It was a routine Wednesday down at the mill. "The train" had just dropped off a carload of barley which would be unloaded in due course. Twenty minutes later the scalemaster noticed the barley car drifting past his window, what ?? The car cleared the private crossing, the switch and then encountered the derail which protected the "main" and unceremoniously dumped the loaded car on to the ground. The yellow 3rd rail placed on the outside of one rail had kept the car from getting to it's tipping point and making a bad day, worse. The next day, our local NS crew was on scene with a mobile crane to set things right. Also a locomotive was on hand to "reposition" the loaded car, but when it was found to have rolled off with it's hand brakes properly set, it was whisked away for brake repairs. By Friday our locally based crew (Northumberland, PA) had the barley car back to us in good order and a "ground crew" was there as well to repair the derail - which had been damaged. The Friday train was a 14-car "push-pull" setup, hence the red light hanging on the locomotive. The trainman mentioned some concern about getting the loaded train up the grade but they left town w/o issue. All in all, a good recovery by NS and we got the barley unloaded before the mill ran out, a happy ending to our derailment !
Attachments
Images (6)
Original Post
