NKP 765 Battles Slippery Rail

Great video and sound.  Really enjoyed it.  It is too bad that so many folks ignore the camera and walk through the pictures.  

 

Thanks for posting.

 

George Lasley

Odd that they didn't signal for the crossing at all...

One can't help but wonder if the folks shooting the video had something to do with (alleged) grease on the rails...

 

Rusty

Has the tender been modified to increase coal capacity?

 

Great video.  Thanks to those who shot it!

 

Larry

 

This incident really ticks me off!

This was an obvious set-up to catch this on camera. 

After simply examining the video you see how much rail required sanding by the crew and when the slippage began and ended past the intersection. 

The fellow who owns that camera setup on the short tripod was specifically targeting the drive wheels.  

Your culprits were all caught on camera. 

This narrow sight limited intersection was being filmed specifically to capture this occurrence.  

 

Not being a BS TV reporter I don't have to use any alleged terminology.  

The facts are quite apparent as the video speaks volumes. 

 

Screwing around with the rails in this manner only decreased the life of those tires.  I'm sure Rich and other knowledgeable individuals on this forum can give more insight on the matter. 

 

Anyone who thinks this was coincidental isn't being honest. 

 

All you have to do is think about the number of grade crossings 765 traverses and the number of people shooting video's of all sorts. 

Then we have this specific crossing with camera's on both sides of the track shooting directly into and obscured sight limited curve along with a short tripod capturing the drive wheels. 

 

Typically if this crossing hadn't been greased the engine would have crossed the crossing in a few moments and the images on that film would have been very brief.

 

Why go to great lengths to capture that brief scene if your intent was to capture the train in action? 

 

You would typically try to shoot from an angle that would afford the greatest amount of time with the train approaching you. 

Thus making your film much more interesting. 

 

This was a criminal intent and I believe the authorities should look into the matter.

 

Fortunately I'm not a officer of the law otherwise these jerks would have some explaining to do after I caught up with them.

Will the grease cause problems for other train traffic? I'm guessing that the railroad dispatch was notified of this problem. Does someone come out to pressure wash the tracks to get the grease off?

 

Hot Water,

What you said may be true, but I don't believe Ohio is known for it's mountainous area's. 

 

This was clearly set-up, not a freak accident where some lubricators off of another train malfunctioned at the very intersection these guys were filming. 

If an incident had taken place at this intersection, then the response to it would have escalated to a whole new level.

 

This forum would have been buzzing to hang the culprits from nearest tree limb if the trackage owner said no more steam allowed.

 

These jerks are only giving others like themselves crazy ideas.

Who knows what this group will do next? 

as i understand..they ns mw were told to lubricate the inner part of track on that curve but they not knowinlgly put the grease on top !!!oops

Much more logical, and I have seen that happen time and time again with steam locomotives operating the "modern era". The MOW folks don't under stand about steam locomotives versus what THEY consider a "sharp curve". 

If you listen, 765 was slipping even before it came into view around the curve so the lube job not only was at the crossing but continued around the curve past the trees and as John and Hot Water mentioned looks like the MOW people lubed the whole curve.

The Foothills of the Appalacian Mountains are located in Ohio - they start just east of Cincinnati (Clermont County, my home for 10 years) and they cross the bottom/southwestern part of the state and then begin to rise along the northeastern quarter of the state.  While not sporting huge peaks, Ohio is indeed considered to contain mountainous regions.

This was NOT a "setup" by the photographer. It was a mistake by a well-meaning NS MOW guy who was told to "Grease the rails on the connection." All that is required is a thin line of grease on the inside edge of the outside rail. He didn't know that and greased the edge and the ball (top) of the rail.

When Gary stalled there, we simply sanded the rail ahead of the engine on this curve and he tried it again. Obviously he made it on that second NS pass.

As for why we did not blow for that crossing, I knew Gary had his hands  full delicately handling the throttle. The crossing was well protected by myself and a Norfolk Southern police officer with his cruiser on-site. I told him not to worry about the whistle because we had the crossing protected.

It really wasn't that big a deal.

Dear Hot Water, Rich and Forum members,

I apologize for my laments and with my criticisms of the photographers and any implication with tampering of the rails. 

Also please accept my apologies for not knowing about the hills in that part of the state.  

Being from Michigan, I've had to travel into Ohio many times and considered it pretty flat typically.

I stand corrected.

On heavily greased rails like that, the locomotive sanders alone cannot put anywhere near enough sand on the rails to do any good. We HAD to hand sand those rails to get her out of there.

My son and I shot and posted that video. I am glad it was cleared up as we are not idiots or vagrants who wanted to get a cool video. I am amazed at how people will jump to conclusions having NO idea what the real story was.

