LIRR M Series Train used in crash Test

Yes no MU's on those branches, but on most westbounds, it is just a cab car. A lot of engineers feel the same way about cab cars in diesel territory as Pat felt about the bud cars..by the way the lead test car was 9357

The Link to the Newsday photos brings another question.

The clear changeing of the interior seating to thoes blue seats that have no resemblance to thoese used on the LIRR would there for falsify the reseults of how the LIRR unit with held the colision interms of the passenger compartment comeing apart.

And the fact that the M1s were not true M1s meaning they were dis figured from their origional desigine and re inforced with some cage. That in it's self would void out the results on how the M1s would truely preform in that type of accident.

Any time you dis member the trains integraty, you will create a result that my differ from thoese of a test preformed with a ture M1 carbody, and interior seating.

ALso, It looks as though the windows in the front were removed, besides the full front section, which is the crumple section of the car body and sadly the seating location for the engr. and several passengers.
Had they not dis member that M1, how would the true M1 carbody have held up. would the windows have dislodged or shattered, would there have been mroe structural damage then they received in that video?

I'm trying to bring up some valid points and or questions here.

I am trying to download the movies of the collision tests. These are fantastic exhibits of Newton's Law of Motion! My teaching partner and I want to use them as part of a student evaluation (test) at the conclusion of a physics unit. I have been able to get the slow-motion collision video of the telescoping coaches and the old F40. Those coaches appear to be old PRR corridor cars, and not LIRR M1's. The reinforced highspeed collision cars are definitely ex-LIRR M1's.

Anyone know how to save the collison test using M1's? Also, anyone know where I can download that famous footage of the two MKT steam locomotives impacting head-on?

Long Island 7285 wrote:The Link to the Newsday photos brings another question.

The clear changeing of the interior seating to thoes blue seats that have no resemblance to thoese used on the LIRR would there for falsify the reseults of how the LIRR unit with held the colision interms of the passenger compartment comeing apart.

And the fact that the M1s were not true M1s meaning they were dis figured from their origional desigine and re inforced with some cage. That in it's self would void out the results on how the M1s would truely preform in that type of accident.

Any time you dis member the trains integraty, you will create a result that my differ from thoese of a test preformed with a ture M1 carbody, and interior seating.

ALso, It looks as though the windows in the front were removed, besides the full front section, which is the crumple section of the car body and sadly the seating location for the engr. and several passengers.
Had they not dis member that M1, how would the true M1 carbody have held up. would the windows have dislodged or shattered, would there have been mroe structural damage then they received in that video?

I'm trying to bring up some valid points and or questions here.

Well I don't really know. In the Huntington wreck in 1988, the M1 that was involved was demolished. I doubt the M1s or even the M3s had some kind of cage that would protect the engineer or some passengers in the front. I don't think the M1s would have fared much better than any train that was built after it. It would've fared better than an MP54 in all but high speed crashes.

Long Island 7285 wrote:The Link to the Newsday photos brings another question.

The clear changeing of the interior seating to thoes blue seats that have no resemblance to thoese used on the LIRR would there for falsify the reseults of how the LIRR unit with held the colision interms of the passenger compartment comeing apart.

And the fact that the M1s were not true M1s meaning they were dis figured from their origional desigine and re inforced with some cage. That in it's self would void out the results on how the M1s would truely preform in that type of accident...

True but they were not testing how M1s would perform in that type of collision. They were testing how the modifications performed and they just happened to use decommissioned M1s as the testbed.

To be honest, the M-1's were and are not very crash worthy. They crumple like an aluminum can. The M-1 in huntington was hit by an mp 72 0r 74 after the power pack derailed. It absolutley destroyed the M1, while the older car was in morris park for awhile after the crash.

pretty much anything that was hit by anything else in the Huntington wreck was 'demolished' - the M-1s did no worse than the other designs.

I know it's fun to think the M-1s are some sort of 'tin can car' and that the MP-type stuff was stronger, but that's not the case. And if you look at how the MP-54s were, you'd see it: both Richmond hill and Rockville center were low speed accidents, they both demolished numerous cars. Other accidents involving the '54s were just as bad - even a collision in the region of 15 - 20 mph would often obliterate the cab and a dozen feet behind that (as seen the in rear ender at Port Washinington, the head on on the Whitestone Landing line, a rear ender at Woodside in '47..)

The 72 and 74 cars weren't much better, and got worse with age since carbon steel basically corrodes to nothingness with time...

In any case, the MP-72/75 cars an the M-1s met the same exact AAR/ICC standards, and both designs were perectly compliant until the late 90's...

There's nothing out of the ordinary about the M-1's carbody - in fact, it's a very conventional design with the end traps deleted. Budd never even bothered to take out a patent on it, and literature at the time of introduction pointed out that it was a conventional design in stainless. If anything, it should be more prone to crushing *at the doorways*.

