http://wvmetronews.com/2015/10/10/fra-report-broken-rail-caused-fayette-county-derailment/ Sent from my PantechP8010 using Tapatalk
Interesting stuff. Derailments get the headlines, but investigation results are rarely published by the media.
I expected that result. It had been extremely cold in the week or so leading up to the derailment. Rails tend to break or have "pull-aparts" in cold weather, thereby also making defects weaker. I'll bet the defect wasn't as obvious as the post-derailment investigation pictures, either. Sent from my PantechP8010 using Tapatalk
I was thinking the same thing -- CSX wants Sperry to take the heat. The article also reads that "the rail had been in place since the 1990s" which to the uninitiated sounds ancient.
1890's would be aincent - the real question about wear is - how many ton miles of traffic had operated over the rail in it's life time and what were the dimensions and contour of the rail head. Additionally what specific kind of failure cause the break - and there are a whole bunch of failure types.