On Board Video of Tornado Derailing Train

Wow!  That had to be a very scary ride.  Do you know where this happened?

Art

Art

No, unfortunately I don't..it showed up in the 'recommended" section of my Youtube account. Its pretty frightening. I dont know which is worse, the power of the tornado or the power of a derailing train.

One probably naive thought crossed my mind..is why they did not halt the train..Were they unaware of it's ( the tornado ) approach? I would think dispatch could have warned them but perhaps dispatching is so remote and centralized this is perhaps an impossibility.

Who knows? Perhaps a railroader can answer this,

It occurred  in  Illinois.

this video is about five years old.

One word: Wow

When I saw that tank car heading for them..oh brother..I would have bailed.

When that video first came out years ago it was claimed to be taken in early February up by Rockford, IL. Now I live in the far northwest suburbs between Rockford & Chicago and we don't have tornadoes in Feb. I used to have the original date that video was taken and according to the National Weather Service our area was in sub-zero temps with light snow...not exactly tornado weather.

It's been widely speculated that video is a hoax made Hollywood style by the use of computer graphics. 

As this was the trailing unit, the crew wouldn't have seen the tank car coming.  They were still probably processing why the train went into emergency.

Tornados are unpredictable.  Even when conditions are right, they may not form.  A tornado may be on the ground for seconds to minutes to ???, feet to miles.  They can skip over areas and even change directions at any moment.

When I was in Civil Defense, I was at one site where you could see in the tall grass where the funnel cloud made two 90 degree turns and reversed direction.

Rusty

Whew!!!!

You got that right...  if this was chlorine gas, it probably would have killed them instantly

CRH

I was curious about your comment and if you google "February tornadoes Illinois "they do and have occurred. While I never say never, I doubt this was computer generated.

I agree.  Look at the trees on either side of the track.  if this is a tornado, why are they just lazily waving back and forth like in a stiff summer breeze?  How come you don't see branches and stuff flying through the air like toothpicks?  And where's the noise...you know the noise that almost every survivor of one of these things swears the storm sounded like...you know,  another freight train!!  I don't hear much beyond the train in the video.  (Someone get Jim Cantore in here!  LOL)  

- Mike

It happened January 7, 2008. 

http://tornadoes.webonline-vid...ails-train-cab-view/

It also made the Chicago news.

Also:

http://www.uprr.com/newsinfo/r...8/0118_harvard.shtml

http://www.democraticundergrou...mp;address=150x15373

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lot/?n=20080107tor

Pretty elaborate coverage for a hoax I would say....

Rusty

So much for the hoax angle..

Clearly, you don't understand how selective tornados can be...(from the NOAA website)

Note the "hoax" laying on its side at the top of the frame.

Rusty

Oh wow, the scariest part is when the other cars come running up and collide.

I thought this was going to be about a different Tornado. Glad to hear it didn't derail.

I'm not denying there was a tornado in that locale on that date. No hoax as far as i'm concerned.   I'm only agreeing with CRH that the video itself could've been...could've been...altered digitally to make it more dramatic.  I've always been amazed at the ability of tornados to blow away a house and leave ,say, a church's stained glass window across the street completely intact.  You're right, their selectivity is incredible at times.  I just wonder why these trees don't appear to be moving about all that wildly.  And look at the video from the time the car derails to the point where the trailing tank car smashes into it.   There's virtually no sound, other than that of the derailing train itself.  Wouldn't there be some additional roaring sound caused by the tornado?

Seeing that CRH couldn't get the date right...

It took me less than 3 minutes to nail down the date and websites.  A little more research and less speculation, please.

In high winds I've seen the trees across the street being blown wildly while the tree in front of my house is becalmed (and vice-versa.)

Rusty

Around St. Louis (a few hundred miles south of Chicago) tornadoes can form after an unusually hot winter day.  In January of 1968 it was in the 70's degrees with a twister that afternoon.  When the temps drop 30 degrees through the afternoon there is a real history of tornadoes. 

Nathan

Mike Caruso

Please watch the last 1 min.  How can you not see the trees violently blowing?

Even though we can debate the video till the cows come home, it had to be a scary ride for the train crew.  I would guess that most people would think that a train is so heavy that it can withstand a tornado, but at least the cars are not based on this video.

Art