Is this what 'Piggy Back' means!

[lanny]

Here's an interesting series of recent shots my UP engineer friend sent me. I don't know the speed of the Eurostar from Milan, Italy to wherever it goes, but I suspect its very fast. Again I say THANKFULLY somehow they got stopped before a major catastrophe! All is elevated trackage with concrete ties and heavy rails. Imagaine a SF 4-8-4, a NYC Hudson,  a Pennsy K-4 or a NW Mallet, etc., rolling into this washout!



Here's 3 more views of the same track washout ... taken somewhere in Italy.







lanny nicolet

[Alex V.]

  That gives a whole new meaning to "high-rail"; it looks like a cross between railroad rails and a high wire.

[Jim Banner]

Can anyone talk about rock slide safety issues?  For instance, do railroads detect slides in a slide prone areas, signaling trains to stop?  Could the rumbling of an engine/train trigger a slide (on top of itself)?
Joe Satnik 

I had some involvement in avalanche/rock slide detection several decades ago.  The wires Lanny saw beside the tracks were indeed for slide detection.  If one or more wires are broken, the lights at both ends of the section turn red.  Apparently this did not happen at the CN accident in the photo.  There was a chain link fence just before the slide area.  I understand that these fences are threaded with detection wires, and the chain link keeps wildlife from breaking the wire and tripping the signals.  Other photos of the slide show that the fence ended about 50 or 100 feet short of the slide.  I cannot help but wonder if it was a case of saving $1000 on fencing but spending a couple of million to fix the damage. 

[lanny]

Jim,

I wonder if perhaps CN is 'rethinking' all of their 'rock slide' detector fences ater that derailment. It would seem to me that any well run company, seeing that photo, would decide to spend the money necessary to 'stretch' the length of warning fences ... but maybe the 'dollar' alwas wins?. (I'm sure CN is not the only RR in North America that probably ought to take a very good look at such things!)

Might be a good thing for 'super detail' oriented modelers to add to the scenery on their layouts where they have steep mountains and gorges.

lanny nicolet

[Seasaltchap]

Rocks on the line!

Has anyone heard of leaves on the line to shutdown traffic?

That is what they have every Fall in the UK. Track is laid with rubber insulation pads in the sleeper chairs, so that any short curcuit will set signals to red. The Guard has a rod to otherwise set across the rails to short them out, and set the signals to red, to avoid oncoming trains meeting an incident. I have never understood why the mass of the steel wheels and axles does not perform the job too: but a belt & braces system operates in an emergency.

The Fall season of leaves falling on the track also does a pretty good job, when a train is not present.

[HOplasserem80c]

not to be nagging again but why would anyone imagine a NYC huson running off a bridge? the nyc huson is on of the best steam locos in the world

[JM]

What's a ''huson''?   is that some sort of loco??   do you mean Hudson?  in order for us to understand what you're trying to communicate you're going to have to learn to spell.
  And.........I'm sure no one "imagined'' a Hudson running off a bridge....I'm sure it's actually happened.....and it probably wasn''t on purpose.

[rogertra]

Seasaltchap.

The UK suffers from "Leaves on the line" for several reasons.

The prime cause is since the end of steam in the late 1960s, trees and other plant growth has been permitted to flourish along the linesside to the extent that it now brushes against the passing trains.  In steam days, very few trees and bushes were permitted to grow inside the railway fence so that few trees came within 20 to 30 feet of a train.  The result is that these trees now drop their leaves (Not "Leafs" Toronto fans please note) directly onto the track and railhead.

The second cause is the almost 100% use of multiple units on passenger trains.  These units are lighter than their steam hauled cousins and they don't have a steam loco on the pointy end that had sanders.  Modern UK multiple units and many locomotives, were not built with sanders as they were considered, with modern computor wheel slip control, not to be required.

The third cause is the use of disk rather than friction brakes.  Friction brakes act on the wheel tread and thus, by their very nature, clean any crud from the wheel treads with every application.  Disk brakes act on the backs of the wheels and thus do not clean the treads.

The fourth cause is the leaves themselves.  Damp leaves, crushed by wheels onto a steel railhead leave a sticky, slippery, black crud that will not go away n its own.  A train making a normal brake application can pick up its wheels and slide right through a red signal, thus causing a SPAD (Signal Passed At Danger), which is a major offence for a UK train driver and can cause a driver to loose their job. 

Because of this crud, the UK runs "Sandtite" trains which spray a mixture onto the railheads to clean the crud from the rail head and provide grip to braking wheels.

This is why fall is a bad season for UK railways and trains are frequently delayed by "Leaves on the line".

[lanny]

Roger,

Thanks for that excellent explanation of 'leaves on the track' ... that's one that never occured to me before. Amazing the number of 'problems' that RRs have to consider and be on the lookout for. The leaves changing color in the fall is so beautiful, few would consider that time of the year to be a time of increasing danger for certain railroads.

I can remember a CNW branchline (before it was shut down and became a bike trail) that had a problem with overhanging trees. Every so often they RR would go along the track with some sort of railroad version of an upright lawn mower (make that 'tree limb mower') to cut back all this growth and keep it back from the track.

Any ideas why the British rail systems don't do something like that?

lanny nicolet

[Guilford Guy]

THATS NOT FUNNY. UNION PACIFIC DIDN'T MENA TO DO THAT STOP MAKING FUN OF THEM AND DO I REALLY HAVE TO SAY WHY I AM SAYIND THIS. COM ON UR FAVORITE RAILROADS HAVE HAD A CRASH NOW AND THEN.IN 1940 AND 2-10-0 OWNED BY THE ICRR FELL OF A BRIDGE INTO A RAVINE. AND IN 1885 A 2-6-0 FELL ON A TRESTLE I DON'T KNOW WHO IT WAS OWNED BY BUT GIVE THEM A BREAK.

oh did you hear about the B&M X class 2-6-6-2 that fell off the deerfield river bridge outside hoosac tunnel and the boiler exploded and parts of it  are still there?

[HOplasserem80c]

why would i care about a boston and maine 2-6-6-2. as long as it isn't a big boy it really doesn't make a difference to me

[Guilford Guy]

i thought you  mite have heard of it