Train movie in 2010

[rich1998]

Unstoppable (2010) is about a single locomotive bringing a freight train with no engineer in the loco under control. hollywood will no doubt make it an action movie. wonder if the original story will be recognized.
lex

[rich1998]

i did some looking and found the below story behind what happended. To start with, the engineer fell off the loco.
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=70901
this shows you how safety problems can occur.
lex

[RAM]

The report said that the engineer got off and was near by in the yard when the train took off.

[rich1998]

The report said that the engineer got off and was near by in the yard when the train took off.

the driver was climbing back on board and slipped back off and dragged a little ways.

While the train was still moving at a speed of approximately 8 mph,
the
engineer dismounted the locomotive and ran ahead to reposition the
switch before the train could run through and cause damage to the
switch. The engineer was successful in operating the switch just
seconds
before the train reached it. The engineer than ran along side the
locomotive and attempted to reboard. However, the speed of the train
had
not decreased as the engineer had expected but had increased to
approximately 12 mph. Due to poor footing and wet grab handles on the
locomotive, the engineer was unable to pull himself up on the
locomotives ladder. He dragged along for approximately 80 feet until
he
released his grip on the hand rails and fell to the ground.
lex

[RAM]

Ok I found this report.     CSX Transportation (CSX) says a freight train carrying two carloads of molten phenol left its Stanley, OH rail yard last week unmanned after an engineer inadvertently pulled a throttle, instead of a brake, before dismounting.

The engineer, who had been working on the 47-car train, did not realize the error until he was off the locomotive and it was moving too fast for him to stop it, says CSX.

The train traveled about 66 miles through northwestern Ohio before CSX employees were able to catch up to it and ...

What gets me is , the engineer doesn't know the difference between the throttle and the brake.  I didn't know the CSX ran one man crew. 

[Cascade Northern]

The engineer was trying to use the dynamic brakes.  To use the dynamic brakes, a lever has to be switched to dynamics, then the throttle is used to increase or decrease the dynamic brakes.  If the lever is not switched, then the locomotive will increase in speed.

[rich1998]

Ok I found this report.     CSX Transportation (CSX) says a freight train carrying two carloads of molten phenol left its Stanley, OH rail yard last week unmanned after an engineer inadvertently pulled a throttle, instead of a brake, before dismounting.

The engineer, who had been working on the 47-car train, did not realize the error until he was off the locomotive and it was moving too fast for him to stop it, says CSX.

The train traveled about 66 miles through northwestern Ohio before CSX employees were able to catch up to it and ...

What gets me is , the engineer doesn't know the difference between the throttle and the brake.  I didn't know the CSX ran one man crew. 

common ram,
he made a mistake. The wet steps did not help.

I have a friend who has been a machine mechanic for paper slitting/winding machines and hasseen an operator mistakenly hit the wrong button. it can happen with experienced operators. you get comfortable, ok complacent, doing a job and hit the wrong button or control.
he has seen an operator slip becaus of a spill that was not wiped up  and hit a stop button which stopped the whole machine. could have been worse.

read the whole article. There was also a conductor. Again, read everything in the link.

here is the link again.

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=70901

ok, original intent for the post is the railroad movie in 2010. sometimes peopl mention there are very few railroad movies.

lex

[jward]

very few train movies, and those few that do get made usually aren't very good. abybody remember atomic train? the locomotive suffered a crankcase explosion, yet was somehow able to continue running at full speed?

usually the peopel making train movies think of railroads as some big lionel set, and have only the vaguest idea what they actually do.....

there are plenty of accidents waiting to happen on the railroad in real life, without havind to invent any for a movie....

that said, i saw the equipment for this movie. there are at least 6 locomotives and probably 30 freight cars all lettered for fictitious lines, they did a good job on them, if you didn't know they were fakes you'd be wondering where that railroad was.

[Jhanecker2]

I have a question  .  Don't diesel engines have a deadman switch to automatically stop a train if there is no response from the engineer ? John II

[Michigan Railfan]

I believe you're right, John. It's mainly to wake up a driver if he dozes off on the job. It beeps, and if the driver does not hit a button in a matter of 2 or 3 minutes (or something like that), the train will automatically stop. But, this runaway happened in 2001, and even today, I think a few engines still do not have this equipped.

[jward]

i don't think many have deadman pedals to-day. they were too easy to defeat by placing weighted objects on the pedal. now, locomotives have an active system whereby the engineer has to touch a certain object in the cab at prescribed intervals. if not, the brakes will automatically give a penalty application. this system does not work if the brakes are already applied, as was the case in the csx incident. also, i would imagine locomotives equipped for zombie (remote control) operation would have this feature disabled while in zombie mode.

[Cascade Northern]

In regards to the "deadman switch", the runaway locomotive had one equipped.  But since the locomotive brakes had already be applied, the switch was nullified.  If the engineer had not applied the brakes before leaving the cab, the deadman switch would have activated after not receiving any command input and the train would have come to a stop.

[jward]

with csx 8888 being a former conrail unit, the deadman they were referring to was actually an alerter. the way it works is that there is an alarm that goes off every so often. when it does the engineer has a certain number of seconds to touch a spring on the control stand, which is energized with a very low electirc current, the engineer's seat is grounded and touching the spring completes the circuit that disables the alerter. if contact is not made within a set amount of time, the brakes automatically apply.

i have observed this system in use many times, it is also related to the cab signal system. in that system, the engineer erceives advance warning of bad signals and must also acknowledge it or else a penalty brake application will occur. on some units, the alerter alarm is also connected to a bright light which flashes in the engineer's face if he doesn't acknowledge the alarm.