Palmetto - Train 89 Incident

scoostraw wrote:

khecht wrote:It's possible that Mr. Forbes thought he was in a different end than he thought he was.

Wow.

So if he was in "the other end" of the train, that would mean that he was in the FIRST car - the one that was seriously damaged, with windows blown out?

No.

I am fully confident that Steve Forbes is able to ascertain - and tell us - if he was in the last car on the train or not. Especially after having to detrain after the collision.

It is reported elsewhere that Steve Forbes was in the last passenger car. The baggage car was behind the last passenger car.

A similar incident happened last summer on my MARC train #875. A CSX MoW crew drove one of their dump trucks right in front of our train. It was one hell of a bang. The same thing happened where the truck was spun around, hit the side of the first car, and blew the windows in. They were working on track 2 as we were passing by on track 1 about 55mph. Putz just drove right in front of us and took a train directly to the passenger side door of the truck. I think we were very fortunate the truck was empty, not loaded with ballast or dirt. And also that we were going 55mph uphill under heat speed restrictions rather than 70mph downhill. The MP36 diesel loco had some dents and we stopped in emergency about 2 train lengths past the point of impact. The truck was obliterated. And somehow Captain Putzo driving it was virtually uninjured.

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I've hit a small boulder at 15mph on a tourist train. The bang that made was tremendous ... and more than loud enough that we stopped and inspected the entire train.

(side note : snowplow pilots move small boulders just fine)

I can't even imagine what hitting a 10-15,000 lb piece of equipment at 60mph or 106mph would be like ...

Just plain freakin' scary to even think about.

I was napping at the time on MARC 875. I woke up when I lurched forward in my seat after the engineer dumped the brakes, about a second before the impact with the dump truck I think. That was a really loud bang and a jolt, followed by another loud bang as the truck spun and hit the side of the first car and knocked the windows in. The first car had some screams and cursing from the window blowing it. The rest of the train was just stunned silence, us all looking at each other like wtf just happened. From my side of the train on the curve, we could look back and see this heap of destroyed truck splattered across the tracks, so it was pretty obvious what happened. Once it was clear that our engineer, conductors, and passengers were unhurt, the mood changed from "omg how many people are dead" to more like "well shit, someone better order pizza and some 30 racks because we're going to be here for a while."

bluedash2 wrote:

8th Notch wrote:And what expertise do you have in accident investigation to support that statement?

Name me the last time the Feds didn't take all year to get anything done? Railroads or not. That's the way they are.

The NTSB is one of the most respected organizations on the planet, which is something considering the currently political climate. You're who, exactly, some 13-year-old on the Internet?

MCL1981 wrote:A similar incident happened last summer on my MARC train #875. A CSX MoW crew drove one of their dump trucks right in front of our train. It was one hell of a bang. The same thing happened where the truck was spun around, hit the side of the first car, and blew the windows in. They were working on track 2 as we were passing by on track 1 about 55mph. Putz just drove right in front of us and took a train directly to the passenger side door of the truck. I think we were very fortunate the truck was empty, not loaded with ballast or dirt. And also that we were going 55mph uphill under heat speed restrictions rather than 70mph downhill. The MP36 diesel loco had some dents and we stopped in emergency about 2 train lengths past the point of impact. The truck was obliterated. And somehow Captain Putzo driving it was virtually uninjured.

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The backhoe was basically vaporized, not spun around. The only recognizable pieces of the thing I see in pictures are one of the rear wheels and the front bucket/arm. Thats it. I feel sorry for the two MOW employees who lost their lives thinking about it.

chuchubob wrote:It is reported elsewhere that Steve Forbes was in the last passenger car. The baggage car was behind the last passenger car.

I don't think anyone is implying that Steve Forbes was (or thought he was) riding in the baggage car.

Maybe it was the business car he was in , which wouldnt be one of the front cars, cut off in Washington.

justalurker66 wrote:

Zeke wrote:Amtrak on the NEC does not use stop signs.

They use shunts. If the crew plans on fouling the track for more than five minutes they need to install a shunt that shorts the track circuit and provides occupancy for the signalling system. Then any approaching train will get the usual signals for when they approach occupied track ... including a restricting or stop signal protecting the occupied track.

Ironically, the requirement for the use of shunts was introduced by Amtrak as a result of the 1988 collision, which occurred within a mile or two of the same place, only involving a northbound train instead of a southbound.

ACeInTheHole wrote:The backhoe was basically vaporized, not spun around. The only recognizable pieces of the thing I see in pictures are one of the rear wheels and the front bucket/arm. Thats it. I feel sorry for the two MOW employees who lost their lives thinking about it.

I noticed only a few small pieces of it in photos. Which certainly speaks volumes. However, there is clearly a chunk of something sticking through the side of the first car. I presumed that to be a piece of the backhoe that spun around.

Coaches and viewliner still at race street, but loco is gone.

litz wrote:I can't even imagine what hitting a 10-15,000 lb piece of equipment at 60mph or 106mph would be like ...

Just plain freakin' scary to even think about.

I know. It had to be not unlike a missile hitting that backhoe.

Those poor guys..

Dont read this the wrong way.. But I hope they never saw it coming, their death was surely instantaneous, but I mean never saw the train before it hit them and that they died none the wiser to the oncoming train. If I were a MOW worker on an active track with no knowledge of it being active, I would rather go just focused on my work instead of having the last thing I see be an oncoming locomotive, with absolutely no way out of the backhoe.

I believe I read that one of the two fatalities was the machine operator's supervisor, who realizing what was happening - ran toward the backhoe in an attempt to get the man out of there.

Where did we get the idea that the passengers in the rear passenger car weren't going beyond Washington?

As for pulling the damaged train backwards to Philadelphia, maybe the rear coupler was in better condition than the front one?