Earthquake Question

What do you do when theirs an earthquake and your on a train?. ahaha.
Ive always wondered the answer to this one?..........

Gad... It's been 36+ years since I woke up to the Sylmar Earthquake of Feb 9, 1971.

My guess is it depends on how close the tracks are to the faultline and how much vertical/lateral shift there is on the tracks.

IIRC SP and ATSF shut down after the 1971 quake to evaluate the tracks for some miles around the epicenter. Affected the Cities, the Daylights, the Super and the SF Chief... not sure about the San Diegans.

Not much chance of a train rolling over or derailing, but railroads will tell trains to come to safe stop.
Usually everything stays stopped untill bridges and other structures are inspected, a train could technicaly proceed at restricted speed if signals permit but it s not upto crew to determine if bridges, overpasses etc are safe to pass.

Coalinga 1983 is as close I have been to one of these. When it hit, I was sitting aboard a DC-10 @ SFO awaiting a departure to ORD.

Somehow, I thought this widebody aircraft shook a bit more than had it been hit by a service truck.

Earthquake is one natural disaster Northern Illinois is not all that afflicted by.

The one time I rode the train from San Fran (Oakland) to Portland, about 15 years ago, it was delayed several hours due to an earthquake in Klamath Falls. A coach was used in lieu of a baggage car as I recall from boarding at Oakland.

DutchRailnut wrote:Not much chance of a train rolling over or derailing, but railroads will tell trains to come to safe stop.
Usually everything stays stopped untill bridges and other structures are inspected, a train could technicaly proceed at restricted speed if signals permit but it s not upto crew to determine if bridges, overpasses etc are safe to pass.

The Southwest Chief derailed in the October 1999 magnitude 7.0 earthquake near Joshua Tree, CA. There were seven minor injuries in the derailment.

Not much, does not totaly preclude derailments, now look in report why the train derailed and you get my point.
A] it was not stopped
B] the track gave way at a small bridge.

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1998/RAR9803.htm

John_Perkowski wrote:IIRC SP and ATSF shut down after the 1971 quake to evaluate the tracks for some miles around the epicenter.

My understanding is that there is a shutdown of at least 100 miles from the epicenter after an earthquake event.

On February 28, 2001 there was a 6.8 Richter earthquake with an epicenter of 11 miles NE of Olympia. I recall that the westbound Empire Builder was held at Whitefish, MT (I was living in Kalispell at the time) pending track inspection before proceeding west; Whitefish is approximately 600 miles east of Seattle.

Immediately after that earthquake, I was on a conference call when we got word (as one of our facilities in Portland was evacuated due to the earthquake). Fortunately while the earthquake was strong, it was deep and thus produced only moderate damages and reports of about 250 injuries but zero fatalities. It was reported to have been felt as far southeast as Salt Lake City, and even some people in Kalispell said they felt it (I was not among them).

DutchRailnut wrote:Not much, does not totaly preclude derailments, now look in report why the train derailed and you get my point.
A] it was not stopped
B] the track gave way at a small bridge.

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1998/RAR9803.htm

Dutch, that's the wrong derailment. That derailment occured two years earlier (August 9, 1997) in Arizona and was caused by a flash flood washout.

The earthquake derailment of the Southwest Chief occured on October 16, 1999 at MP 704.4 about 40 miles east of Barstow CA. The cause was ground motion. The train was running at 60mph when the earthquake struck with the epicenter just a few miles away and the movement of the ground literally knocked the train off the tracks. It was not a structure failure or even rail dislocation. It was a classic example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

See this report prepared by BNSF:

BNSF Report

I am sceptical about any railroads own report as they are cover your butt only reports.
I can't find the NTSB report for that one, maybe someone else can.
http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/R_Acc.htm

The topic of earthquakes is not exclusive to Amtrak, so I moved it.

-otto-

One of the "Train Wrecks" books has a 1st person account of a passenger train going over the Charleston, S.C. Earthquake of the 1890s, and a photo of a standing train that was toppled. The same happened near San Francisco in mid-April, 1906.

an Earthquake in the 1980's toppled a stationary locomotive in Egecumbe , New Zealand . A moving train might have some issues with the track rearrangement in the foreground too .
http://www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky ... ndard/6/en

a locomotive drivers account of been on a 1900's viaduct when an earthquake stuck .
http://www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky ... ndard/6/en

A moderate earthquake hit San Jose a little over an hour ago. I'm listening to the online scanner of UP dispatcher 58.

All trains are stopped, and the dispatcher is issuing joint track-and-times to the trains so that he can get both MOW and signal inspectors on the track to make sure it's safe for trains to move. He's telling all the trains that it's going to be awhile before they'll be able to move.

Yo Jack...,

Right on. Train comes to a complete stop and waits out the rocking and rolling. The Engineman gets on the radio and phones in, the brakemen and conductor walk the train for a complete inspection. By the time that is complete the Engineman has his orders on what to do next. Generally they will proceed at a reduced speed unless told to do otherwise.