Possible cause for Springfield OH derailment

[signalmaintainer]

But anyway, enough curmudgeonliness. (Is that a word? Is now.) Back to wobbly wheels and why NS can't seem to keep trains off the ground. ...

[John]

But anyway, enough curmudgeonliness. (Is that a word? Is now.) Back to wobbly wheels and why NS can't seem to keep trains off the ground. ...

Ok .. so I'll ask . are the wheels pressed onto the axle, or is it one piece?

[signalmaintainer]

Ok .. so I'll ask . are the wheels pressed onto the axle, or is it one piece?

Good question and one I can't answer right away. That would be one heck of a casting though. ...

[John]

[oakcreekco]

https://www.amstedrail.com/products/freight-car-components/wheels/

[Lenny53]

There are only two sections of a newspaper (print or digital) that I remotely trust -- the sports scores and the stock quotes.

My local rag stop printing sports scores and now only list overall standings.

[wm3798]

At the risk of straying from the topic, I'll agree that newspapers have been hollowed out, but it's by their owners who either are or are beholden to hedge fund managers, the same complaint you have about the class ones.  Meanwhile, network news and news radio has been gutted by entertainers who will say anything to capture the imaginations of slack jawed dolts who demand that their ignorance and biases be validated rather than challenged and informed.
As a former journalist and a student of mass communication, the whole thing makes me sick.  Without a functioning free press, the very idea of self governance is lost.
Time to lock the thread, I reckon.
Lee

[nkalanaga]

John:  Thank you!  My old version of Acrobat still refuses to open it, but Acrobat Reader doesn't have any problems.  This one shows 188 KB, the one I tried to read from Railway Age downloaded as 0 Kb.

Peteski:  This isn't just an NS problem, multiple other roads have also bought these cars with these wheelsets.  It is either an NSC problem, iproper assembly, or a wheel/axle manufacturer problem.  The only connection to NS is that it was their derailment that revealed the issue, and it was on one of their new cars.  It could just as well have been a shortline somewhere.

[DirtyD79]

Time to lock the thread, I reckon.

Nah, one of the things I like about this forum is unlike others I've been on the mods don't swoop in to lock up the thread the very second some of the posts start to get a little heated.

[Maletrain]

Wheels inadvertently changing gauge during operation has previously been a problem with the Washington, DC, metro system, taking a whole new series of cars out of service for correction following an accident in a tunnel.

I sort of suspect that the current "globalization" of manufacturing is leading to designs that allow for wheel spacing to fit multiple customers with multiple track gauges.

There was even a recent article about a train in Italy that was designed to change gauge during a run to accommodate lines with 2 different gauges.  I don't see the article I remember, now, but a Google search on variable gauge rail cars turned up several countries, including Italy, Spain and the Talgo system.  (see

)

[peteski]

Without a functioning free press, the very idea of self governance is lost.

And democracy is slowly ebbing away. Unfortunately this is exactly what is happening (and not only in this country).  The talking heads are just that - talking heads.  Walter Cronkites and Tom Brokaws are dead.  Same goes goes  for most newspapers and for all the online "news". Garbage! News media is now providing entertainment,  not (a well-researched, fair and balanced) news.

[eric220]

There are only two sections of a newspaper (print or digital) that I remotely trust -- the sports scores and the stock quotes.

And the funnies!

[Chris333]

At our paper (my old job) they put a questionnaire in the paper asking people what they wanted and then changed things around to try and give them  it. So like the obits were now on the front page of a section. I have no idea if it worked as the whole paper seemed to become focused on older folks.

[nkalanaga]

Apparently it wasn't the wheelsets after all, but "train consist makeup", that caused the derailment:

https://www.railwayage.com/mechanical/freight-cars/national-steel-car-exonerated-in-ns-derailment/?RAchannel=news
"Train consist makeup, not defective wheelsets, apparently caused the March 4, 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in Springfield, Ohio. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) on April 14 cancelled EI (Equipment Instruction) 0033, which had directed a complete wheelset changeout on new coil steel railcars manufactured by National Steel Car, Hamilton, Ont., for NS and other carriers. Despite this, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has removed National Steel Car as a party to its derailment investigation, citing procedural violations."

"“The March 4 derailment was specifically mentioned in the FRA Safety Advisory: ‘The derailment happened at the sag between ascending and descending grades, with short, empty railcars designed to ship coil steel being the first to derail. Buff forces peaked as the downhill portion of the train ran-in, causing the derailment of cars 70-72 and the subsequent pileup.’ "

[John]

it appears that NSC violated an agreement with the NTSB not to disclose information discovered during the investigation ..