Runaway cars smash into harbor terminal in Oslo, 3 killed

[steinjr]

The one thing that sticks in my mind is if a switch engine was working a cut of cars, why did the switch crew uncouple without first setting the brakes on the cars? If they were using the hump to classify cars, why have the switch lined for engine bypass? Is it normal procedure to hold a cut of cars in position using just the track mounted retarders?

All good questions.

I suspect that they were not humping cars - that they were just doing some switching in the A/D yard above the hump. It sounds from media reports like they had just added a 16th empty car to a cut of 15 empty cars on one of the A/D tracks. If they had been using the hump, I would perhaps have expected them to drop the 16th car down into the bowl, onto the same track as the other 15 cars, rather than the cut being assembled on top first.

I don't know what the plan was for those cars - whether they were planning to eventually send them over the hump and down into a bowl track, or whether they were planning to have an engine pick up the cars from the A/D yard and take it somewhere - either north or out one of the freight tracks at the south end of the yard.

I also don't know why they seemingly were using just the track brakes at the south end of the A/D tracks to hold the cars.

The formal investigation will probably let us know whether just holding the cars with the track brakes was an approved procedure or a shortcut that the switching crews had developed on their own over time.

Stein