This is part of a message I got from a friend on the UP. I have no way to post the photos so the Colonel has agreed to post them for me. Subject: Good news, Bad news Good news: It was a normal day in Sharon Springs, KS when a Union Pacific crew boarded a loaded coal train to head on the long treck back to Salina. Bad news: Just a few miles into the trip a wheel bearing becomes overheated and melts off letting the truck support drop down and grind on top of the rail creating white hot molten metal droppings to spew downward on the rail. Good news: A very alert crew noticed a small amount of smoke about halfway back in the train and immediately stopped the train in compliance with the rules. Bad news: The train just happened to stop with the hot wheel on top of a wooden bridge built with creosote ties and trusses. Below is the rest of the bad news: Good news: Turkey Creek bridge has been rebuilt and open as of 04/17/02
You'll notice the fire department isin't even trying to put it out. Good for them! Most people would think of a trestle fire as a class A fire (common combustables, wood, paper, etc.) because the structure is mostly wood. What is actually burning there is not so much the wood, but rather the several tons of creosote that the wood is preserved with. When heated, the creosote vaporizes and burns like oil, so in effect you have a very large combustable liquids fire here. Add to that most creosote was contaminated with small quantaties of dioxin (TCDD) during production, and dioxin is rated as the second most potent carcinogin in existance (after plutonium). Whoever the incident commander was, he or she is to be commended for correctly assesing the situation and responding appropriatly to it, even when that meant letting it burn.
Why didn't one of the guys run around the fire on the hiway bridge and cut the cars loose, them pull the string foreward off the tressle? At least they wouldn't have lost all those loads and the cars too. If the bridge was too far to run to, they could have cut and kicked the string back off the tressle, and gotten some of the cars off.
Maybe, by the time they thought of it, the brake hoses had burned through, and with all that coal they didn't have enough horsepower to do anything at all. Or worse, maybe they fell victime to the "You can't get into trouble by doing nothing" and strict adherence to the letter of the rules. It would be sad to think that the corporate culture there promoted that kind of thinking.
Speaking from experience, the crew probably didn't know exactly what the problem was and where it was located. Once stopped and the problem found, it was too late. The crew could close the angle cock and pull the cars that weren't on the bridge away. Judging from the pictures, there was no walk way and no safe way to do much else. Bridges with out walk ways have been a pet peeve of mine and my fellow employees on the old WP since UP took over. It takes time but the UP does try to correct those kinds of problems but it takes time and planning. On a personal note, I've had a similar situation but I got lucky. I didn't stop my train with the B/O car on a bridge, just a few yards before. Greg Elems
hehehe... I would have dragged the whole train across that bridge and kept going till i couldn't anymore.
