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The motors are some of the quietest I've heard on drone videos. A little foam for a wind screen on the mic would make that really nice.
Are they pointing any fingers yet?
Thanks for posting it.
Looks like a retaining wall collapse. Many retaining walls in the USA are very old and deteriorated. They are rarely inspected by Engineers, heavy rains add surcharge loads that can lead to failure. Old retaining walls are ticking time bombs.
Here's the video of the actual collapse:
Seems odd they have 4 shovels removing debris from they tracks before the cars were pulled out.
That's Baltimore. Bureaucracy run amuck. And if they are the ones to test for further failure, to repair the problem, or to investigate what caused the failure, be suspect of any or all of it. No independent parties will be allowed (or hired) by the city to be critical of the city. They will protect themselves.
Good videos, though. I especially like the one where the cars disappear. Not sure what those folks were thinking being that close to a deteriorating cliff. Those that appear to be residents had to know what the topography of the area is (that a train track was on the other side, well below street level). They are lucky they did not go in with the cars as well.
Does that tunnel at the far end of the cut have a name? I know it is located north and east of the Howard Street Tunnel and Mount Royal Station.
I feel for the folks whose vehicles were destroyed. It's fortunate that those homes across the street weren't involved.
last night on the news they showed one of the excavators grabbing a vehicle by the roof and moved it out of the way.
Originally Posted by Nick Chillianis:
Does that tunnel at the far end of the cut have a name? I know it is located north and east of the Howard Street Tunnel and Mount Royal Station.
Charles Street Tunnel. Slide occurred on the east (north) side. There's another tunnel a few hundred yard east of this one. Sure hope that someone checked its embankments, too.
BTW, rail traffic resumed at 0530 today. As far as I know, only the juice train was detoured through Hagerstown and on to NS.
Poppyl
Looks to be E 26th St between N Charles St and St Paul St
39.319277,-76.616158
Was that an embankment or a stone retaining wall?
From what I've been able to find, it was stone retaining walls that were built between 1890 and 1900.
A piece I found on Wikipedia referred to the soils in the area as unstable.
Back in 1946 or 47, I practiced parking for my driver's test right where that hole is.
Al W.
I'm working from memory here, but I believe that it was an embankment. Local news is reporting that residents reported to the city the appearance of cracks in the adjacent street and sidewalk over the past couple of months.
Poppyl
Early news footage shows the wall still standing and all the soil missing between the wall and the sidewalk.
Sounds like lack of maintenance on infrastructure Traditional You reap what you sow eventually
Was that the same tunnel where they had the fire a few years back?
Originally Posted by Bill N:
Was that the same tunnel where they had the fire a few years back?
Close by, the fire was in the Howard Street tunnel to the southwest.
That is amazing, Rob thank you for posting those videos.
That's something. At first, the news video looked like a sink hole until the side of the street collapsed in a nearly straight line.
Here in San Diego it was reported as a sink hole. I didn't know there was a railroad down there!
Originally Posted by AmbBob:
Seems odd they have 4 shovels removing debris from they tracks before the cars were pulled out.
Probably either CSX or contractors for CSX trying to get the tracks reopened. There will probably be some interesting legal maneuvering on the near horizon as CSX and the insurance companies for those car owners try and recoup their losses from the City of Baltimore.
Here is a link to some 28 pictures of the collapse. This is the first picture. Notice all the standing water to the left of the tracks.
For a 100 years, this was not a tunnel but an open cut or trench. B&O ran thru there.
In the last 50 yeARs, THEY PUt A COVER OVER THE TRACKS making ita thinly covered tunnel. So the dirt slid down the hill and shouldn't be called a sink hole.
Al W.
Originally Posted by Al W.:
For a 100 years, this was not a tunnel but an open cut or trench. B&O ran thru there.
In the last 50 yeARs, THEY PUt A COVER OVER THE TRACKS making ita thinly covered tunnel. So the dirt slid down the hill and shouldn't be called a sink hole.
Al W.
50 years ago would have been the 60's. Nobody in the 60's were building stone retaining walls and tunnel portals - it would have been concrete construction. That stone construction is at least 100 years old.
Those stone walls dated back to the 1890s, when this line was first built. This particular stretch of railroad was the first mainline railroad electrification in the US. It was in operation from the mid 1890s to the early 1950s.Posted by Jack L:
Originally Posted by Al W.:
For a 100 years, this was not a tunnel but an open cut or trench. B&O ran thru there.
In the last 50 yeARs, THEY PUt A COVER OVER THE TRACKS making ita thinly covered tunnel. So the dirt slid down the hill and shouldn't be called a sink hole.
Al W.
50 years ago would have been the 60's. Nobody in the 60's were building stone retaining walls and tunnel portals - it would have been concrete construction. That stone construction is at least 100 years old.
