CSX Train Derailment, Baltimore, MD 8/5/2010

[BaltoOhioRRfan]

13 of 79 cars derailed just outside the Howard Street Tunnel on the Mt. Royal end of the tunnel. All cars stayed upright, 9 other trains are backed up right now. Some of the derailed cars went into tunnel.

This one isn't anything like the one that derailed and caught fire inside the tunnel about 10 years ago.

http://wjz.com/local/csx.train.derails.2.1844459.html

Link to news story

[pipefitter]

Heat kinks? It was really hot today after several weeks of extreme heat. One wonders about this one flaw in the idea of mile after mile of welded rail. From my job... carbon steel expands at 6 ppm per degree centigrade. To add insult to injury CSX has also overturned a row of coal hoppers south of DC at Quantico VA on their two track mainline, blocking both tracks and AMTRAK and VRE commuter trains (at the height of rush hour ). And wait, there's more Washington DC's METRO has one of two tracks blocked by a station canopy that fell on the tracks at Alexandria VA station during a violent storm that just thundered through here.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/capital-land/second-csx-train-derails-tying-up-vre-100059119.html

http://www.automatedtrader.net/real-time-dow-jones/10388/csx-coal-train-derails-in-virginia-amtrak-service-disrupted

When it rains, it pours...

Robert

[jward]

railroads have found that by using rail anchors they can usually force the rail to expand in width rather than length. sun kinks and pullaparts (when rail snaps due to contraction in extreme cold) are nowhere near as big a problem as they were 30 years ago. usuallly rail is heated when it's laid, so that expansion problems are minimized.

[jonathan]

Had an opportunity to go see the rail accident near Quantico.  

There are six hoppers, upsidedown, with their trucks removed, on the east side of the double track mainline, which runs north/south.  One of the hoppers has the bottom side ripped open.  I don't know what actually happened, but it looks like the bottom of the hopper caught something solid on the tracks.  There is coal everywhere, and the crews are replacing a section of track, perhaps 50 feet in length.  That's a guess.  The hoppers are marked PM RX.

No train traffic is travelling on the westside track, yet.

For what it's worth.

[Joe323]

Is this the derailment that's affecting Amtraks Florida trains (Silver Star, Palmetto).  The radio said it was in Virginia.

[jonathan]

Most likely.

Everything uses these rails along the northeast corridor.

[jonathan]

At the risk of showing my true foamer self:

A train just passed on the unaffected westside rails, perhaps as a test?  It was going north.

Looked like a pair of SD50s (guess) pulling 45 yellowish orange hoppers full of ballast.   Passed at about 5-7 mph.

Hard not to notice.  I'm use to a train passing by about every 12 minutes.  This was the first one since yesterday.

Addendum:

At 1pm, the first passenger train, a long one with auto cars, passed, northbound on the westside rails.

Next, on the eastside track, a GeeP pushed by a bulkhead flat car, with stacked up track, ties and all.  Looked just like model sectional track stacked up.  Estimate there was about 160 feet of track loaded.

1:15pm, another passenger train crept by.  It's slow, but the westside CSX rails are back in service.

It's a parade.

R,

J

[Joe323]

Is this the derailment that's affecting Amtraks Florida trains (Silver Star, Palmetto).  The radio said it was in Virginia.

Update: No their was a separate derailment of a CSX coal train near Quantico Virginia It has stopped Amtrak and VRE operations to Fredrickberg for today.

[pipefitter]

Regarding the canceled AMTRAK trains, in an earlier time those trains would have been detoured around the blocked RF&P (CSX) and run over the Southern Railway (NS) between Alexandria and Doswell VA respectively. Perhaps due to increased freight traffic density these detours are no longer done? Or perhaps they are more trouble than they're worth. I have read horror stories about detoured trains ending up delayed many hours with all the related problems.

BTW I have looked at B&ORRF's link and see that work continues at the Baltimore tunnel derailment. It certainly would be difficult to re-rail hazardous material cars in that situation.

Robert