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Looks like a failure of the truck to me, but only the investigators will know for sure.
Rusty
The photo of the tank car shows the cause. It's a wrung journal (hot box) on the axle shown still under the car. Notice the blue colored blunt end of the axle. The entire journal has been burnt off causing the side frame to drop down and the truck bolster failure. Very fortunate that there was no further damage. Speed must have been very slow when it occurred. This type of incident is usually very destructive. It would be interesting to know if this train had just passed over a defect detector and was coming to a stop as a result of the inspection.
I would say that the train just went past the defect detector about 1 mile before the train came to a complete stop.
Scot,
Thanks for sharing these interesting pictures.
Frank
Interesting, great photos. Thanks for sharing those.
The defect detector, probably gave them a Hot axle defect. A little too late. That is why Defect detectors are spaced out like they are. Looks like they got real lucky on that one.