Amtrak leaves cars behind near Albany

Broken knuckle?

I just explained to our listeners that there is a large thumbtack shaped device under the car, and they traveled over a magnet.

I hope I was helpful.

Jon  

It's a new feature. It provides passengers additional time in luxury surroundings without additional cost (or electricity, or heat, or food, or movement, or......). RIDE THE RAILS!

Gerry

Amtrak said it was a mechanical malfunction.  Brilliant deduction.....LOL

KOOLjock1 posted:

I just explained to our listeners that there is a large thumbtack shaped device under the car, and they traveled over a magnet.

I hope I was helpful.

Jon  

Maybe they just need a big rubber band or twist tie?

well at least the engineer came back for them!  stuff happens am sure in the golden era of train travel many  oh oh's have happened

KOOLjock1 posted:

I just explained to our listeners that there is a large thumbtack shaped device under the car, and they traveled over a magnet.

I hope I was helpful.

Jon  

  BWAH HAW HAW!   

Mitch 

I'm not familiar at all with the cars Amtrak uses and I'm also assuming it the separation happened in transit and not at a station stop (where it would be easy for someone to simply pre-lift the cut bar and walk away), so take this from primarily a former freight railroader (the cars in my passenger service history used "heritage" equipment)...

Could have been incorrect "anti-creep" on the cut bar. That is, when a cut bar is "at rest", it should hang perpendicular to the ground (i.e. straight down). The less so (say, a worse case scenario of near a 45 degree angle), then believe it or not, that will allow the cut bar to "bounce" when the car passes over a rough joint, crossing, diamond, etc, and CAN lead to a uninitiated un-coupling.

"Anti-creep" was one of the things that the FRA really used to look for when they were looking over cars.

FWIW.

Andre

Thank you Andre.

Curious about what happens when a train splits - if this was the first or second car behind the power, when the train went into emergency which part of the train would come to a stop first? The power and one or two cars OR the remaining five or six cars.  Is it dependent on the length / weight of the two sections or are other factors in play?

Would it be different in a freight where a coupler failed causing a break in car 60 of a 100 car consist?

My guess is the heavier part would take longer to stop indicating it is possible for that part of the train to rear end the front part of the train that may stop sooner. Both "sections" being in emergency due to brake line dump.

Can someone provide facts on this vs my conjecture?

Paul

According to reports, the separation (broken coupler or knuckle) occurred at a speed of 107 MPH.

Hot said:

"According to reports, the separation (broken coupler or knuckle) occurred at a speed of 107 MPH."

Wow... I would have NOT want to be a passenger on a passenger train that gets a knuckle! There's some serious slack/draft force required to break a knuckle.

RAILRUNNIN asked:

"if this was the first or second car behind the power, when the train went into emergency which part of the train would come to a stop first?"

You pray it's the part behind you that stops first.

On engines with a positive PCS opening when UDE takes place... you're a sitting duck. Best you can do is bail off and hold down as you come to a stop (too keep from flat-spotting the wheels as well as hopefully make your stopping distance further)... bracing for potential impact as you do... and after stopped waiting for bit before you relax for the potential hit! (Surprise!)

Oddly, the Alco's I've run would not open their PCS switch upon a UDE, so I could notch out and stretch them to a stop... giving me some distance on the back part that's stopping.

Andre

Hot Water posted:

According to reports, the separation (broken coupler or knuckle) occurred at a speed of 107 MPH.

Wow, I didn't think that route could handle speeds that high.

107mph?!  REALLY?

I believe the Hudson Line is good for 110mph. They didn't mention which side of Albany the incident occurred at.

Passenger coaches have locking cut levers. One needs to lift the bar vertically before lifting the cut lever handle to uncouple. Freight cars usually don't have them. They just rely on the cut lever's weight to keep them down.

Failure could have happened due to worn coupler parts, mainly the inside mechanism that holds the knuckle shut. I doubt it was a "broken" knuckle but rather a failed coupler. Separations at speed are rare, but not unheard of. Sometimes the knuckle will close and the pin will "drop" but the internals don't lock in place. It could have been a "sticky" knuckle, possibly due to the cold temperatures in the area at the time.

