Jerry, The only coupler you didn't put on here is the shelf couplers that have the male and female sides on them.Where the sides have points.A lot of tank cars have those. Here's a quick question for you all, Why were shelf couplers made?And why do hazardous tanks have steel reinforcements on each end?There is one reason why and Mitch you can't respond to this.At least not until we see what others think anyway.
The steel reinforcements were put there to prevent a cars coupler from climbing up and puncturing the end of the tankcar in a derailment. (Instead of an 'anti-climber', it's an 'anti-puncture' design.) Most of the tanks that have this were done before the shelf coupler. (When I walked out in the yard to get the shelf couplers pictures, I didn't see any of the male/female type.)
Jerry do you know how they figured out they needed the design?There is a spacific time and place in history that made the Shelf coupler come about. I looked for the other type also but can't find pics online.I can't get any pics at work either because I am on midnights and pics dont take well in the dark.
Ed, the only experience that I have is second hand from back in October(?) '68. The Southern was transporting 22 LPG (propane) cars in a single string through Meridian, MS one Sunday morning when one near the front hit the ground. Needless to say mayhem ensued. Aside from massive explosions near the accident site, a few cars became rockets when one car end breached and was ignited. In fact one car was propelled about a half mile in an arc that was estimated to be about 200 feet above a fully occupied church. Accoording to the local paper a few days later, the FRA (or its equivalent in '68) enacted a regaulation that decreed something like that no more than four or five propane cars could be in a single string, and that each string had to be separated by at least two or three non-volatile cars, i.e. boxes, gons, or flats. I'm sure the shelf coupler design concept came as a result of that and/or similar disasters. I remember that the video from the Meridian "disaster" was something to behold. It wiped out about five square blocks, leaving nothing but embers and bare ground. Thank God that railroad safety has come forward from that day.....!
According to CN, high temperatures caused a rail kink. The government investigators will release a report in a few months. On this part of the Kingston sub there are two main line tracks and one interchange. The track on the left in the first two photos is the interchange track between Canadian National and Canadian Pacific.
According to CN, high temperatures caused a rail kink. The government investigators will release a report in a few months.</font>[/QUOTE]Do they have slow orders or something of the nature during periods of high temperature?? Over here in NSW it is called WOLO, basically the speeds are lowered by 10km/h between 60km/h to a max of 90km/h. If your speed limit is 60 you stay on 60, but 70 would drop to 60 and so on.
SPC = Stand Practice Circulars Here is a quote from another government report - Transportation Safety Board of Canada report on a derailment caused by a track buckle.
Thanks Milne, I thought there would be but I have noticed a few incidents in the US and Canada due to track buckling so hence the question. I actually found another report on the site about a VIA Rail fire on an LRC that was used by our regulator to push for internal emergency door releases. Currently our policy is one of containment during an incident.
july 19 1974 was the norfolk and western blast in decatur terminal. killed 7 men and several others injured, numerous homes destroyed including mine at the time, close to 1000 homes had damage in one form or another. 1 tank of lpg was kicked into another and they crossed drawbars and one thing led to another, along with several cars of ammuntion, long story short, 100 train cars destroyed, 8 tracks gone in the yard, in fact the last one replaced was 33 in the westbound and it wasn't replaced until 1998, this also marked the end of the n&w having dorms at the railyards, when i get pics from out of the box i will post the aftermath, also 3 months after this happened , they made all tankcars have double shelf couplers.
