Scary crash

Saw this on you tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C8TpVXhaDE

Didn't see that one coming. I am however somewhat surprised that accidents like this one don't happen more often since unlike a controlled switch, the engineer has no way of knowing the position of the switch until he sees the stand target or the points, and by then it's too late anyway.

Was this train operating in dark territory? If so, the engineer should have been prepared to stop at all facing point switches. That is the requirement under NORAC, but is it the same under GCOR, or does BNSF have a special instruction allowing trains to run at track speed?

amtrakhogger wrote:Was this train operating in dark territory? If so, the engineer should have been prepared to stop at all facing point switches. That is the requirement under NORAC, but is it the same under GCOR, or does BNSF have a special instruction allowing trains to run at track speed?

With GCOR, dark territory track speed is 49 MPH. Due to this accident, and others like it, there is a huge personal fine for leaving main track switches open.

If you look at the top right of the you tube link there is a decent description of what happened.
Do switches on mainlines that are NOT in dark territory trip the signal's (red) when they are open?

JUDGE DRED wrote:If you look at the top right of the you tube link there is a decent description of what happened.
Do switches on mainlines that are NOT in dark territory trip the signal's (red) when they are open?

yes

That was Cactus, Texas which is on the BNSF Boise City sub and yes it is dark territory. I saw this video in a safety meeting once.

wow that was scary

heres another crash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XkWuib8 ... 1&index=26

Um, yeah...

That one has been posted a time or two on here.

I just got home from my chemo treatments, so I'm too tired to go digging for it just now...


But, yes, another scary wreck.

amtrakhogger wrote:Was this train operating in dark territory? If so, the engineer should have been prepared to stop at all facing point switches. That is the requirement under NORAC, but is it the same under GCOR, or does BNSF have a special instruction allowing trains to run at track speed?

Nothing in the 2005 edition of the GCOR states that an engineer must be prepared to stop at all facing point switches while operating in TWC. While it is a good idea to ensure that all switches are visually lined for your route, I can think of some dark territory on the UP where engaging in a restricted speed scenario would break the railroad in terms of getting traffic across the road due to the vastness of the dark territory and the number of switches in the given area. EO 24 also helps in this respect as well.

Here is the FRA report of the Cactus, TX incident:

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety ... 00679v.pdf

Komachi wrote:Um, yeah...

That one has been posted a time or two on here.

I just got home from my chemo treatments, so I'm too tired to go digging for it just now...


But, yes, another scary wreck.

well jee sorry but im not searching the forum to see if its been posted.

Watching that video, it's amazing that there were not fatalities on-board. I'm assuming that the crew must have dove for cover at the last moment- an amazing feat since it happened so fast. I was wondering why there isn't a system of automatic default positioning of switches in a situation like this where you have a siding off a main line whereas the main line switch alignment automatically returns after a period of a few minutes following electrical indication that a car(s) has taken the siding and has cleared the switch. As the main is almost always considerably faster than a divergence at a switch, this would not present a problem for siding-bound trains, but would give an extra degree of safety for the main line.

3rdrail wrote:Watching that video, it's amazing that there were not fatalities on-board. I'm assuming that the crew must have dove for cover at the last moment- an amazing feat since it happened so fast. I was wondering why there isn't a system of automatic default positioning of switches in a situation like this where you have a siding off a main line whereas the main line switch alignment automatically returns after a period of a few minutes following electrical indication that a car(s) has taken the siding and has cleared the switch. As the main is almost always considerably faster than a divergence at a switch, this would not present a problem for siding-bound trains, but would give an extra degree of safety for the main line.

That is how power switches in CTC work. The dispatcher sets it up of course. 99% of the time when you take the siding in CTC the switch automaticly lines behind you unless the dispatcher is going to run a train in behind you. The reason why the railroads dont have anything in TWC is because they dont want to invest the money on a line that might only see a few trains a day. They make their money back faster by making capital investments on high density lines. I run on 203 miles of nonsignaled TWC territory. Its pretty remote and to put something in like that would cost a few million.