1 Killed when freight train derails and explodes.

Just saw this and wanted to share...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090620/ap_on_re_us/us_illinois_train_derailment

I cant even imagine the feeling of being in a car next to a train wreck and explosion and having flaming railroad ties flying at you... scary.

 

I live 1 1/2 miles from the scene. Never seen a fire so big!!!! The area of the derailment had a washout last year but no trains were affected.

Tim

 

Wow, were you one of those evacuated?

 

Heavy Storms May Be to Blame for Deadly Train Derailment

Thick smoke is hovering over parts of Rockford, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, this morning, after a train derailed there at 8:30 p.m. on Friday night and was followed by explosions. One person was killed and at least three others have been severely injured and burned. Twelve ethanol-filled tanker cars continue to burn this morning, creating a dangerous situation that led to mandatory evacuations of surrounding areas.

As more than two dozen area fire departments are on the scene trying to put out the fire, investigations are under way to determine how this tragic scene unfolded on Friday night.

The Chicago area was ravaged by round after round of torrential rain and severe storms on Friday, leading into the evening hours. Not only were winds over 60 mph and large hail reported, but flash flooding was widespread throughout Chicago itself and the Rockford area. One high-water rescue from a car was even performed in Rockford during the afternoon.

Weather observations taken at the Greater Rockford Airport in Illinois between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. CDT show that there were heavy storms in the area just before the time of derailment. Winds were also gusting between 31 and 51 mph during this period of time. The heavy downpours were also reducing the visibility to as low as a quarter of a mile as about 3 inches of rain fell in less than an hour.

It is likely that the dangerous weather in the area was at least partially to blame for this devastating accident in Rockford that claimed the life of a woman, who was waiting for the train to pass. Shallow standing water could quickly build up in rain falling this heavily and may have caused the train to hydroplane. According to the Rockford Register Star, eyewitnesses claimed that this is exactly what they saw take place on Friday evening. Another possibility is that high water could have even collected over part of the tracks, causing the train to derail.

By AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Meghan Evans.

Any comments?

 

Yeah I saw they reported a witness said the train cars were hydroplaning.

That would have to be some deep water to get all the way above the rail head, right? And in that situation, would the train need to reduce speed? I wonder how fast it was going.

 

I live 1.5 miles from the scene. They evacuated 1/2 mile radius so I was safe. The track goes right behind my house though.

 

That's a little too close for comfort!!

 

Trains do not "hydroplane".

Ignorant news folks who open their mouths before they do their research cause more pain in this country than most folks realize.

This is a sad situation as any regarding an incident during the movement of
hazardous materials by rail. I understand the crew was able to close an angle cock, pull the pin and mange to move the locomotives and several cars away from the derailed ones. That takes not only a lot of skill but some brave railroaders. My hat is off to them.

This is only speculation, but it appears the locomotives and most of the train had passed the crossing before the subsequent derailment and fire. The victim who was killed and those who were injured evidently were the occupants of a vehicle at the crossing and probably way to close to the track. I have seen this often as an engineer where motorists want to be the first in line to cross the tracks just as soon as the train clears the crossing. Unfortunately, most folks never believe this could happen to them and continue to tempt fate.

My prayers are with the train crew, the victims and their families.

This incident was discussed in detail at the railroad haz. mat. class I taught this morning and all agreed nobody want's this to happen to their train. Nobody.

Barry

 

I see your point, but how can we know this was a misquote or a reporter's error? It was taken as an eyewitness statement. My guess is the witness (who probably isn't a train enthusiast to have known better) saw water over the rails and spraying every which way as the train passed, much in the same way with water on the road as cars pass, so why not use the word hydroplane?

 

Boxcab you are right on!

In my career on the rails I have provided several interviews to media on several topics. I also have a college background in media. Fortunately, I "saw the light" early in my college years to continue in the railroad direction rather than waste time for low pay and few rewards that most public, media careers offer.

Folks, most media especially at a national level are interested in only ONE thing advertising money!!. This is produced by sensational "sound bites" which may or may not be true but accomplish the goal of getting people to listento/view the "news" and consequently keep advertisers paying the networks/stations to stay in business. I will go so far as to say that outside of a few smaller market situations where the local folks really try to get the reporting correct and honest and aside from fair national reporting like Fox news, it is a cut throat business where appearances are everything and true content is secondary. Believe or not this was taught in state college campuses back in the early 1970s.

