Train Wreck In Mer Rouge, LA Caught on Video 10/05/14

[Ngineer]

Looks like IAPX 1040:

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1911605

I feel sorry for the engineers as they hit the hardest/heaviest part of that crane, the counter weight behind the cab.

Javier

[Bob Bufkin]

Remains of lead engine from NS official website.

[basementcalling]

Ha ha ha ha ha   


Hmm... wanna settle
out of court...?

8

You get offers in bunches?

[basementcalling]

Unknown chemical leaking and you roll down the window to get a better shot with the camera?

[Ngineer]

Unknown chemical leaking and you roll down the window to get a better shot with the camera?

Yeah, that was totally weird. 

Javier

[eric220]

Remains of lead engine from NS official website.

Ho-lee-crap...

Cab looks like it's relatively intact, though.

[Philip H]

Fwiw,
Lots of small Louisiana towns had dramatic population changes post Katrina - so it's entirely possible the road is recently widened and the crane got a route that hadn't really been checked. It's also worth remembering that a lot of my fellow Louisianaians work in the petrochemical industry, and thus a sense of fatalism regarding chemical spills.

[nkalanaga]

Eric:  On many of today's locomotives the cab is probably the toughest part.  The rest is just sheet metal, but modern cabs are heavily reinforced, for just this reason.  Everything else is expendable. basically "crumple zones".

[eric220]

Yup. And this one did its job.

[peteski]

Yup. And this one did its job.

But the locomotive tipped over and the crew doesn't wear seat belts.  Sort of like driving a car from the 50s: built like a tank but there is nothing preventing you from being thrown around the inside if the car flips over. Bouncing a human body inside a steel shell can be deadly.

As far as the rest of the locomotive being sheet metal - that's true, but under that thin shell is a giant block of metal - the engine!

[lock4244]

Remains of lead engine from NS official website.

Wow. Something to be said for running them long hood forward, eh?

[davefoxx]

That picture of the NS locomotive makes me wonder how much it got piled on.  The locomotive was last seen in the video rolling to its left, but this picture shows significant damage to its right side.  I never saw any other pictures of the crash site, but it's amazing to me that the locomotive crew got out alive.  I hope they recover quickly.  After a ride like that, you have to wonder if they'll mentally be able to climb on board a locomotive again.

DFF

[nsbob]

It will be interesting to see if UP rebuilds this one for NS like they did with 9669.  The damage appears very similar to 9669, the lead unit in the Shepherd, TX crash in 2005.  I guess it will all depend on the condition of the frame and the possible insurance settlement from the trucking company.

[Bob Bufkin]

Latest Railpace had a short article on NS cabs. Normal cabs are 1/4 inch steel.  Their Admiral cabs use 1 inch steel.  Much safer for crews.

[C855B]

It will be interesting to see if UP rebuilds this one for NS like they did with 9669.  The damage appears very similar to 9669, the lead unit in the Shepherd, TX crash in 2005.  I guess it will all depend on the condition of the frame and the possible insurance settlement from the trucking company.

That would be a possibility. In a normal market it would be scrapped. However, given the upturn in traffic, the loco manufacturer's deep order queue and the looming Tier 4 mandates, preserving the frame grandfathers it to date of manufacture and takes the "project" out of the primary manufacturing stream.

I find it interesting that the market dominance by GE has put the RR industry in the same position it was in the '70s, when EMD was the go-to maker. They couldn't build SD40-2s fast enough, and UP (and many others) swallowed their pride/preferences by ordering Dash-7s despite GE's less-than-stellar track record on the U series. This time, however, the RRs are getting into the remanufacturing business. A couple of roads (IC, ATSF) dabbled in upgrades and partial rebuilds back then, but nothing like what's happening now.