:30 to 12:30 for me, so there's no 16:08. Could someone post a timestamped link for the YT video, or a trimmed version? Thanks.

That link was the livestream, and it only goes about 12 hours back. There's a video of the derailment here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsE9mOohSB8

# ? Jul 28, 2019 18:04

ChickenOfTomorrow: Nov 11, 2012; god damn it, you've got to be kind

Ah! Thank you!

# ? Jul 30, 2019 03:29

TITTIEKISSER69: Mar 19, 2005; SAVE THE BEES
PLANT MORE TREES
CLEAN THE SEAS
KISS TITTIESS

So I went and saw Big Boy on Sunday, and posted several pictures to Facebook. An older (70s?) friend of mine posted this on one of the pictures:

quote:

My dad was a machinist for the UPRR. When they first decided to resurrect a Big Boy, they found some parts that needed to be replaced. Engineers from HQ brought plans to the shops and asked my dad if they could be made in house because they couldn't find anyone to make them. They still had an old vertical mill that had a bed big enough to handle a 6' dia., 3" thick chunk of steel. Dad had to get up on the steel to layout various features. The engineers documented what he did because if those parts needed to be made again, there is no one around who has made them.

# ? Jul 30, 2019 06:56

The Real Amethyst: Apr 20, 2018; When no one was looking, Serval took forty Japari buns. She took 40 buns. That's as many as four tens. And that's terrible.

GBS OSHA thread didn't seem to think there was anything OSHA about this. Although something tells me there should have been at the very least a speed restriction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8r8c4x8PQY

# ? Aug 20, 2019 22:49

Tex Avery: Feb 13, 2012

With standing water over the head of the rail, there definitely should be a speed restriction if for no other reason than trying to about frying the traction motors.

# ? Aug 21, 2019 00:23

pseudorandom: Jun 16, 2010; Yam Slacker

The Real Amethyst posted:

GBS OSHA thread didn't seem to think there was anything OSHA about this. Although something tells me there should have been at the very least a speed restriction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8r8c4x8PQY

3/10. If you're going to film something like this you need to commit and not turn around to miss the most important part of this video.

To add some kind of content: How would a massive body of water like this effect a train? Surely passengers would feel a good thud, but would an engineer need to be do anything to compensate for rolling through something like this (at any speed)?

pseudorandom fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Aug 23, 2019

# ? Aug 23, 2019 05:11

Arishtat: Jan 2, 2011

pseudorandom posted:

3/10. If you're going to film something like this you need to commit and not turn around to miss the most important part of this video.

To add some kind of content: How would a massive body of water like this effect a train? Surely passengers would feel a good thud, but would an engineer need to be do anything to compensate for rolling through something like this (at any speed)?

That train is doing a good 80-100kph and as you can see it is not affected at all. The crew and passengers probably felt a minor lurch upon entry but that is about it. Trains are incredibly massive and all that weight is concentrated on very small contact points so it would take a lot of speed to make one hydroplane. That locomotive is north of 100,000kg alone.

# ? Aug 23, 2019 11:28

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

the train should have blown its horn more than once

# ? Aug 23, 2019 17:09

Disgruntled Bovine: Jul 5, 2010

Stairmaster posted:

the train should have blown its horn more than once

Pretty sure that's in India, they don't give any fucks.

# ? Aug 23, 2019 17:17

Disgruntled Bovine: Jul 5, 2010

Well that's different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sstRJcaFU9U

# ? Sep 4, 2019 01:23

You Am I: May 20, 2001; Me @ your poasting

Disgruntled Bovine posted:

Well that's different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sstRJcaFU9U

There's also another bridge south of Greymouth on the same NZ island with that setup

# ? Sep 4, 2019 02:01

drunkill: Sep 25, 2007; me @ ur posting; Fallen Rib

I've been on that train, decent tourist route for a shortish trip.

# ? Sep 4, 2019 12:23

MrYenko: Jun 18, 2012; #2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

The Whittier tunnel in Alaska is a dual use single-lane rail/motor vehicle tunnel. They turn the tunnel around every fifteen minutes or so for car traffic, and have fifteen minute blocks set aside for scheduled Alaska Railroad trains in and out of Whittier.

