NS Derailment on "B" line in Linden, VA

Judging from the ties laid to the side of the road bed there was some track work going on in that area.  However, one can't help but notice the handful of empty center beams in the midst of this mess and it's in a curve.  Had to be an "oh stuff" moment for the homeowner there.  Looks like the couple of cars that made it onto his property went right between the couple of outbuildings.

I'll bet one of the cars split the switch. The question is: Why?

Of casual note, and I doubt that it has anything to do with the incident, the last unit in the consist is a slug. Note the fan for the dynamics but none where the radiators would be.

Chris

LVHR

It seems there are center beam cars on wrecked trains on NS lately.  Now were they a cause on this wreck.....

@Dominic Mazoch posted:

It seems there are center beam cars on wrecked trains on NS lately.  Now were they a cause on this wreck.....

Apparently not. A train in the opposite direction supposedly had a car derail, which damaged the track, then got re-railed at a road crossing. The next train, going the other way, hit the damaged track and "went in the ditch".

@Hot Water posted:

Apparently not. A train in the opposite direction supposedly had a car derail, which damaged the track, then got re-railed at a road crossing. 

Huh!  So that works in real life sorta like it does in HO scale. 

Mitch 

Those homeowners are lucky that the tree caught that centerbeam. Could have wiped out one of their buildings.

Trains on this line usually are led by 3 of the engines as illustrated in the video. 

Perhaps the rear two older models were deadheading somewhere? 

Never do in 2 minutes what you can do in 8 minutes with an inane soundtrack...

Rusty

@M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

Huh!  So that works in real life sorta like it does in HO scale. 

Mitch 

There was a story in TRAINS Magazine a couple of years or so ago, where the same thing happened within a RoadRailer train, except there was no secondary derailment, the railroad had to deduce this from mysterious track damage.

---PCJ

@Rusty Traque posted:

Never do in 2 minutes what you can do in 8 minutes with an inane soundtrack...

Rusty

I agree that the soundtrack, in the beginning, does not fully have a lot in common with trains but, me being a Country music listener, I like it. FYI: the song was sung by C.W. McCall and the song name is Convoy.

Yes more empty center beams up on the front end,  I seem to see a bunch of center beams lately on the ground, there are still a bunch left on their sides from two derailments on the Horseshoe curve from months ago. I think NS is waiting for the trees to grow over again to cover them.   BTW now I got that convoy song stuck in my head, thanks. 

@John Pignatelli JR. posted:

Yes more empty center beams up on the front end,  I seem to see a bunch of center beams lately on the ground, there are still a bunch left on their sides from two derailments on the Horseshoe curve from months ago. I think NS is waiting for the trees to grow over again to cover them.   BTW now I got that convoy song stuck in my head, thanks. 

So,,,,,,,,did you happen to read my post, further up? Apparently the placement of the center beam cars had NOTHING to do with the derailment.

@John Pignatelli JR. posted:

Yes more empty center beams up on the front end,  I seem to see a bunch of center beams lately on the ground, there are still a bunch left on their sides from two derailments on the Horseshoe curve from months ago. I think NS is waiting for the trees to grow over again to cover them.   BTW now I got that convoy song stuck in my head, thanks. 

I was on Virtual Railfan Sunday morning and saw crews chopping up the center-beams with a huge excavator sheer. Two other excavators were piling up the pieces. They were working on the cars from the first derailment to the right (down hill) of the visitors center.

richabr wrote:

Trains on this line usually are led by 3 of the engines as illustrated in the video. 

Perhaps the rear two older models were deadheading somewhere? 

A deadhead move is very likely. As I noted above, the last unit is a slug. There  is a high probability the 4th unit is a GP-40 mother. NS has a myriad of GP40s which have been equipped to serve as "mothers" to slugs. Mother units have special additional high voltage, high capacity wiring to connect to the slug's traction motors. You need the mother unit to power the slug, so you typically do not see a slug w/o a mother unit unless the slug is in for repair.

Chris

LVHR