Train vs. Tornado

Found this video on youtube. The "incident" gets spectacular at 1:10 into the video.

Do you know where and when this happened?

That video is old school.
Good though.

reply to post by missvicky

from the youtube channel:

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO/ROMEOVILLE IL
330 PM CST TUE JAN 08 2008

...BOONE AND MCHENRY COUNTY TORNADO...

A TORNADO STRUCK NORTHERN BOONE AND NORTHWEST MCHENRY COUNTIES MONDAY AFTERNOON. NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS SURVEYED THE DAMAGE TODAY. THE TORNADO WAS RATED EF3 ON THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE WITH MAXIMUM WINDS OF 136 TO 165 MPH. THE TORNADO HAD A PATH LENGTH OF 13.2 MILES AND A MAXIMUM WIDTH OF AROUND 100 YARDS. THE TORNADO STARTED AT 330 PM ABOUT 1.2 MILES NORTH OF POPLAR GROVE IN BOONE COUNTY AND ENDED AT 348 PM ABOUT 3.2 MILES NORTH NORTHEAST OF HARVARD IN MCHENRY COUNTY. THERE WERE FOUR INJURIES IN BOONE COUNTY AND ONE IN MCHENRY COUNTY.

Very interesting. When the rain (or dust) starts hitting the camera from behind, it gets surreal.

Let's see... it says

It was the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad.
12 cars blown off track (the twelve immediately behind the engine).


So, the engine, now with no load, stops quickly.
Remaining train still on tracks does not stop quickly.

One of the youtube comments states that as soon as the air hoses disconnected, that the entire train goes into emergency braking. True.

He then states that the locomotive also is forced into emergency braking and has no choice to stop. I don't think that is correct.

I was on a westbound Amtrak train which hit some bad track as it approached Ogden, Utah. The two or three engines made it safely but the baggage car and first two passenger cars derailed. I was in the fifth car and came to a quick stop because the emergency braking worked just fine when the air-hose connection was broken from the engines.

But, the locomotives were no where to be seen when I stepped out. Not only had they continued without being forced to stop automatically, but the track workers told me that once the train broke loose, the locomotives "shot off ahead" and that the Engineer and crew were not sure they could stop it before hitting the end of the track at the station about a mile away.

I'm guessing that the engineer in this video stopped so quickly because he could see that he was dragging the car directly behind the cab.

reply to post by Frira

I was on a westbound Amtrak train which hit some bad track as it approached Ogden, Utah. The two or three engines made it safely but the baggage car and first two passenger cars derailed. I was in the fifth car and came to a quick stop because the emergency braking worked just fine when the air-hose connection was broken from the engines.

did you have a shock after the accident ? i mean, did you need professional help afterwords ?

Originally posted by icepack
reply to post by Frira

 

I was on a westbound Amtrak train which hit some bad track as it approached Ogden, Utah. The two or three engines made it safely but the baggage car and first two passenger cars derailed. I was in the fifth car and came to a quick stop because the emergency braking worked just fine when the air-hose connection was broken from the engines.

did you have a shock after the accident ? i mean, did you need professional help afterwords ?

It was the summer of 1974, and I was fourteen traveling with my parents from Denver to San Francisco to link up with my older brother. My experience was not at all traumatic-- I had been tackled harder playing football than the forces I encountered in the accident.

It happened between midnight and two in the morning as I recall. I was asleep in private room-- the sudden deceleration rolled me against the forward wall holding me there until reaching a stop, and then I rolled back against the webbing that exists exactly for such a need. Lots of commotion and voices as I got dressed in a hurry. A few shouts of concern, but no one screaming or any hint of panic. The conductor was coming down the hall checking on the occupants of each compartment when I ducked out into the hall.

My car and all behind it were fine, so was the car in front of mine. The one before that was partly off the track. The one before that was over on its side, and the baggage car was too. Some in those cars went to the hospital, mostly with sprains, cuts and bruises, and I believe one broke an arm and another with a broken leg.

The conductor asked us to stay on board for about the first 30 or 45 minutes and so I could not see much except the reflection of the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles. Amazingly, I thought, is that about a dozen men with tools were on the scene within a quarter of an a hour, dragging rail and spiking new track.

Some spikes had come loose, and the weight of the locomotives was all that section of track could handle. The rail let loose as the baggage car was on it, and so its wheels slid down the railway bed into the ditch, dragging the car behind with it, and the front of the next one. Since we were approaching the station, we were slow-- about twenty miles and hour seems right. The injuries, therefore, were not from the sudden deceleration, but from the falls you would expect when the wall suddenly become the floor and the floor becomes a wall.

While I slept, they removed the two damaged cars, reset the partially derailed car, repaired the track, and shoved us into the station. When I woke at about dawn, we were already on our way and crossing the Great Salt Lake. The passengers from the two damaged cars were put on buses.

Oddly enough, my first short-story had been for a class assignment to be read aloud two years before that experience; and had been about a passenger train wreck from the perspective of one inside of the train.

reply to post by Frira

cool story.