Norfolk Southern Coal Train Wreck

Waterloo, Indiana, March 26, 2010

 

Photographed March 29, 2010

 

All Photos Copyright © 2010 by Robert E Pence

 

On Friday, March 26, 2010, thirty-eight cars of a 126-car Norfolk Southern coal train bound for a power plant in Michigan derailed in Waterloo, Indiana. A local newscast said that the derailment had taken out the Amtrak station and all the cars parked there. I thought the station wouldn't be much loss; it's an asphalt platform with a doorless bus shelter and lights overhead on tall wooden poles.

 

I didn't want to venture up there in bad weather and then get yelled at by cleanup crews as I slogged around in the mud with a camera. Today (Monday March 29) turned out sunny and bright, so in late afternoon I headed for Waterloo. I discovered the Amtrak facility untouched, reaffirming my opinion that most local TV news personalities don't know anything about railroads. In my experience, they don't know much about anything.

 

When I saw the mountain of debris stretching eastward from Center Street, I immediately feared that the historic wood depot, moved and restored years ago, had been crushed and buried under tons of coal-gondola remnants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The earth was torn up with deep ruts from bulldozers, and segments of ties and rails and fragments of ripped-apart aluminum coal gondolas had been pushed up into a mound of mangled metal and wood.

 

 

 

 

I felt great relief when I saw the historic depot still standing at the far end of the debris field.

 

 

 

 

 

How close do you want it? Parts weighing a couple of tons can travel for considerable distances when a train wrecks at speed. The boarded-up windows aren't a consequence of the wreck; Rehab work on the building is ongoing, and it looks like they may be installing insulation and preparing for new siding. On the back side, the bay has been covered with tyvek.

 

Business has resumed; both tracks are in place, but both eastbound and westbound trains are alternating on the westbound track.

 

 

 

Great photos, Rob. I'd love to use the last one for AAO's newsletter -- with your kind permission.

Great photos, Rob. I'd love to use the last one for AAO's newsletter -- with your kind permission.

Please do!

Wow Rob.  Great photos.  Do you know how fast the trains go through that area?  Looks like those cars really took a thrashing.

When will we start using concrete ties and maintaining our tracks better? :(

 

There is a derailment here in Cincinnati every week. Most of this is preventable. But it looks like the depots came away unscathed, great photos and narrative Rob!

Great photos, Rob. I'd love to use the last one for AAO's newsletter -- with your kind permission.

Please do!

 

Thanks!

 

Wow Rob. Great photos. Do you know how fast the trains go through that area? Looks like those cars really took a thrashing.

 

The speed for loaded coal trains on NS is 40 mph, or 50 mph for unloaded coal trains. The rail cars look so mangled because the clean-up crews push the wreckage, torn-up track and any other debris off to one side so NS can re-open the line to traffic as quickly as possible. Then they begin to removed the wreckage.

 

 

 

When will we start using concrete ties and maintaining our tracks better? :(

 

 

When the cost of cleaning up derailments is less than the cost of installing concrete ties. Seriously.

I remember having an older engineer for CSX, who worked for the C&O, tell me that they could routinely take their steam locomotives over 70 MPH on tracks that can now barely handle 45 MPH between Cincinnati and Russell, Kentucky. The tracks look decent enough, until you get down to inspecting them. I know they are testing out concrete ties in some areas of the US, but why is it not widespread? It provides for a much more reliable track surface. At least we are using jointed rail -- a huge improvement over non-jointed, although the C&O was able to handle higher speeds on that. Go figure.

Whoa!

Wow Rob.  Great photos.  Do you know how fast the trains go through that area?  Looks like those cars really took a thrashing.

 

Jeff, I thought you might want to model that to give even more authenticity the railroad club layout.  :wink:

 

Seriously, seeing that gave me religion, at least for a while. I literally shuddered when I saw that it happened exactly where I've stood trackside to photograph and videotape.

 

I remember having an older engineer for CSX, who worked for the C&O, tell me that they could routinely take their steam locomotives over 70 MPH on tracks that can now barely handle 45 MPH between Cincinnati and Russell, Kentucky. The tracks look decent enough, until you get down to inspecting them. I know they are testing out concrete ties in some areas of the US, but why is it not widespread? It provides for a much more reliable track surface. At least we are using jointed rail -- a huge improvement over non-jointed, although the C&O was able to handle higher speeds on that. Go figure.

 

Sherman, I think you're referring to bolted, or jointed, versus welded, or continuous, rail. If I have my terminology right, jointed rail is the old-school way, where the ends of segments of rail are held together by plates clamped to each side by large bolts made of high tensile strength steel. The wheels passing over the joints made the familiar clickety-clack sound that accompanied train travel back in the day.

 

Now rails for high-traffic and high-speed use are welded together into lengths that typically run a quarter mile, and loaded onto specially-designed trains that transport them to the construction site. It's startling to watch what you've always thought of as rigid material sagging like wet spaghetti as it's fed out onto the railbed.

 

Existing jointed rail in good condition can be field-welded into continuous rail. They saw off the ends with the bolt holes, pull the joint together, and weld it using a process that's been around since before gas and electric welding and continues to be refined to fit various niches. Google "thermit" or "thermite." Don't try this at home; it's pretty cool to watch, but my science club damned near burned down the high school with a demonstration that got out of control.

 

That rail line is part of the legendary former New York Central Water Level Route, carrying the Twentieth Century Limited and other famous trains. It still carries a lot of freight as well as Amtrak's Lateshore Limited and Capitol Limited, and except for ride quality, the line is impeccably maintained. The ride at 79mph, especially on Amfleet coaches, is jiggly-rattly, and would benefit from rail surfacing. It's safe, though. So far, it's thought that the wreck was caused by a wheel on a car picking a switch; a wheel broke through a switch and tried to follow a diverging track or crossover. That can be the result of an excessively worn wheel flange, a poorly maintained or improperly closed switch, or a combination of those factors. Given the importance of that line in NS's overall business, I'd lean toward a defective car and away from poor track maintenance.

 

Regarding ties, the treated wood ones actually perform very well when installed on a well-drained and maintained roadbed. Typical tie life is estimated to be twenty years, and the old standard even on mainlines of the Pennsylvania, New York Central, and other major carriers with fast passenger trains was to replace every fourth tie every five years. Nearly forty years ago in Austria and Germany I saw steel ties. Currently a steel-cored composite tie made almost entirely with recycled materials, being developed by Steel Dynamics (SDI), is undergoing testing and evaluation.

 

The prestige passenger trains of railroads like New York Central, Pennsylvania, Milwaukee Road, Chicago Northwestern, Burlington, Santa Fe and others regularly achieved speeds up to and sometimes exceeding 100mph on bolted rail laid on wood ties in the 1940s - 1950s. Norfolk & Western's sleek J-class locomotives were designed to sustain 110mph hauling 11 heavyweight passenger cars.

 

A steam locomotive's maximum speed theortically is determined mainly by the size of the driving wheels, the steam-generating capacity of its boiler, and the skill of its fireman. Fast passenger service and comfort were important parts of those railroads' identities, and they put a lot more manpower into day-in, day-out track maintenance. Section gangs stationed at frequent intervals along the line patrolled for defects and received daily reports by train crews regarding rough spots and other incipient problems, which they addressed that day.

Well that looks like a fun mess to clean up!  Thanks for the pics!