Hey guys, Ive been lurking around lately, and havent really posted anthing worthwhile in a long time,m but these pics came up on another forum Im at thats non train related. Figured this was worthy off a new thread from me.


It was a normal day in Sharon Springs, KS when a Union Pacific crew boarded a loaded coal train for the long trek to Salina.
Just a few miles into the trip a wheel bearing became overheated and melted, letting a metal support drop down and grind on the rail, creating white hot molten metal droppings spewing down to the rail. A very alert crew noticed smoke about halfway back in the train and immediately stopped the train in compliance with the rules.

The train stopped with the hot wheel over a wooden bridge with creosote ties and trusses...




the photos speak for themselves....

wow! That's one of the weirder things I have ever heard. I am surprised the whole bridge seemed to catch before any of it collapsed!

I've seen that before... Still incredible though! I mean, how do you put out a burning coal train when your fire department is that one F-350 with a garden hose, and a single tanker truck...?

I read reports that they had replaced the whole trestle within a few days, since it's on one of the busier cross-country routes. Can anyone confirm?

Andrew

The train was stopped "with the white-hot wheel over the wooden trestle?" The insurance company is going to tear into that one like a Great White shark. It has operator error written all over it.

It seems stupid that they although required to stop the train, that they stopped it on the bridge - why not wait 60 seconds and stop it off the bridge.

It probably took 1 or 2 miles to get it stopped. When they applied the brakes, they probably could not even see the bridge.

Wow! That's an impressive series of photos!
Ralph

Here are some more details including the newspaper article

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Hokie smokes!!

Quote:The train was stopped "with the white-hot wheel over the wooden trestle?" The insurance company is going to tear into that one like a Great White shark. It has operator error written all over it.

Yup!!! There's a corporate lawyer somewhere just wringing his hands in glee over the prospect of a career enhancing case. . . . . . until he looks at the big picture, and realizes that; procedure was correctly followed; it's almost impossible for an engineer to accurately place a single car of a large train on a specific location, with no one at the location to guide him; that there were significant "contributing factors" to the burning of the bridge, like creosote. Yup!, they'll try, but I doubt they'll succeed. (If they do? . . one step closer to human extinction by means of stupidity. There are some things that simply happen, and we really can't "see the future", and therefore prevent them.)
Still, litigation has become a national pass time.

Sumpter250 Wrote:

Quote:The train was stopped "with the white-hot wheel over the wooden trestle?" The insurance company is going to tear into that one like a Great White shark. It has operator error written all over it.

Yup!!! There's a corporate lawyer somewhere just wringing his hands in glee over the prospect of a career enhancing case. . . . . . until he looks at the big picture, and realizes that; procedure was correctly followed; it's almost impossible for an engineer to accurately place a single car of a large train on a specific location, with no one at the location to guide him; that there were significant "contributing factors" to the burning of the bridge, like creosote. Yup!, they'll try, but I doubt they'll succeed. (If they do? . . one step closer to human extinction by means of stupidity. There are some things that simply happen, and we really can't "see the future", and therefore prevent them.)
Still, litigation has become a national pass time.

It is a U.P. train that destroyed a U.P. bridge. I don't think coal is an insured commodity. I suspect the U.P. does not bother with insuring it's bridges or equipment except for liability. If no one was hurt, and only a bridge and some rolling stock destroyed, U.P. will rebuild what they can, salvage what else that they can and write off the rest of the loss. I don't see any lawsuits unless one of those people that the authorities had to move to safety gets sick from fumes. Even then, it is doubtful that they will succeed in suing the railroad for their own stupidity.

Russ, I think you're right. UP is big enough that I would expect them to self-insure their infrastructure. No other businesses to deal with...just sending out the section crew. I suppose that they probably have a warehouse somewhere with prefab trestle bents for just this sort of thing (Like General Hauck's rebuilding of bridges within hours during the Civil War! Train kep' a rollin'!)