# ? Sep 4, 2019 13:16

NoWake: Dec 28, 2008; College Slice

A customer of ours made this work; not exactly cheap, but a lot cheaper than building a bridge.

# ? Sep 4, 2019 15:32

Saukkis: May 16, 2003; Unless I'm on the inside curve pointing straight at oncoming traffic the high beams stay on and I laugh at your puny protest flashes.
I am Most Important Man. Most Important Man in the World.

Few years back I had a 2 week vacation in Iceland. We drove around the whole island, total of 4400 kms, mostly on the Ring 1 main road. Majority of the bridges we came across during the trip were single lane. I understand that road is quite low traffic outside the few biggest cities, but how much can you really save compared to a dual lane bridge.

# ? Sep 5, 2019 22:00

sincx: Jul 13, 2012; furiously masturbating to anime titties

sincx fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Mar 23, 2021

# ? Sep 22, 2019 07:18

EoRaptor: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy

https://i.imgur.com/iRTkHIl.mp4

# ? Sep 24, 2019 03:33

NoWake: Dec 28, 2008; College Slice

EoRaptor posted:

https://i.imgur.com/iRTkHIl.mp4

If this is near Fort Drum in upstate NY, :supaburn:

it wouldn't be the first time their cars have gotten loose :supaburn:

# ? Sep 24, 2019 06:32

Neddy Seagoon: Oct 12, 2012; "Hi Everybody!"

EoRaptor posted:

https://i.imgur.com/iRTkHIl.mp4

Someone's head is REALLY gonna roll for losing custody of military hardware like that.

Do the patriotic thing and call in those missing ~~six~~ five IFV's...

# ? Sep 24, 2019 06:49

vains: May 26, 2004; A Big Ten institution offering distance education catering to adult learners

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Someone's head is REALLY gonna roll for losing custody of military hardware like that.

Do the patriotic thing and call in those missing ~~six~~ five IFV's...

probably not train crew related...

if the cars became seperated in transit, it would have dumped all the air in the train and alerted the crew. railroad cops usually follow these shipments around, anyways. they probably rolled out of the ramp at ft drum.

# ? Sep 24, 2019 20:26

sincx: Jul 13, 2012; furiously masturbating to anime titties

sincx fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Mar 23, 2021

# ? Sep 24, 2019 21:45

Kia Soul Enthusias: May 9, 2004; zoom-zoom; Toilet Rascal

I like the slow pan to reveal that there are no leading cars or locomotive. Is there any news article about this? I searched for "train IFV", "unattended IFV", "unattended train", etc.

# ? Sep 25, 2019 05:43

Pigsfeet on Rye: Oct 22, 2008; I'm meat on the hoof

# ? Sep 25, 2019 16:20

PremiumSupport: Aug 17, 2015

Pigsfeet on Rye posted:

https://popularmilitary.com/man-shocked-to-find-armys-armored-vehicles-accidentally-left-behind-on-railway/

I love how the citizen who's route to work was blocked by these cars cleverly implied that BNSF was at fault and had to come back to pick up the military equipment cars they lost. :rolleyes:

# ? Sep 25, 2019 20:56

drunkill: Sep 25, 2007; me @ ur posting; Fallen Rib

Crossquotin' rail insanity

drunkill posted:

https://i.imgur.com/sxGb8wC.mp4

Sound

# ? Sep 26, 2019 18:21

CAT INTERCEPTOR: Nov 9, 2004; Basically a male Margaret Thatcher

drunkill posted:

Crossquotin' rail insanity

Hands up if ou saw that coming.

Wow thats a lot of hands

# ? Sep 26, 2019 20:15

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# ? May 10, 2024 03:34

KYOON GRIFFEY JR: Apr 12, 2010; Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22

CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:

Hands up if ou saw that coming.

Wow thats a lot of hands

saw it coming still loved it

# ? Sep 26, 2019 21:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Locomotive Insanity: Murder on the BNSF Mixed Consist doesnt have the same ring to it

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