Train derails in Taunton after railroad tracks stolen

Not sure if this is in the right place,but it was a CSX engine.

http://www.enterprisenews.com/topstorie ... cks-stolen

Yes that is the right spot. The location is off Fremont St where the spur for the industrial park. I believe B727 makes that run with cars, those tracks are popular with kids on dirt bikes and the property is down the street from a closed state property that has had a long history with copper thefts.

Just imagine if it was the main they did that to instead of the industrial track. Chlorine bombs going off the track at 30mph would not be a good thing.

More info and a photo at: http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x7246655 ... oad-tracks

Like the wreak master said “When they cut through they must have got the shock of their lives”, especially if the cut was on a curve, there's a lot of tension in those rails. I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to do this on the main, but on a spur in a secluded area, especially if the rails have rust on them, I could see how someone with the right amount of ignorance and stupidity might think the tracks are abandoned and that nobody would ever notice. Luckilly the idea that rusty rails are abandoned improves the likelyhood of the speed limit being reasonably low.

It shouldn't be too hard to find the thieves, if they're stupid enough to steal a piece of rail, they're stupid enough to tie it with bungee cords to the roof of their sedan.

If you cut out a piece of rail on a signaled main line, wouldn't that cause the signals to go to restricted?

By the looks of things on Google Earth, if I'm looking at the right spot, where they did it was a main at one point.

RedLantern wrote:By the looks of things on Google Earth, if I'm looking at the right spot, where they did it was a main at one point.

Yes, it use to be a main that ran north to the NEC in Mansfield, then crossed over and continued up the now Framingham Secondary.

gprimr1 wrote:If you cut out a piece of rail on a signaled main line, wouldn't that cause the signals to go to restricted?

Yes, it would. Where this happened is industrial track. But, the main that this comes off of is Non-Signaled TWC territory.

More pics from the Taunton Gazette...
http://www.tauntongazette.com/photos/x5 ... ack?foto=0

I wonder if they took photographs first? Everybody knows that terrorists always photograph the site of their future crime.

I wish the newspapers would just do a bit of study before throwing numbers out there, that rail looks like 115/119, so at 8 feet you're looking at 306lbs for 115. Even if it was big rail, 141, each 8 foot section would only be 376 lbs. I'd love to know where they get 900lbs from?

industrial track? i imagine this would be restricted speed. had their been a banner instead of a missing set of rails, this would have been considered a failure to stop. technically, it's still a failure to stop though......

GOLDEN-ARM wrote:industrial track? i imagine this would be restricted speed. had their been a banner instead of a missing set of rails, this would have been considered a failure to stop. technically, it's still a failure to stop though......

If it's bad track with grass growing around it I don't think they can be faulted for not seeing the break at 10 MPH. Especially when the rail disappeared the night before. It's not like they inspect exempt track frequently enough to have caught that immediately before the run.

Restricted Speed rule requires a speed enabling the train to be stopped within 1/2 visual distance, not exceeding 15 mph, looking out for derail, misaligned switch points, broken rail. So, if you were going 1 mph and dropped into this gap. You would be in violation of the rule. It's up to local management if they decide to charge the crew or not. Being the rail may have been covered in weeds and difficult to see may help.

GOLDEN-ARM wrote:industrial track? i imagine this would be restricted speed. had their been a banner instead of a missing set of rails, this would have been considered a failure to stop. technically, it's still a failure to stop though......

It's rule 46 speed. It does not require looking out for broken rail, so the crew did not break any rules.

Also, don't forget that spikes only hold so much tension in the ties, especially on a slow track where the ties can be very old. Since the rail in front of the train also works to maintain the alignment, unless there were some alignment rods I'm surprised the front truck made it as far as it did without pushing the rails apart. Theoretically they could've come to a complete stop before the end of the rail and still ended up on the ground.