I do not know the date or location. Incident has been modeled many times. John in Lansing, ILL
From www.Railpictures.net added courtesy of David.
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They should of listened to model RR's who always say to position the light weight cars at the rear of the train.
In my experience, if you put light weighted cars behind your engines and the heavily weighted cars at the rear of a long string of 3 rail cars, it will surely cause a derailment such as this. As Dr. Phil would say,"What was the yard dispatcher thinking?"
RAY
From the railpictures.net site:
» Between Walong and Marcel (more..)
» Tehachapi, California, USA (more..)
» April 05, 1999
A tighter version:
https://www.railpictures.net/photo/116580/
David
A classic "stringline" derailment.
I find it fascinating that the string-lining proceeded through the next curve as well, pulling those box cars, tank car and covered hoppers off the other side of the track, still towards the inside of the curve. Also, those couplers and draft gear really took a beating what with that locomotive pulling itself right off the inside of the curve.
This looks a lot like a recent incident at Horseshoe curve, and for the same reason, idiots at the yard making up the consist!
Looks like somewhere out west like Oregon area ect on the BN. The upright unit lacks the amber beacon so its post 1991 and I see no ditch lights on the long hood end of the overturned unit, so pre ditch light era of the late 1990's. It does look like a common model railroad derailment. AD
artfull dodger posted:Looks like somewhere out west like Oregon area ect on the BN. The upright unit lacks the amber beacon so its post 1991 and I see no ditch lights on the long hood end of the overturned unit, so pre ditch light era of the late 1990's. It does look like a common model railroad derailment. AD
Apparently you did not read the post, above, from NKP Muncie, which lists the date (April 5, 1999) as well as the location (Tehachapi Grade, in California). The scenery would tend to show that it is NOT in Oregon.
Too dry for Oregon! 
Having difficulty discerning what seems to be an extra set of rails laying along side the r.o.w. and the main r.o.w. being snaked/dragged off center line?????
Plus, why are there four cars closer to the portal laying away from the c/l of the string line pull.
Could you imagine if that occurred in a curved tunnel!!
Tom Tee posted:Having difficulty discerning what seems to be an extra set of rails laying along side the r.o.w. and the main r.o.w. being snaked/dragged off center line?????
Plus, why are there four cars closer to the portal laying away from the c/l of the string line pull.
Could you imagine if that occurred in a curved tunnel!!
I think that's a torn up rail and the shadow.
Didn't you note that's an S-curve, all the cars are laying where you'd expect them to be.
I thought eastern Oregon was very dry almost like desert.
aussteve posted:I thought eastern Oregon was very dry almost like desert.
Sort of, yes except they don't steep mountain grades with tunnels, as show in the photo.
aussteve posted:I thought eastern Oregon was very dry almost like desert.
Eastern Oregon is almost like a desert just like eastern CA. Both areas can quickly become green following a rain storm and then just as quickly turn brown again. NH Joe
If you’re the crew and you walk out or get driven out to this train, do you notice the spine cars behind the power and red flags go off? Not pointing fingers about something I know nothing about, but the crew would know the territory that they’re qualified for. Is that just not something that a crew looks for or thinks about?
Sam Jumper posted:If you’re the crew and you walk out or get driven out to this train, do you notice the spine cars behind the power and red flags go off? Not pointing fingers about something I know nothing about, but the crew would know the territory that they’re qualified for. Is that just not something that a crew looks for or thinks about?
Absolutely NOTHING the operating crew can do about such things. If either the Engineer or Conductor attempt to question how the train is made up, they will be summarily told to do their jobs, or be fired. Such is the modern era of railroading.
There's another aspect, just as interesting.
This is definitely the Tehachapi mountains of California, through which Southern Pacific had built through a narrow pass, with many sharp curves and tunnels. Santa Fe, and later BNSF, has trackage rights between Mojave and Kern Jct. (in Bakersfield) and is the tennant railroad. It appears to be a BNSF train on SP track, and I don't have reference to the date, but I remember some big kerfuffles whenever we (Santa Fe/BNSF) had a derailment up on the mountain. Going back to steam days, invariably, SP would claim that their track was perfect (Not!) and our crews were doing something wrong (not often), and we would have to go nose to nose with them to settle the derailment damage. It was always like that.
Dealing with Southern Pacific on Tehachapi was interesting. We were used to being accused of being at fault for anything that happened. Our crews were tested rigorously by SP officials. And I had better stop there.
So, don't trust the photo to tell the whole story here.
gunrunnerjohn posted:This looks a lot like a recent incident at Horseshoe curve, and for the same reason, idiots at the yard making up the consist!
They thought it was all good fun, they liked it so much they did it again a few days latter. 
They did it with same type cars, centerbeam lumber cars, if you go on the youtube they have videos of both set of wrecks a half mile apart. If the bose did not fire a few duds that day then they should give the whole division heads a drug test. BTW the cars are still there on their sides.
I hadn't looked recently, but I know the cars were on the curve for a long time. I do remember it happening twice, I guess the same guy was making up the trains.
Just looked, they're still there today, I guess in about 20-30 years they'll rust away and be gone.
We used to complain on the NS about them putting empty spine cars at the head end of mixed freights. It is bad enough being on head end of an inter-model freight. After several wrecks back in the 90's they stopped the practice and limited the trailing tonnage with them. It seems with the advent of precision railroading they forgot their own lessons.
