Derailment in Brookfield yesterday.
On the way home from a luncheon meeting about 2:00 p.m. I noticed a train
switching the east end of the railroad yards. Since it was a sunny and warm
delightful spring day I pulled into the Dura factory's easternmost parking lot
just south of the yard lead to watch the action for awhile. They set out one
loaded coal car then pulled ahead to clear the switch. After the switch was
thrown the locomotives pushed the remaining cars back into the yard at about
1-2 mph to couple onto some long gondolas very heavily loaded withlogs. When
they made contact there was a loud bang and the log cars did not move much at
all because they were so heavy. Well, all of that kinetic energy had to go
somewhere so one of the cars on the curved switch rails buckled and derailed.
That's the first time I had ever seen a derailment and I have been watching
railroads for 40 years. It happened immediately in front the conductor and it
appeared that he saw it. He was in a safe position,there was no one else around
to get hurt if the cars tipped over as the result of a sudden forward movement
and I couldn't get near him without some danger to myself so I just maintained
my ground and watched. Anyway, soon the train started forward slowly and when
the trucks moved further away fromthe rail he stopped the train immediately and
the air was dumped. I concluded that he actually saw the derailment and was
hoping the wheels would getback on the rails when they passed over the switch
frog, and it was only when they didn't that he stopped the action.
Will anyone please confirm or discount this conclusion by weighing in on the
current status of the practice of rerailing trucks by passing them over switch
frogs. Is it a legal move? If not, is it used anyway on occasion?
|