The times I have given interviews and the reporter has agreed as to what will be viewed/printed usually got changed and rewritten by the news editor to cast a negative slant on the information so it would be more "interesting" but not necessarily true to grab the customer's attention and keep it. This is why I teach all railroaders envolved in any public incident to refer all requests (including from railfans) for company information to the designated corporate people to deal with it. I tell them "you don't want your name and the company's showing up on the evening news unless it regards your retirement".

Barry

 

Why is it not possible for traincars to hydroplane? Given enough speed, a rail that is a slick flat surface, and a wheel that is a slick flat surface, it makes more than enough sense to me.

The amount of the wheel actually on the rail is even less surface area than what is under a rubber tire. And finally, it's not like the entire car would need to be in the air at once - just one wheel would need to be lifted up enough for the flange to grip the rail enough to track over it.

Further, with the condition of the track, in this case witnesses saying they were seeing spray coming up from the rail cars, you have a roadbed with softspots - at least enough standing water to come over the railhead. Obviously a loaded railcar is in excess of tens of thousands of lbs, but if we have uneven track, then at any moment the pressure on each tire could be much less than 1/8th of the total payload - just so long as the sum of all eight equals the overhead.

Throw in a braking train - something tells me the engineer knew there was something wrong with running at that speed, or he was coming up to a slower section of track, and you have the recipe for hydroplaning - a slowing wheel moving over a surface that is moving faster than the wheel, further coated with a hydrous lubricant.

Obviously, if there is water on the rails, you are going to see spray - that's how water traditionaly gets away from the oncoming wheels. The Hydroplaning itself would only need to be one wheel over what, four feet of waterlogged track?

And here's another element - if the roadbed is waterlogged, you have water filling all the pourous areas in the soil under the track - and also disolving out those hydrous minerals in the soil. A passing train would have an effect on the track similar to what happens when you stand on quicksand: the downward pressure squeezes the water and mineral solution out of the ground directly under the tracks, allowing the remaining soil to compact further than it was before.

So your honest engineer might have entered track that was above water, but that water did not need to be above the rails - the derailment occured further back, not under the front of the heavily loaded train. So the first 10 or 20 units pass over the rail, passing down a vibration of tons of pressure as they do, compresisng the tracks downwards into the roadbed. How low would the tracks need ot be sunk before the water goes over the rails? Like I mentioned before, the braking action comes into play here too, which suggests this engineer knew there was something wrong with his speed int his area, and tried to correct, but by then he would have been better off maintaining his speed or simply reducing engine speed.

Just one wheel, long enough to get that one wheel over the rail, and the rest is gravy/history/over.

 

I just what to known what's overblown and sensationalism about a woman dying while trying to escape a freight train. I'm reading a lot of informaiton across the web right now that wants to complain against what was reported. For instance, one commentor heckled that Ethanol doesn't explode -it just burns at a very high temperature - tell that to the people who watched this thing ignite!! Tell the bystander that he DIDN'T see water spray from under hte train as it was passing where he was watching - and how far away was he? He might have been back at the previous corssing, for all we know, or another railfan out on a nice CLEAR day [notice after rains how clear it is??], who was far away enough to see the train before it derailed.

Any credibility you may have in your comments, regardless of your educiton, has been reduced by your support for another news network that is just as biased and commercialized as the rest of them - if anything, the news channel that is the most progressive and effective in using visual marketing tools to reach their audience. The news station that sounds more like a rock concert than a news network.

Go ahead and tell me the death of this person is overblown...

 

Take a crossection of your freindly rail and you'll find something just as interesting - over time the middle of the rail can develop a similar rut. On it's own, with all 8 in full equal presurizaiton on the rails, I agree - but I've played with sprung trucks long enough to what happens when one wheel lifts up unopposed - and that's what you need here, one wheel, unopposed, due to uneven rail shifting the weight of the car fore or aft [like a wheelbarrow, mechanical advantage 2], and then shifting the weight left or right at the same moment. End result, you have one wheel with less weight on it. Just add water, the amount of speed need not be much...

 

Benny my boy:

Any person who runs a locomotive has a lot of responsibility riding on his shoulders as to his safe handling of a train and the decisions he makes reflects his years of experience plus the daily information (track bulletins describe track conditions to be encountered on the trip) he is given. Nobody makes quick decisions or moves while controlling a train. They are well thought out in advance taking into consideration any unusal conditions like weather. I amsure the engineer did the best he could given the conditions present.

Benny, you are a twenty seven year old "pup" who has never spent a day of his life working for the railroad.

You don't have clue what's going on.

Barry