Sand Patch derailment 02/05/10

Did the main part of this derailment occur East or West of Glencoe Rd Crossing? Isn't MPs 201-203 slightly West between Glencoe and Philson, rather than east closer to the Falls Cut tunnel?

This derailment is in right at Glencoe crossing just 1/4 mile west of the grade crossing is were it starts and from there its west into the S curves toward Meyersdale. All 113 cars were derailed and none remained on the tracks. I was up there today and saw it for myself. Hulcher & Corman crews were all hands on deck there must be 50 tractor trailer rigs and numerous pieces of heavy equipment on site. The biggest derailment I've ever seen in these parts. The mains are now open and track work being done round the clock. I saw CSX crews with Tampers and a tie crew working as well as many officials & people working the wreck site. This must be costing CSX a fortune. The weather was 20 degrees and 3 ft of snow all though the snow had quit and the sun was peeping through the clouds.

So the length of the derailment basically from 1/4 mile West of Glencoe Rd Crossing to about Philson or Mance?

Yes about 1/4 mile west of Glencoe toward Philson I headed toward that way but was turned around by CSX RR police nicely however due to safety concerns. This has to be a record derail for the northeast.

I know that csx doesn't like to maintain their track or equipment very well. I work there and see it first hand. I work out of Connellsville. But there is no question that the weather was a key factor in this derailment. Granted the some cars may have been crappy NYC cars that ALWAYS have bad brakes. Couple that with 3 feet of snow and this is what can happen. Typical procedure is to warm the brakes between Garret and Yoder with 10lbs of air. Weather that was effective or not in this case I don't know. But I know the engineer and I know he did it. It could've been that they were so clogged and iced over with snow and ice that it did nothing to warm the brakes. Or they got iced over and clogged again between Yoder and sand patch. It's about 7 miles from Yoder to Sand patch. I doubt they got that iced over in that distance being that the train usually isn't going fast enough from there-on to kick up that much snow. The warming procedure was probably ineffective. You usually don't have to use the air from Connellsville to garret and they were probably very clogged with snow and ice. When you stop at sand patch to cut the helpers off we use minimum reduction and put that on before entering the tunnel. If you're going slow enough you can pretty much hang the train up and stop with just dynamics. That's probably what happened and why they didn't notice that the brakes weren't working very well. Once you start out again, you release the independent and sometimes have to tug on the train to get it rolling. If you don't have to tug you know you have loose brakes. Then as you start rolling you find that medium between train brakes and dynamics. From what I understand he went through the process of slowly applying the train brakes but right from the start nothing was happening. And no matter how much he put on their speed kept picking up. There is a special instruction in our timetable that tells us if the brake pipe reduction exceeds 18lbs and is not controlling the train you are to stop. Well at that point he went to full service and even that wasn't stopping them so he put it in emergency. Even then they didn't stop. From then on all you can do is sit and watch. They got up to 63 mph. The speed for that train at that particular location is 25 mph.

Management up here was telling us that they believe the airline had a blockage, there may have been ice in the air line which blocked the air flow and didn't allow the brakes to set completely, or not at all past the blockage. Coal hoppers, either ya got crappy brakes or a kicker. Either way, they can be a challenge.

I can't imagine the fear they felt as this transpired

One of my instructors at Engineer school in Cumberland, had one I think in '95 or 96?. Ice storm coated the rails and wheels. They lost 95 cars strewn over most of the mountain. When the engines stopped at the bottom, they used stones to chock the wheels as they had a 1/2 inch of ice built up between the brakeshoes and wheels. He showed us a video shot from a helicopter contracted by CSX for the ariel footage. They had another in winter/spring of 2000 I believe which resulted in a fatality of a 17 yoa resident when a rail car went through his house. I can say, that being an engineer on a runaway was the single most frightening and helpless experience I have ever had.

roadster wrote:Management up here was telling us that they believe the airline had a blockage, there may have been ice in the air line which blocked the air flow and didn't allow the brakes to set completely, or not at all past the blockage. Coal hoppers, either ya got crappy brakes or a kicker. Either way, they can be a challenge.

