Iowa train bridge derailment....!!

NW Iowa and SE South Dakota really got dumped on last Wed and Thurs.  The drive up the Floyd River valley from Sioux City to Worthington is one not to miss if in the area.  BNSF and UP lines come out of Sioux City, and are very visible because it is mostly open farming country. 

dkdkrd posted:

Derailment Link...........I doubt the usual complement of clean-up equipment...dozers, etc....will work well here.  Doesn't look real accessible either, judging from the drone view.

KD

Looks like they're going to need a few air cranes to clear that mess.

Here is a link to the derailment site at normal water level in the Floyd River.  UP will be able to clean up some of the wreckage once the river recedes back within its banks.  The location is not all that remote to get equipment in.  There may be a few trees that will need removed to get the job done.

Alton IA Derailment Site

This is the second flood related derailment we've had this year.  In July a BNSF train put about 30 tankers filled with oil from North Dakota in the swollen river.  That was a bigger mess than this.  It rained all last week, and is raining again now.  The land here is fairly flat, having been bulldozed by a massive glacier just 12,000 years ago.  Below photo shows high water on the Big Sioux River under a D&I bridge.  Last week the water was over the piers, and a couple of years ago water went over the bridge and knocked the deck off it's foundation.  Normally the water is a couple of feet deep, but the piers are about 14 feet high.

Kent in SD

This is less than 2 miles from my home. They expect to have the cars cleaned out by today and have a new bridge in place and trains running within 2 weeks of the accident. These UP guys are serious. Within 24 hours they had more equipment and personal in town than you can shake a stick at, working continuously 24 hours a day with alternating shifts. The two local motels work booked solid immediately. They know how to get things done.

wild mary posted:

dkdkrd posted:

Derailment Link...........I doubt the usual complement of clean-up equipment...dozers, etc....will work well here.  Doesn't look real accessible either, judging from the drone view.

KD

Looks like they're going to need a few air cranes to clear that mess.

The last time I saw one of those guys was in 1968 in Vietnam.  We had just finished assembling a 50' watch tower and one of those sky cranes was called in to lift it into place.  We forgot to secure a stack of plywood nearby.....LOL

Why would a railroad run a train across a bridge when the tracks were under water?  Perhaps the dispatcher and crew didn't know that the river was above the track level?  

Does water completely covering the tracks short the signal system causing a red signal at the end of a block?   Maybe this track doesn't have signals?  

NH Joe

New Haven Joe posted:

Why would a railroad run a train across a bridge when the tracks were under water?

Where did it state that the "tracks were under water"?

 Perhaps the dispatcher and crew didn't know that the river was above the track level?

Again, who stated THAT? 

Does water completely covering the tracks short the signal system causing a red signal at the end of a block?  

No.

Maybe this track doesn't have signals?

Wouldn't have mattered. If the water was even up to the ties, the crew would NOT have even attempted to cross that bridge. 

NH Joe

The track and bridge were above water level. But as you can see in the accompanying photos, the water level was right up to the bridge. There was significant flooding all around the area, so more than likely the ground below the track level was saturated enough to cause instability and the track or bridge may have been compromised at some point causing the derailment. No official word as of yet.

Here's a couple of photo albums from a local resident to show the damage and clean up in progress;

https://www.facebook.com/gretc...830648021&type=3

https://www.facebook.com/photo...p;type=3&theater

Flood water can damage the bridge itself, the piers, or the soil under the piers.  UP has had damage to the Brazos River on the Sunset Route several times.  Also a UP bridge NE of Houston was damaged by flood.  And it does not take a "Harvey" for that to happen!

The force of water hitting the bridge deck could easily push it out of alignment even if not up to track level.  Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon.  Think of the force of hundreds of thousands of gallons hitting something while traveling 3-5 mph.  Floods like this also pick up big logs and pull trees from the bank which are like a battering ram when they hit something.

Kent in SD

Hot Water posted:

New Haven Joe posted:

Why would a railroad run a train across a bridge when the tracks were under water?

Where did it state that the "tracks were under water"?

 Perhaps the dispatcher and crew didn't know that the river was above the track level?

Again, who stated THAT? 

Does water completely covering the tracks short the signal system causing a red signal at the end of a block?  

No.

Maybe this track doesn't have signals?

Wouldn't have mattered. If the water was even up to the ties, the crew would NOT have even attempted to cross that bridge. 

NH Joe

 As information, this is the old Omaha Road, a subsidiary of C&NW, merged into UPRR several years ago.  This line, which runs diagonally northeast from Sioux Falls to the Twin Cities was "dark" to somewhere around St. James and then had ABS most of the way on to St. Paul.  I drove alongside this railroad five years ago and it was still dark out there in northwest Iowa.  It has many curves and the rail looks to be around 90 lb.  A pretty decent 40 to 49 MPH railroad.