Amtrak derailment in East River Tunnels - 5/8

a locomotive and 4 cars derailed in east river tunnel

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?secti ... id=8119467

Empire service train #254 derailed in line 3 while heading to Sunnyside Yard. Only the yard crew was on board and only suffered minor injuries. Hopefully the cleanup ia quick but from what I understand, the train is "wedged" between the 2 benchwalls. Tonight is my last night on the road, with me being awarded a nice relay job so I can't claim this as something I was involved in. Hahahaha.

last on road ?? retirement or going to dark side [management??]

IN the tunnel? That must be a mess. Usually "East River Tunnel derailment" means at the portal. How far in are they?

DutchRailnut wrote:last on road ?? retirement or going to dark side [management??]

He says he got a relay job, so I guess he's switching the yard now?

so its last, till he gets bumped nothing is forever on railroad lol

DutchRailnut wrote:last on road ?? retirement or going to dark side [management??]

Management? Not me although maybe I might try road foreman but for now I'm hoping on an overnight relay job , moving stuff between NYP and SSYD. I heard thatthey may not even get this rerailed by the end of Monday because of the difficult location and the damage. I will say that im glad that the train was not in service and that only train crew was aboard.

BuddSilverliner269 wrote: Management? Not me although maybe I might try road foreman but for now I'm hoping on an overnight relay job , moving stuff between NYP and SSYD. I heard thatthey may not even get this rerailed by the end of Monday because of the difficult location and the damage. I will say that im glad that the train was not in service and that only train crew was aboard.

Hope the train crew that was aboard came out with minimal damage to themselves?

News story I saw said minor injuries. Hopefully, nothing more that a few bruises.

I wonder how many Amfleet Is this will take out of circulation, and for how long. At least on the NEC Amtrak seems to have some extra cash to fix up a few cars if necessary.

what sort of power was involved? P32?

We should be thankful this isn't in a North River Tunnel!

Can't imagine derailing IN the tunnel. The benchwalls would prevent the engine from going anywhere but the cars might have jacknifed up into the wire. LIRR is reporting that service will not be back to normal until Wednesday, so it must be pretty bad. The location could not be worse. I would not want to be the crew and have to walk back to NYP to evacuate.

Penn Central wrote:Can't imagine derailing IN the tunnel. The benchwalls would prevent the engine from going anywhere but the cars might have jacknifed up into the wire. LIRR is reporting that service will not be back to normal until Wednesday, so it must be pretty bad. The location could not be worse. I would not want to be the crew and have to walk back to NYP to evacuate.

There are a few rough spots in the tunnels, and while im not sure exactly where in the tunnel (line 3) the derail was, but i have a few ideas.....

you right, the benchwalls will prevent the train from going real far, and thats what they are designed to do, prevent a derailing train from possibly puncturing the tunnel itself. However, at the same time, there is such little room in there to work, to rerail the cars and especially the loco is a HUGE challenge. Ive had to go on the ground in the north river tunnels (inbetween the benchwall and the train) and there is barely room for one person down there. Trying to get cribbing and blocks to attempt to rerail is im sure a nightmare. the one truck would be relatively easy, the second truck would be even more of a challenge. Throw in some debris from the damaged concrete benchwalls and lining and damage to the cars, and the challenge grows even more.

I was told that the cars and loco are wedged in there pretty good. I don't know if that means wedged vertically up against the ceiling and floor, or side to side (i would think side to side) but either way, this is quite a task that the wreckmasters are facing.

But there are positives, in that it was a relatively short train, it wasn't a revenue passenger train, but rather an equipment move from SSYD to NYP for an Empire train, and of course, there weren't major injuries, and the only folks on board were the crew and maybe some deadheading Amtrak and NJT employees from SSYD to NYP (I don't know if anyone else was on that train other than the crew, but its common for employees to ride any train leaving SSYD to hitch a ride back to NYP). Hopefully the damage to the tunnel isn't that bad, but at the same time, hopefully some more $$$$ will come for tunnel improvements. They are much better than they were in the past, but it still scary to think about what would happen if a revenue commuter or Amtrak train was the one that derailed with 10 or 12 cars and upwards of 2000 people on it.....

BTW, im ASSUMING that the loco was a P32, it would make sense, as it was an Empire train. I think we might be surprised with the exterior damage that the cars have. Of course, the ends will probably be slightly damaged from contacting each other (shouldn't be that bad because the train will be still relatively in-line, because it will be held in place by the benchwalls and won't accordian), but so will the lower carbody sides from striking/riding along the bench walls probably, especially if it took place on a curve

BuddSilverliner269 wrote:Empire service train #254 derailed in line 3 while heading to Sunnyside Yard.

Was Line 1 OOS at the time of this incident? A Line 3 move would be a bit unusual for an Empire train, as it requires a reverse move through A Int. to get to a track with access to C Int and Line 3.

Yes line 1 was OOS (this is almost a weekly thing and sometimes nightly) so when line 1 is OOS , the train pulls east into line 2, reverse west into the station and then east into line 3 to go to SSYD. This is what amtrak calls "swinging the train".the train had a P32 for power and the train was headed towards SSYD and not the other way around.