Yeah I was wondering about that also. Perhaps the air dryers weren't working properly. The crew that brings the train from Newell to Connellsville has to run around the train at Demmler once they come off the Mon sub. Maybe some snow got in the hoses in that process. I'm not sure which kind of cars they had, the newer aluminum cars or some older NYC cars. When I was in ET training on that hill it was winter and even with snow and ice the brakes on those aluminum cars were pretty nice to handle. But for some reason if you have a lot of the NYC cars the train brakes feel loose. My one trip in ET training, I had to get out of the seat and let my engineer take over. The train was acting real loose the whole way down the hill. We coasted right through the sag and on down into Maxwell. Long story short, we were in full dynamics with 18lbs off the equalizing res and it was just keeping us under controll. It was real quite in that cab..

I still think the "crux" of this is that the train was just too long and heavy for the conditions.
Noel Weaver

It's very interesting for a nonrailroader like me to read the techniques used to control a heavy train on a grade like Sand Patch.

One question I had. Apparently it is standard procedure to use some train brakes descending the east slope of Sand Patch?

On trainorders.com some CSX engineers were saying they wondered about that. That supposedly management enforces a prohibition on the use of air. That only the dynamics are supposed to be used to control speed. The air brakes are only for stopping. That a running release is also frowned upon by CSX supervision.

The use of air brakes on descending trains is contigent on the grade,weather and type of train. While CSx likes you to use dynamic brakes where practical sometimes it just isn't. Dynamic brakes on 2 units will not slow a 130 car freight on any kind of grade. Here on the B&A we have been told to use air plus dynamics while descending with a general freight or an auto rack train. However most van trains are light enough and sufficently powered to descend the Berkshires with just dynamics.

CSX rules require the use of dynamic braking as the primary means to slow trains, if needed, airbrakes can be used to suppliment. CSX wants to stop the practice of "stretch braking", which is using the airbrakes to slow a train while still under throttle. Exceptions to this include poor or ineffective dynamics(Better have been reported). Stopping in an area where vandalism is prevelent. (keep the knuckles stretched so nobody can pull uncoupling levers) In winter weather conditions, (cold, snowy, icey). Engineers are required to "Condition" their airbrakes by setting atleast 10lbs off the brakepipe for a sufficient amount of time to warm the brake shoes and effective brake action is realized.(don't get caught doing this in warmer weather) There is also a requirement for an airbrake test before decending a heavy grade. (2% or greater) It's my understanding that the engineer complied with all his required tests and proceedures prior to the "big ride".

pharmerphil54 wrote: Dynamic brakes on 2 units will not slow a 130 car freight on any kind of grade.

I do not agree with this statement. Under some conditions 2 units and especially 6 motor units with extended range dynamic
braking will do a very effective job to control the speed and even reduce it if necessary on some grades. It all depends on
the grade itself, the makeup of the train, rail conditions as well as the dynamic brakes themselves.
I ran freight trains on the Maybrook Line, Beacon Branch, River Line and the Main Line to Buffalo all of which had grades
although maybe of a different degree than the B & A.
What might not work well on the B & A could work very well on a different part of the railroad. The B & A was one part of
the railroad that I never worked. I ran plenty of trains between Selkirk and Buffalo that had 130 plus cars and never touched
the air in some cases from one end to the other. That included the downgrade into Selkirk from the west and into Buffalo
from the east.
I don't know if you ever ran the SD-80 MAC's but they could bring a long train right down to a stop at least anywhere between
Selkirk and Buffalo, I know most of the engineers on the B & A liked them too.
Noel Weaver

Noel, I have yet to run any of the SD80's, but the CSX CW44AH's #1-599 and the CW60AH's have the strongest dynamic braking I have experienced. Caution has to be used not to use excessive dynamics braking on some trains with these engines. CSX has also been modifying the computer drives, to limit the dynamics capacities at higher speeds on some models. The new ES44's(now being downrated to ES40's) and ES44AH's are all equiped with limiting programing. It's interesting to watch as I desend the Batavia hill Between mp 401 and mp 396, the speed increasing and the dynamic loading decreasing.