Bad day on the Santa Fe

The F-unit cab was but as an assembly and placed onto the rest of the A-unit.  Hence it seems as if the cabs could come off easily.   Maybe Hot Water can chime in on this!

There's an article in the Trains special issue on wrecks that talks about the crumple zone just behind the cab, I bet that's the extreme end of "crumpled"...

Thanks,

Mario

Don't let the guys at RMT see that picture

A little sheet metal work, a little Bondo and PRESTO!  Good as new!

Rusty

These units were assembled from pieces of 4 or 5 broken Marx diesels. Guess they're more prototypical than I thought

Steve

interesting that it is getting lowered onto a Union Pacific flat.

If I had to guess, that engine got stabbed by another train.

I don't know that they were intentionally designed that way.  When they were designed, there were no collision standards, there was no nose-in-everything FRA, no DOT test track, etc.  The carbody was a truss with side panels merely bolted onto it, from the cab door toward the rear.  The cab had the relay cabinet at its rear wall, which added some strength, as well as welded steel sides and castings for the windshield at its front.  Thus, the cab was stronger than the carbody to its rear.  Also, the cab was astride the No. 1 truck and castings were welded into the frame there.  The frame between the rear of the cab and the No.2 truck was not as heavily constructed as on a geep, because of the truss, which was not present on a hood unit.  Thus, when catastrophic buff force was applied to a cab unit, it naturally caused the truss to fail at the first point without extra strength, and that happened to be to the rear of the relay cabinet.

Tom thank you. Great information.  What you are saying makes alot of sense.

There was a head-on on the Wabash at Griggsville, IL. between a westbound Geep and local freight and an eastbound F7 standing on the main line with its train.  They were holding the main line for a meet with the local, and left the switch lined for the main with their headlight off;  in other words, they inadvertantly set a trap for the other train. 

Exactly the same thing happened.  The cab end of the F broke off and was only connected to the rest of the unit by a small pipe.

Injuries to the crew?  None.  They were in the restaurant across the way.  The engineer on the Geep was killed.

EdKing

Looks like the result of a Baldwin Shark attack.

I.D.K......it looks like a "BEEP" prototype to me....

Here's the Air Force version of the same situation

Common theme of both situations:  "Your career here is over." 

Ouch!....yeah that's a bad day there.

Aww, I hate to be the fired crew that bent that C5.

Hi Pat,  Can you tell us where that aircraft crashed and what caused it.  Thanks

Marty --

Here you go:

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123018520

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123021742

Short story:  crew error

Bad day for sure!

Prairie