On passenger equipment, during a emergency rate brake application, the PCS removes power immediately while on freight engines the PSC is delayed in order to allow the engines to get a safe distance from the train before stopping or as LAMING said, to keep the slack from running into the head end and potentially causing a derailment during a undesired quick action or "kicker".

The coaches which separated from the Amtrak train definitely stopped quicker, otherwise they would have struck the stopped portion of the train ahead. The locomotive, with one coach would definitely travel further in "emergency" before stopping, mainly due to its weight.

Tom

VistaDomeScott posted:

I had the same thing happen this morning, culprit a GGD Amtrak coach droopy thumbtack bar.  I used a narrow cut of electrical tape to get my consist back to inseparable running condition.  

I have seen people use tiny black zip ties to secure couplers on O scale cars...

Tom

In my experience, which is mostly in transit, there may be a large verticle pin at the inboard end of the coupler.  If that pin falls out the coupler will come out, still coupled to the adjacent car.  These incidents can be particularly destructive.  In additional to the possibility of your own train running in to you, there are lots of wires and piping the may be ripped out of the car, sometimes this can go deep into the car. 

Twist ties work good.

The incident occurred south of Rensselaer on the Hudson line.  Speed limit is 110 mph.  Train started at Montreal Central Station at 10:20 AM.  It negotiates a very curved, albeit very scenic route hugging the cliffs of the Adirondack Mountains along the shores of Lake Champlain... so that knuckle had quite the workout that day.

Jon  

Kelly Anderson posted:

If only they had PTC in operation, that never would have happened.  It is the cure all, after all. 

I thought PTC was for keeping trains apart, and stopping a train in case of speeding or running a signal.  How would PTC help with a train which separated?

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Kelly Anderson posted:

If only they had PTC in operation, that never would have happened.  It is the cure all, after all. 

I thought PTC was for keeping trains apart, and stopping a train in case of speeding or running a signal.  How would PTC help with a train which separated?

I believe it's called "sarcasm."

Rusty

Addressing the actual incident, though, this is a serious matter and very seldom happens.  But -- once in a blue moon -- there is a passenger train separation at speed, usually by becoming uncoupled.  Because of this, here's what I always do when passing between cars of a moving train:

• Never step over the platform extensions without first getting a hold on the grab iron of the car ahead.  There's a grab iron on each side of the vestibule opening on the vestibule end, and adjacent to the door on the door end.
• Step across promptly, and don't release your hold on the grab iron until you have reached the vestibule platform or -- on the door end -- have solid footing in front of the door and have opened the door.

In the '60's, I was riding the Southern Pacific San Joaquin Daylight when the first chair car became uncoupled from the baggage car at high speed.  It ripped the canvas vestibule curtain off of the baggage car and also ripped the steam line out from under the leading end of the chair car.  Nowadays, the vestibule curtains don't lock, but an unintended separation, as KRIEGLOCK pointed out, will rip the 480 volt electrical cables out of their receptacles, with likely damage and some short-term sparking.  If one is unlucky enough to be crossing between cars at that moment, using the simple process described above will save a life, even though the passenger will be very frightened.

Number 90 posted:

• Never step over the platform extensions without first getting a hold on the grab iron of the car ahead.  There's a grab iron on each side of the vestibule opening on the vestibule end, and adjacent to the door on the door end.
• Step across promptly, and don't release your hold on the grab iron until you have reached the vestibule platform or -- on the door end -- have solid footing in front of the door and have opened the door.

This is what's known as the "Three Point" hold (both hands and one foot firmly placed at all times).    Very highly recommended. 

Mitch 

Most train travelers don't think about cars separating.

I will now!  We traveled that route two years ago. Very scenic and Montreal was great though some kids told me that my French sucks.

From what a friend told me, the Quebecers love to make fun of others French so "Big Deal.  Let them stay home in their cold, rocky province.

Farmer_Bill posted:

I will now!  We traveled that route two years ago. Very scenic and Montreal was great though some kids told me that my French sucks.

 

There is a significant difference between Canadian (Canadien) French and Parisian French (commonly taught in the U.S). I had an aunt and an uncle both born in Quebec who failed high school French here in the U.S.