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Carl Carlsen | all galleries >> Galleries >> Interesting Models, Miscellaneous and WHATCHAMACALLITS > SIX of them? .... well really TWELVE
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05-JUN-2006

SIX of them? .... well really TWELVE

I have no idea WHERE this happened. A friend sent these to me and this is the story he gave. There were THREE locomotives coupled together. The crew "parked" the train for FOUR hours. They "tied down" the forward locomotive. I'm not a "train man" but somehow #2 and #3 locomotives were apparently still in gear, and in 4 hours, this is what happened to the rails. Maybe someone has further information on where this happened?

PS ... I'm now told that the photos "came from Canada", so the assumption is that the incident occurred in Canada?? No verification however.

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Paul Kettle 25-Mar-2009 23:20
I know this is a little after the fact, or about three years after the other posts. I worked as a locomotive engineer and road foreman for E-L, Conrail, and NJTransit. Although it is hard to believe, wheel damage like this is quiet after the first few seconds. As the temperature goes up from the friction, the wheel-rail interface starts to liquify to molten steel or iron. You can see the plastic deformation on the rail from the excessive heat. Molten iron is a very good lubricant!

Once you build up somewhere around 1/32" of liquified iron, it's the same as pouring cutting oil between the wheel and rail. The wheel is still heating up the rail, but the awful grinding noise you would expect is not there. I saw at least two of these in my career as a supervisor. Both were caused by contractors operating on-rail cranes with mechanical drive.

As information, locomtives are built with wheel slip detection in them. If an axle is determined to be spinning even a little faster than its buddies, the power to that axxle or truck is cut off until the slipping stops. Laater model locomotives also measure the rate of angular acceleration of the wheels, and cut off power if the wheels increase in speed to rapidly. What happened here is called a 'simultaneuous wheel slip,' with all six axles spinning in place at about the same speed.

My bet is that the other comments are correct. The consist was either not set up properly, or the engineer did not follow instructions when leaving the cab. For leaving multiple engine consists, I always instructed engineers to place the ISOLATION SWITCH on all units in the isolate position, preventing any locomotive from developing power.

Thanks for letting me post this info.
Jerry Kelly 07-Jul-2006 12:13
I am also an engineer with 18 years experience. When leaving the controling cab of any consist the engineer should always shut off the generator field (GF), this cuts off all power to all traction motors in a properly MU'd consist. A properly set up MU'd consist will have the GF switches of the trailing units in the off position. I believe the engineer who left the consist as stated above must be inexperienced.
Cliff Wilkie 21-Jun-2006 18:35
Incidents such as this are called "rail burn" where I work (because of the friction between the spinning steel wheels and the steel rail). I'm a railroader as well, I'm a Train Dispatcher for St. Lawrence & Atlantic RR in Maine. Also, the spacing between the rail burns in this particular photo indicate they came from a six-axle unit, such as a SD40-2. One of my co-workers who used to work as an engineer for CP (for 25 years)told me this happened on CSX in Indiana and the rail burns were caused by a six-axle unit and a four-axle unit that were MU'ed together (as the 2nd and 3rd units). There is also a possiblity that the MU jumper between the 1st and 2nd units may have been twisted or kinked (or had some other defect-this has been known to happen) and may have caused this. A defect in the jumper can cause all sorts of unusual things to happen (I have seen various incidents of this in my 8 years of dispatching trains).
Glen Clark 19-Jun-2006 23:53
See what happens when the MBAs try to save money by using aluminum rails?
Adam Keppel 18-Jun-2006 22:25
**Also forgot to mention, wheel slippage on rail is most often very quiet if not almost silent believe it or not. When we have too much tonnage and the locomotive cannot pull the train, the most noise we hear are the alarms going off in the cab. The loudest I've ever heard it was a sound something like sandpaper on wood.
Adam Keppel 18-Jun-2006 22:23
I am a conductor for the Norfolk Southern RR in PA. I guess unless you are a railroad employee, an incident like this may be difficult to believe. It is very possible however; the crew tied down the lead locomotive with the hand brake and probably put the isolation switch in "isolate" (used to select from starting the motor, RUN, and ISOLATE). All they would have had to have done would be to leave the reverser in forward or reverse and very stupidly left the throttle engaged. Isolating the lead locomotive will not isolate the rest of them, causing the lead locomotive to not produce power but being "MU'd" to the other 2, and proving the hind 2 were left in RUN on the isolation switch, they could still be controlled from the leader and made to produce power. It's very simple to do actually and if the crew was dumb enough, it very well could have happened. Just a little insight for those who don't know how locomotives work.
John Cooper17-Jun-2006 21:42
I find it totally unbelievable that a crew could walk away and leave 2 engines running.
12 wheels spinning on a metal track, the noise must have been horrendous, audible for hundreds of yards if not thousands.