Derailment of Amtrak Passenger Train No. 27

[@AsifAAli]

Wow. Scary. I have had the chance to travel via Amtrak 2-3 times from Galesburg to Chicago--and I must say every time was a pleasant experience. Seating, Interior of the trains, Timeliness, Ticketing--all too good.

[@retiredchannel907]

how did I get here

[@Lefroje]

Idk either

[@snoozeflu]

I wish the NTSB would go back to using these animations.

[@mytfy1]

You can attribute this to poor track inspection, and maintenance.

[@silvershocknicktail6638]

This video narrated by GOOOOOOOOOOD

[@Tom8201]

BNSF didn't exist in 1990. It was Burlington Northern.

[@candleflame4355]

Annnnnd Santa fe

[@JessicaKasumi1990]

Candle Flame No, he's right. The merger didn't happen until 1996.

[@therookie9276]

Jessica Kasumi He said Santa Fe because it wasn't a fallen flag by then.

[@pkranz937]

Amy Avery the merger began in September of '95, but was not Completed until later in 1996.

[@benboor7924]

I've seen WWII footage of train derailment testing where sections of track were cut out and removed and the trains still did not go off path to show how hard it is to sabotage the railroad system. What changed?

[@Enny_Gima]

I feel like it is more likely that the "testing" done in the 40's is propaganda, and that railroads were never invulnerable to sabotage.

[@TheV8nissan]

I think the length of rail being compromised has a lot to do with it. They're talking 19 ties here. In the WW2 testing they didn't see results until longer sections were removed. Also they were removing chunks with the rest still firmly fixed. This rail folded over sideways. Also those trains were relatively low speed compared to a modern amtrak.

[@ManufacturedLack]

Wood ties have worked for how long? Watching this videos and I just cannot understand how workers and engineers do not know these things. In another video there was a welding crew that appeared to not understand that metal expands and contracts when welded. If you have to heat or cool a mile of track prior to welding then that's what you have to do. I wonder if the track could be heated using sound waves.

[@MelioraCogito]

_"Wood ties have worked for how long? Watching this [sic] videos and I just cannot understand how workers and engineers do not know these things."_ Creosote wood sleepers have to be replaced every 25 years or so. Concrete sleepers on the other hand can last a good 75 years or more (if properly inspected and maintained - i.e replacing track pads regularly). However, there is a cost disadvantage for the initial installation of conc sleepers (special equipment and training is required). They [ PEngs ] do understand and know these things very clearly and they would have told BNSF what needed to be done on a regular basis to prevent these types 'wear and tear' from affecting rail traffic. However, it is not they who ultimately decide the scheduling of track inspections and repairs when needed. Somewhere up the food chain at BNSF, some manager (a VP of Penny Pinching?) thinking he'd save BNSF some coin by putting off repair of this section of track (if they were even aware of the damage caused by improperly secured rails on conc sleepers) decided to put off replacing the sleepers and rail pads for some other time. _If a train safely passes over the affected section today, it can pass over the same section tomorrow without issue too._ You can see where such thinking leads. This is the problem with privately owned infrastructure such as railroads. The companies have their eye squarely on profit margins, not track inspection and maintenance - because that is a cost that needs to be kept under control to ensure good profit margins for shareholders. So the attitude quickly develops that says: _derailments and accidents are a fact of life. Spending money on preventative maintenance is not profitable. Therefor, spend as little as possible to keep the trains moving and when a derailment does occur, deal with rail movement stoppages (line closures) and track repair then. Insurance will cover (most of) the costs and legal liabilities which can then be written off._ Simply put, preventative maintenance is not a high priority for North American railroads.

[@SadisticSenpai61]

In a way, that's kind of the problem. They put in these ties that, in theory, can last much longer without needing replaced and then just leave them, assuming its all fine - especially as railroads aren't doing anywhere near as much maintenance as they used to. Having things that are made to last (with proper maintenance and inspections) makes them complacent. When you have to be constantly going up and down the track to make sure your ties aren't going to cause a derailment - you pay more attention to these things. Of course, more inspectors and proper enforcement of regulations would go a long ways towards fixing that complacency.

[@chris-hayes]

@@MelioraCogito Out of curiosity, does the rail abrasion seen in the video only affect concrete sleepers?

[@MelioraCogito]

@@chris-hayes No.

[@Mnrr6131]

This is like from 1996

[@SupernalOne]

is this a universal weakness of concrete ties/sleepers?

[@cacline72]

BNSF didn't exist until 1996 not 1990.

[@ShadowLimited310]

Wait, why are do they use concrete? Surely they tested it and noticed it was difficult to tell wear and tear, so why use it

[@M80T]

What’s the number of the p42

[@metronorthamtrakmatty8183]

Amtrak engine is 163

[@scdevon]

It seems kind of primitive in this day and age to use the same gauge / wheel flange / rail design that goes back to the 1800s when trains ran 40 mph.

[@floridianrailauto9032]

It's not primitive when a gauge that was from the eighteen hundreds can move over seventy intermodal trains a day from Chicago to Los Angeles. Somebody has been watching too many sci-fi movies.

[@dieselscience]

Well, magical levitation trains powered by organic fairy farts are not quite up and running yet.

[@chrisalister2297]

No smoking around fairies.

[@pattiebrassard8412]

Yes, they are.. and have been for over a year now @ 600 + KPH... just not in dead america.