On the link provided below, are pictures of Metro-North M1a's that struck an auto carrier stuck on the Green Lane crossing, in Bedford Hills, NY, in 2004. Sroll about half way down to see the lead car, and the size of the truck that was hit. I don't know what the speed limit is on this section, but the engineer did apply the emergency brake. If I remember correctly, the most serious injury was a broken leg. I dont recall car numbers involved, but I think all had some type of damage, and all remain on the rails.

to the Bedford Hills FD site: http://www.bedfordhillsfd.org/index.cfm ... &PageNum=2

correct the speed is 60 mph , the front end of train did not get penetrated by car carrier. but thetrailer spun around and cut into side of first car.
lots of material damage to cars however including couplers/bufferplate/windshield/ underbody electrical panels etc.
in total 4 m1's went pre-maturely to retirement line.

Even better: knock yourself out watching those 'tin can' car crush in the FRA's test:

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1761568

It doesn't *get* much better than that. Oh yeah, they've done this in Europe and found that a 250k buff strength works just as well (imagine that - an arbitrary meaningless number is...arbitrary and meaningless!).

Lets see:

* Upright and inline - check.
* No uncontrolled buckling - check, but also check the ripple in the skin...
* No rebound - check.
* No derailment - check.

They showed a 5 car train + loco. I don't know what 'ballasting', etc was done to the cars, if any, but you can see the propulsion system, etc under the car...

Assuming an unmodified F-40 at the rear, this could semi-realistically give you an expectation for a 7 - 8 car M-1 train. I say 'semi' because the carbodies recived end modifications, though they appeared to work here (and better than the FRA's earlier attempts in the late 90's)

As a control , the FRA now needs to do the same thing to unmodified M-1s, to see if the improvements did anything to improve the response. Actually, that should have been item #1 on the list. Without knowing WHERE you started...

Another 50 - 100 cycles of this, the FRA might have a bassis to create a useable crashworthiness standard...

After that, you might be able to say with some certainty that computer models are reliable enough in some cases to replace crash tests, but you'll still need to validate them.

Realistically, the FRA needs to crash the entire M-1 fleet to get an idea of how a single level MU does in a crash, and how it can be improved. It's going to take that - Detroit smashed thousands of cars before they got to where they are now.

The big questions here, though, are:

* How much energy was absorbed where on which cars?
* What were the impact forces experienced by the dummies?
* What did work?
* What DIDN'T work?
* What was important?
* What wasn't?
* Do current regulations address this?
* What changes should be made?
* Are those changes viable?
* What are realistic collisions?

Thoes shots of the MN M1s showed that any one standing in the RFW most likely would have been killed or severly injured. I don't know how the interior or the sturctural stability of the tin can desigine held up but from the looks of things the front end survived the impact intact. compared to being compleetly oblivated.

Nasadowsk wrote:Even better: knock yourself out watching those 'tin can' car crush in the FRA's test:

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1761568

It doesn't *get* much better than that. Oh yeah, they've done this in Europe and found that a 250k buff strength works just as well (imagine that - an arbitrary meaningless number is...arbitrary and meaningless!).

Lets see:

* Upright and inline - check.
* No uncontrolled buckling - check, but also check the ripple in the skin...
* No rebound - check.
* No derailment - check.

They showed a 5 car train + loco. I don't know what 'ballasting', etc was done to the cars, if any, but you can see the propulsion system, etc under the car...

Assuming an unmodified F-40 at the rear, this could semi-realistically give you an expectation for a 7 - 8 car M-1 train. I say 'semi' because the carbodies recived end modifications, though they appeared to work here (and better than the FRA's earlier attempts in the late 90's)

As a control , the FRA now needs to do the same thing to unmodified M-1s, to see if the improvements did anything to improve the response. Actually, that should have been item #1 on the list. Without knowing WHERE you started...

Another 50 - 100 cycles of this, the FRA might have a bassis to create a useable crashworthiness standard...

After that, you might be able to say with some certainty that computer models are reliable enough in some cases to replace crash tests, but you'll still need to validate them.

Realistically, the FRA needs to crash the entire M-1 fleet to get an idea of how a single level MU does in a crash, and how it can be improved. It's going to take that - Detroit smashed thousands of cars before they got to where they are now.

The big questions here, though, are:

* How much energy was absorbed where on which cars?
* What were the impact forces experienced by the dummies?
* What did work?
* What DIDN'T work?
* What was important?
* What wasn't?
* Do current regulations address this?
* What changes should be made?
* Are those changes viable?
* What are realistic collisions?

It didn't crumple because the M1 had a cage at the end of the car. If it didn't, the front would've been totally crumpled up.

<i>It didn't crumple because the M1 had a cage at the end of the car. If it didn't, the front would've been totally crumpled up.</i>

Since the FRA's not done a test of the car, unmodified, how do you know that?

Nasadowsk wrote:<i>It didn't crumple because the M1 had a cage at the end of the car. If it didn't, the front would've been totally crumpled up.</i>

Since the FRA's not done a test of the car, unmodified, how do you know that?

I'm pretty sure that the unmodified cars would do worse without some kind of reinforcement (cage) in the front.

Richard -SEPTA sold three Pioneer III / Silverliner I's to DOT for that and previous tests, PRR lost one car (when?) and the other 2 are preserved. DOT's Volpe web site has the reports available and the car numbers can be read in the photos.

Bill