Worked for the railroad about 5yrs right out of high school, Seen several decent size derailments. Hulchers were the go to guys here in the Midwest. I was always fascinated by those crews. They move in on a scene with all the precision of a full scale military operation. The convoy of equipment would arrive and work would begin, even if it meant building roads whatever it took. The guys who work for these outfits are sharp!

Always fascinating to see big equipment doing it's job. The drone footage leaves me with questions. How is it that a good number of cars are on the track then a group is off, then on, and then more off again. I am guessing condition of track and the cars all comes into play someway,as well as dissipating the energy of the cars from weigh in motion.



Another observation, surprised the 583 sidebooms don't have ROPS. I have never worked in construction industry but know about 1970 to 1980 a lot of older equipment was retrofitted with ROPS to make OSHA happy.I thought OSHA had rules everything had to meet their standards,and ROPS would be one of those things.

"Ray54" wrote:

Always fascinating to see big equipment doing it's job. The drone footage leaves me with questions. How is it that a good number of cars are on the track then a group is off, then on, and then more off again. I am guessing condition of track and the cars all comes into play someway,as well as dissipating the energy of the cars from weigh in motion.



Another observation, surprised the 583 sidebooms don't have ROPS. I have never worked in construction industry but know about 1970 to 1980 a lot of older equipment was retrofitted with ROPS to make OSHA happy.I thought OSHA had rules everything had to meet their standards,and ROPS would be one of those things.

I have not seen ANY derailment contractors sidebooms equipped with more than a cage or canopy, Not Winters, Hulcher or RJ Corman. I don't know how that would work.

As for the scattered pockets of derailed cars... Think of a big bicycle chain going along the rails with curves, grades, etc... then a sudden stop in the front or even the middle. The rest bunches up and curves are a weak spot. In this case about 800 plus tons and 16,000 hp worth of locomotives in the very front of a 5,000-6,000 ton train came to a sudden stop... the rest keeps on trying to move forward even as the brakes apply, and things come apart in the weakest areas "the curves" or heavy cars in front of lighter cars, etc. Lots of forces at work in a train wreck.
..

Could the side booms carry the engines to undamaged track? Or did you have to raise them and rebuild the bed underneath them?

"DPete" wrote:

Could the side booms carry the engines to undamaged track? Or did you have to raise them and rebuild the bed underneath them?

We pick them up and carry them to good rail.In this case two of them went out on one side of the washout, and two on the other side.... we moved the head engine by picking and carrying with four sidebooms to a place we could have some room to work. Then the engine at the rear was only partially off the rail, but suspended over the hole at the rear. The front was on the rail, and one of the three back axles was just barely on the end of the rail that was track level.
We had another big locomotive come in and as we held it up with two sidebooms we pulled it on the rest of the way, but we also hooked two big 1.25" chains and shackles from that engine to the next one in line to help separate it from the next engine..."they were all locked together by sitting on top of or under each other". So you have a fresh locomotive pulling the rear engine in the wreck back, that was in turn chained to the next one. We started the engine we re-railed and cut out the power to the damaged set of trucks on the rear and we could then pull with 1 and a half locomotives to yank them apart. After that was done we discovered that our roadway that we built along the side of the bank was holding up better than expected, so we kept pulling and carrying that next engine right along until we could get it back on the rail just like the first one. So that took care of two of them and saved us a lot of time.
Next, we picked up the remaining engine in the hole and carried it onto the good rail on other side. The last step was to pick up the first engine we had moved out of the way, carry it back toward the hole, and then line it up with the good rail end and carry it forward to set on the rails. Locomotives were then all on the rail.

Here is the picture of the locomotives hooked together by the big chains ready for pulling them apart...and then onto good rail.

That's a chunk of iron to pick up and travel with, interesting topic and comments by others also.

thanks for the pics and info. i all way loved seeing them side-booms with big short boom with the rigging hanging off the fount ready for battle. when i get tired of fixing stuff for a living i think this would sure be fun i think to be a boom operator. play safe out there.

Tim I thought you were retired?? I am sure I read that here somewhere, but my mind isn't what it used to be either. I don't brag on here either but I have enjoyed many fine hours in Komatsu dozers, mostly D31 and D65 series and both are very capable and handy. Very cool pictures, Gowanda isn't terribly far from my camp outside of Panama, NY. I might try and track you down one day.

"JoeG" wrote:

Tim I thought you were retired?? I am sure I read that here somewhere, but my mind isn't what it used to be either. I don't brag on here either but I have enjoyed many fine hours in Komatsu dozers, mostly D31 and D65 series and both are very capable and handy. Very cool pictures, Gowanda isn't terribly far from my camp outside of Panama, NY. I might try and track you down one day.

Joe, I still like going on a big wreck or interesting project once in awhile. You can visit anytime. Just let me know, I'll give you a tour of Winters shop, its only 10 minutes from me. Quite a few interesting things around here. Tim.

"TimT" wrote:

Joe, I still like going on a big wreck or interesting project once in awhile. You can visit anytime. Just let me know, I'll give you a tour of Winters shop, its only 10 minutes from me. Quite a few interesting things around here. Tim.

TimT,
I will be in your area next month. Would love a short visit to Winter’s shop. <a href="This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Regards, Don