 

it was the first time my son had an opportunity to see a real steam locomotive. I decided to take him out to chase this ferry move. We decided to wait at this crossing well before anyone else showed up. As the train started coming everyone else came. I took the "sunny" side and my son the other. The 765 was slipping further back on the curve and I was thinking my son may get a real show. As the 765 came across the street she slipped as shown and I knew my son was having the time of his life. 

 

The 765 stopped and the fact that we were right there was lucky. Watching the crew resolve the situation was very interesting and she got moving and made it over the hill. As can be seen multitudes of gawkers showed up but I expected that and consider it part of the fun seeing steam in the modern age. The crew of the 765 did a great job and we thank them and the NS for making a 16 year olds year! It was all he talked about and still is, and now we are working to model this train for our HO scale layout.

 

Rob and Steve Bennett

Fairview, PA

What a great video! Really enjoyed it!

Yes Rob, as I posted above, you could hear the slipping well before 765  came into view around the curve and the trees. Anyway, you and your son made an excellent combined video of the proceedings. I've watched it several times. Thanks to Rich for the explanation of why there was hand sanding.

Not sure I really understand why the rails were greased. Surely this was never done when steam was THE motive power?

Why is it done for 765? I take it is is NOT done for routine operations?

 

 

quote:

I take it is is NOT done for routine operations?

Not routine, but, they did try this one time on a section of our district. Problem was that instead of greasing the ball of the rail, a very fine line of oil was laid right on top of one rail. It caused two opposing trains to stall and shut down our district until it could be somewhat cleaned up. 

this kind of event shows the FWRHS at their best. No panic, just Class and professionalism all the way.

Thanks for the kind words, Dave!

 

Zach Hall and I were up the hill a couple of miles at a crossing where we were going to watch the show as Gary Bensman climbed the hill. When we heard over the radio that she had stalled on the connection due to grease on the rails, Zach and I got in the car and hustled down there. We grabbed some sand buckets and manually sanded the rail in front of the engine. One of the NS Road Foremen also helped out on this.

 

In the "sunny side" shots in this video, you can see Zach and me standing at the crossing watching as Gary made a second pass around the connection.

 

 

Rich it goes without saying, but I wanted to say it! And I was wondering if you ever sat back and watched that beauty go by.

Prior to steam being retired, you also had curves that were less sharp so it was easier for big engines to negotiate. There are places in the timetables that 6 axle diesels are not allowed due to curvature still today.

 

You don't have to be in the mountains to have "greasers". You might one  anyplace  where there is a sharp curve. In the middle of a dark night in the caboose  you could hear  the thing squirting grease on the side of the rail to decrease friction.    AN old fashion GPS "|we just went over the greaser."

 

I remember when the big 6 wheel trucks first came out on the SD40s and Alco equivalent .  they were called designated units and the speed  on certain curves was restricted  , The units were also restricted  on certain customer spurs.

 

Looks like the empty  coffee cups came in handy applying sand,. (Tim Horton's???) I enjoyed the video.

I used a small bucket...

Well, Rich had stated back a few years ago that they wanted to run a trip with 765 to Lima, but couldn't turn on the wye there because it had been reconfigured and was too sharp for the Berk to negotiate.

We cut the units off and sanded the rail.

Jim, the NS operating rules require 100% hand brakes on a standing passenger train not coupled to any motive power. With the coal gons in the consist, that meant somewhere around 25 hand brakes to tie down.

 

Since we had extra people on hand on the ground, it was much quicker for us to sand the rail by hand than spend 45 minutes tying down all those cars and another 30 minutes releasing them when we were coupled back on.

 

This whole incident, start to finish, went down in less than 30 minutes.

That's terrible, you can't cut the train off and leave it emergency for 15 or 20 minutes . It's not going anywhere or being  left unattended. However   you might not get enough sand anyway so hand sanding did the trick. Would there be an electric lock switch where the train entered the double track. Were you coming off another sub  or different railway?

 

Does the train crew stay in one of the coaches or do they put you in motels?  It was nice to see the different coaches from the "glory days of railroading".  That stuff is so well built.

 

We started slipping without the engine working more than about 50 pounds of steam.  We weren't working enough to really hear the exhaust clearly.  Gary didn't know we were slipping at first until I yelled over to him and told him (I felt it rather than heard it slip).    Gary fought it as best he could but the grease was literally in globs on the rail head.  Jason and I grabbed two buckets of sand and went to work on sanding the rail.  The NS crew helped out and we were joined by Rich and Zach. 

When we had everything sanded, Gary backed the train up and got her moving again.  The rest of the show was more than worth the price of admission.  I took my ear plugs out just to get the full experience, figuring I would never hear 765 working that hard again.  We were at .68mph on the 1.8% grade for a good half hour. 

Chris Lantz

Chris is too modest to tell you that he is also one of 765's regular engineers.