protect the rear end!!!

[Loco Bill Canelos]

This is what happens when you don't protect the rear end!!

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/06/us/indiana-trains/index.html

[Doneldon]

Wow!! That's just about where I grew up.

[rogertra]

This is what happens when you don't protect the rear end!!

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/06/us/indiana-trains/index.html

Where exactly is this, so I can see the location on Google Earth?

[rogertra]

From the info contained in the CNN report "near county roads 550 East and 600 North" and from this video: -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGgQETTkTPE


I think it happened at this overbridge where the tracks come together to
pass under the bridge, the worst place possible.


http://g.co/maps/e7cam

I'm not sure how this section of track works.  If you follow the lines to
the Southeast, they part company you'll, see a junction.

Here: -

http://g.co/maps/4cmh7


The North Track of the pair continues easterly while the South Track
diverges and heads even more Southeast.  Coming from the Southeast you can
access both the North Track and the South Track but coming from the easterly
direction, trains can only access the North track.

So.  It's possible that these are/were two single tracks.

If you follow the line to the west, there's a cross over that permits west
bound trains on the North Track to cross over to the south track.

Here: -

http://g.co/maps/sugs4

I would guess that at one time these were two competing routes.  It looks,
in the Google Map, as though the North Track was at one time double track.
If notice that on the Google Map, the railroad is doing an awful lot of
track work on the North Track and that part of it is bringing the two
together to pass under the then new bridge.  I'm ass-u meing  that when both
lines became part of CSX they built the junction, which looks new in the
photos, removed the second track from the North rail line and add the
junction and crossovers to make both lines bi-directional.   The long
distance between the junction and the crossover, well over a mile, makes
this part of the now double track a "siding" so to speak.

So, one surmises that the stopped train was waiting under the bridge for
another train to cross over in front of it, the third train was supposed to
wait, either at the junction or further west on the double track for this
meet to take place but didn't and ran into the rear of the stopped train.

That's my piece of detective work, wonder how accurate I am?  :-)