Derailments

 

Almost impossible to say. These minor derailments are not "reportable" incidents, consequently many of these derailments likely happen every day, but no one really knows for sure.

 

On short lines and perhaps even some larger regionals, the engines and/or cars are re-railed and the crew goes on about their work and there's no written record of the incident. And none is required.

 

On the Class 1s there likely is a written report, but it's typically for internal use only, to afix blame and cause.

 

Because these little derailments are not reportable, there is no central source of information about them.

Thank you.  I assume most derailments are caused by track maintenance issues.  I have seen some pretty shabby road bed in my walks through RR yards and along some track. 

 

So I guess my regular O gauge derailments are rather "prototypical"  LOL  I strive to have a very clean operating layout, but now I don't have to worry about an occasional derailment, I'll just let it continue to happen..... 

Derailments of the type shown in this video are called "wide gauge" derailments and are caused by bad ties. As ties age and weaken, the rail spreads over time and eventually the gauge gets wide enough that a wheel (or two or three...or more!) drops in. The engineer will have little or no warning when this happens.

We go in spurts in Southern CA. Long time with none, and then boom... 3 or 4 back to back. Most of the time, its the crews fault around here. Sometimes, track failure or bad wheels, weather, but most of the time it's human error.

Al - WYHOG  That is an impressive website you have put together.  I had never visited, but I enjoyed reading about and experiencing your work.

Hopefully you won't mind, but regardless, I am going to pass on your home page by posting here for others to enjoy:

http://krugtales.50megs.com/rrpictale/homevector.htm

Thanks.