[@chris-hayes]

There's newer technology, but there's a more modern way to do everything. It's either not yet practical or not economical. I'm assuming the comment above is talking about maglev technology, specifically China's new speed record (purely closed testing). Rails in the US cost somewhere around $1-$2 million per a mile. Available maglev's are estimated at roughly $50-$100 million per a mile. That is ludicrously expensive. Only on the most-used, short-distance passenger routes can this be remotely economical.

[@niels1917]

the audio is horible

[@chlyon]

This should not have happened the signs of wear would have been easily visable to the eye , poor maintenance and bad attitude regarding safety ...

[@sylviaelse5086]

Inspections, and the management of inspections, frequently seems to be found wanting in these cases. An inspection train had twice flagged guage widening at this location, but only at a level that required monitoring. Monitoring may be appropropriate if it's know why the guage widening is occuring, but I'd have though that until then, it should be treated as an accident waiting to happen, because it's not known whether the train is detecting the greatest widening possible. There was a different kind of inspection train better suited to detecting guage widening but it wasn't being used there. Similarly, there had been reports of rough running their prior to the accident, but the response was to inspect, and when nothing was found, to leave it at that. Given that there was more than one such report, I'd have thought that the track should be regarded as suspect until a reason for the rough running was found, or until the track had been inspected in detail, using the appropriate equipment, and found to be in good condition.

[@felixcat9318]

Appalling levels of track inspection! It is more effective to inspect for such known wear and to correct it than to have a derailment!

[@ronjonnj01]

Did anyone do a comparison between standard wood ties and spike and the concrete tie clamp and # of incidents similar to this derailment?

[@pauld4355]

exaclty what i was wondering

[@chris-hayes]

I was wondering about that too. With wood you would have the grain running perpendicular to the rail. I imagine this would be difficult for the rail to abrase one edge more than the other. Wood is also more flexible than concrete, that probably affects the distribution of weight and location of abrasion. But, I know nothing about railroads and can only theorize.

[@marvinkitfox3386]

Yep. Concrete that gets overloaded, crumbles to dust and leaves the scene. Wood that is overloaded compacts into denser wood, actually *strengthening* it. Within limit, of course, but wood is a much more forgiving material against mechanical damage than concrete is.

[@jucaesar4961]

Problem with this simple comparison would be that you would have to divide the respective accident numbers by the total amount of wood ties vs concrete ties used in the general train network in order to arrive at a statistically relevant number.

[@GTOAviator]

those echo effects tho

[@RipsNordic7]

Try being high and listening to this echoes

[@robertgift]

Who were the track maintenance personnel? They failed to notice this? Or is it so subtle not to beasily discovered?

[@saxon1177]

When I was 8 I used to ride along with my grandpa to inspect tracks for the old C&O Railroad ... we would've caught that, we were a great team!

[@AlexMendoza69]

Do a breakdown of the Bertram siding head-on collision that happened in 2022.

[@rockeysinghrajput3212]

😨

[@DylansDIYWorkshop]

Why dont trains run like roller coasters where the wheels are above and below the track?

[@Enny_Gima]

Because that would more than triple the cost of installing railroad, make it more expensive and harder to maintain, require more expensive and valuable materials, complicate train wheels and make it much more difficult to maintain them, make it impossible to have railroad/conventional road intersections, make switching stations much more complicated and require more power, and most of all, would be an impossible undertaking to install such rails universally. TLDR literally impossible to implement without bankrupting the entire country and maybe canada too

[@chrisalister2297]

It's called Cost to Benefit ratio. Not going to happen. You are talking about millions of cars, trains and countless miles of track and bridges, etc that would have to be changed. It would be more realistic to have a robotic camera inspection unit to run down the tracks on a maintenance schedule to do visual inspections. If a camera can inspect a glass bottle during manufacturing for flaws...it can inspect a track for possible flaws.

[@ZorbaTheDutch]

Also, because trains usually don't do loopings.

[@KodakYarr]

@@ZorbaTheDutch Yes. Usually. But sometimes...

[@CRFProductions2023]

as far as I'm concerned, safety needs to be the railways top priority, especially when it comes to Cargo or customers. failure to keep the rail in top condition can result in accidents like this, and these results come due to the fact that they failed to keep these rails at their best

[@briseidapreciado3199]

William K Bolan Dudududuru

[@abandonrailsbro]

Agreed

[@johnburke3465]

It is the number one priority. Unfortunately they only preach it they don't apply it and when they want you out of the yard they forget everything they preached!

[@narwhalzrul3392]

Oh no!!!!! :()

[@finnlythedoggo6662]

Only 5 vids to look @

[@SLACKLINEDUDE]

_no. 27_

[@M80T]

BNSF didn’t exist in 1990

[@catknox8302]

Yeah i got oOf day

[@alisimma5427]

So unlucky

[@menguardingtheirownwallets6791]

build new wheelsets with double-flanges; one on the normal inside of the wheel, and a second one on the outside of the wheel to prevent

[@Panzermeister36]

That is not feasible as then you cannot easy have turnouts/switches. Also, if you had a double flange in the case of this video, it would still ride up and over the rail because of the shallow angle of the widening rail.

[@tuhinparai1903]

so dangerous of all train😯🚄🚆

[@TheDrummerman1951]

They need to go back to wood ties

[@feedme7736]

If they would quit hiring drug addicts to work on the railroad tracks...

[@SgtJoeSmith]

Feed Me trump won't let him hire Mexicans though