So yesterday, an incident happened on Union Pacific's Cima Sub (East of Barstow CA) which ended up in a derailment of an ore train of 2 locomotives and 55 cars. Based on what I could gathered, while cresting the grade of the hill, the crew ended up going into emergency. What predicted what happened is the crew failed to secure the train when they reset the air. And the train had a broken coupler and an open angle c*ck, which resulted in the crew not being able to set the brakes again. At a lower speed, the crew bailed knowing they could not stop the train, leaving it to travel down the hill, with 1 GPS reading showing it hit 118mph (189.9kmh) and estimated it reached about 145mph (233.36kph) or more before finally derailing near the ghost town of Kelso, CA. Luckily no injuries happened.
That is an absolutely insane speed for a freight train to reach, I’m shocked that it held on to the rails for that long before derailing!
You would think after the high number of such incidents that America would force train companies to implement some sort of emergency brake system that actually works.
Well, for it to work in this instance from the sound of it, it wouldn't have helped unless it was some secondary system, given the problem was with them losing pressure.
Not going to go into a political rant, but USA is the land of the free. Where EU would set regulations for companies to ensure safety, USA looks at these regulations as "government overreach", intrusion into how private businesses are run. Deregulation leads to higher risk, which in turn leads to more accidents. Someone pointed at some train cars for which the European version had some safety rail, preventing people from getting under the car. The US version does not have the safety rail, as to not infringe upon people's freedom of going under said car.
That's what I mean. A secondary system. Like a electronically controlled handbrake fitted to each car that can be applied with a switch in the cab. Or like the air brakes on a truck. Without air, the brakes on a truck are applied, air is used to release the brakes. If there's no air in the system a truck won't move.
I must admit I don't quite follow from the explanation - if the Brake Pipe had dropped pressure, this would have caused the service res to vent to the brake cylinder and lock the brakes on. If it dropped rapidly, due to the angle valve being open, it would have vented from the emergency reservoir to the brake cylinder, locking the brakes on. Is it not more likely that an angle valve had *not* been opened, so for example if your two locos are coupled up to 55 cars but the angle valve is closed between the loco and first car - you have no way of setting the brakes on those cars. At slow speeds it might not be as noticeable, because you'll get brakes on the locos anyway, but the minute you've got any kind of speed and downward gradient it would become very apparent that you're running without any freight car brakes at all since even if you throw the locos into emergency, kill the brake pipe - the brake pipe on the train isnt going to be affected, and that point you're in for a "hard time". BUT then this does beg the question of the EOTD? That should have been on the brake pipe too and a remote trigger would have allowed them to vent that and bring all the brakes on. Unless THAT too was connected but angle valves not properly open? I know that "bottling air" on cars causes a problem in many cases because any kind of a leak which causes air to leak back into the brake pipe, the pressure can go up and it only takes a pound or two rise to cause the brakes to release - however I can't see how that can apply in this case. Must admit, i'm a bit confused about which bit of this i'm not quite understanding to lead to this - the US brake system is pretty fail safe generally these days, not 100% but then nothing ever is. That is basically how things work here - you ADD air pressure to release the brakes and REMOVE air pressure to apply them. If there's a leak the pressure is venting to atmosphere and the brakes will apply. Every car in the train has TWO reservoirs to apply to the brake cylinder - so even if the train has been badly mismanaged and the engineer has peddled all the air out of the service reservoirs, if there's a rapid drop in brake pipe pressure it will cause the emergency reservoir to dump into the brake cylinder. If there's a valve open even a little on the brake pipe that would cause the pressure to drop, even if it was a very slow drop it would still cause the brakes to apply and they wouldn't release unless that pressure went back up again by a pound or two. BUT every angle valve on the train should have been open except the one on the front of the loco. Matt.
I’ve been reading that this was the front portion of a train that had broke into two sections while topping the hill and this runaway occurred after an emergency application had occurred on that portion of the train. The crew were trying to reverse the train back up the hill to rejoin the train together but the two locomotives weren’t powerful enough to get up the hill and the train started rolling forwards. It’s likely that the train didn’t have any air in any cylinders while this was happening so once it was rolling forwards there were no brakes that could be applied. Therefore it would be procedures not being followed rather than technical failure that caused this, as is usual in most cases. Anyway, that’s all just hearsay from the internet and my own interpretation but it explains why the crew were able to jump out and save themselves while the train was still at slow speed. They knew they had no brakes.
I see. I assumed they worked differently in the states, as so many trains seem to meet thier demise on steep grades due to brake failure. Or maybe in most cases human error.
Do these trains have the equivalent of an airplane's black box, or is the evidence we have only coming from the train staff?
A toxic combination of a corporate culture that pressures employees to do it fast rather than safe and transport regulators that are unwilling or incapable of looking deeper into the causes of an accident beyond somone not following the rules.
https://www.railway-technology.com/features/featurethe-worlds-longest-railway-networks-4180878/ The size of the U.S. rail network is the largest in the world by a considerable margin. I wonder how the the per-mile rate of accidents compares.
Funnily enough any attempt to find a report which mentions a closed angle c*ck only brings up results for the investigation into a derailment 25 years ago on the same line. Perhaps some confusion in sources in the early reporting?
Badly. America has more train derailments because their railroads are less safe, not because they have more track.
Look at these horrifying images. Rolling stock is shredded. Just a heap of metal is all that remains. That's almost as fast as an Acela Express in service. Imagine all the momentum that comes with such a combination of mass & speed and picture the amount of destruction & casualties it would have bought, had it happened in a populated area. I'm no politician but I think it's time that the US reconsiders its priorities, so that everyone can have a better tomorrow.
The crew bailed well before the train hit a high speed, and the train derailed in the middle of nowhere.
You would think the 1989 San Bernardino derailment would of done something. In that incident, a Southern Pacific Train lost control on the Palmdale Cutoff of Cajon Pass, derailing at about 100mph into a neighborhood. 2 members of the crew and 4 people in the houses were killed in that derailment. (On top of 2 people later due to a pipeline rupture. Or the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Canada, where an unattended train rolled downgrade into downtown, derailed, and killed 47 and leveled the town...
The San Bernardino derailment occurred in the first instance because one of the units (unknown to the crew) had nonfunctional dynamic brakes, and so the consist had inadequate braking power for its weight. This precipitated a cascade of failures, not helped by a helper crew blowing their emergencies on their own. This case appears to be completely different: a train having suffered a separation, and would have been safe had the crew left well enough alone. But instead they attempted to reconnect the train, with disastrous consequences.
