There’s a quote from when 4005 was brought back that gives me goosebumps every time I read it. “Several days later I was back at work on the graveyard shift and the Dispatcher told us the engine from the derailment was being brought back in and was just at the west end of the yard getting ready to come past the little Dispatch office/passenger depot. We all stood outside and in the still of darkness, not yet visible, we could hear this groaning and wrenching of metal coming very slowly down the rails being brought in behind the wrecking train, it was the ‘Big Boy’ and it gave you a very eerie feeling as it became visible in the old lamps of the Dispatch office, slowly it came into view and if ever I thought I had seen a ghost this was it. I did not know a ‘Big Boy’ could die but there it was and how sad it was just limping along like an old gray horse with one leg broken. The cab was completely gone, only the gray color of the firebox was visible and some of the side rods were missing and it looked as if even the frame had been broken. It just lumbered by all us, standing there with our mouths open not believing what we were seeing, this once huge, big, beautiful thing that was once a living machine of giant steel. It disappeared into the darkness like it came, being dragged like a person to the grave, at the east end of the yard for temporary storage. I could almost see Fireman Endres waving to me as it went past.”
After reading this I did get a slightly different feeling. This was a wounded Titan, something that few ever think they will see. But it was *not* dead. It was on the rails and rolling maybe not under its own power but it was on the rails and refused to die completely and require to be cut up and brought back in pieces.
I wonder how much of this catastrophe was due to mutual incomprehension between the new employee with minimal English and the foreman with no Spanish. The primary fault was with the foreman, who failed make sure his order was understood. It’s amazing the amount of damage locomotives can suffer and still be returned to service. In the early 50’s a PRR GG-1 had a total brake failure approaching Union Station in Washington, crashed through the barrier at the end of the track, fell through the floor of the passenger concourse and wound up in a sub-basement. There was no access for a heavy lift crane so the loco was cut into four pieces before being dragged out. Incredibly, it was welded back together and was among the last GG-1’s in service until 1983.
The guy who threw the switch was from Puerto Rico and didn't speak English, so all of his testimony was through an interpreter. After he and his foreman engaged in several rounds of finger pointing at each other, Union Pacific just threw up their hands and fired both of them: the new guy for throwing the switch, and the foreman for letting him.
The guy must have been a complete idiot, regardless of English or not!... he would have seen the train! Hope he had a long happy life! I'm just happy the train didn't hit him when it derailed... that would have been terrible!
I remember hearing about the 4005 story of the wreck a few years ago because of another UA-camr, I forgot it was sheep that caused the derailment in the first place. For her to wreck but also be saved that's amazing, Poor front brakeman though, being hit with steam for what may be 20-30 minutes and your only protection is your own hands.
Something to keep in mind, not trying to make things worse, but steam burns are different from like fire or electric burns. Just about every other burn type there is, everything gets burnt and crisped; which sucks and isn't good. But steam burns are unique in that it essentially (for a severe lack of a better term) cooks the flesh while the nerves stay intact through the entirety of the event. Most other burns you end up losing those nerves as they're burnt away. Steam burns, they stay and you unfortunately end up feeling everything from the pain of the deformed flesh to the impossible coldness from the extreme temperature difference. It's not an ideal way to ever go and it's, in some cases, even worse if you survive through it. There's an account of a guy in New York City who fell into a manhole where they were draining a boiler up the ways into that line and he basically boiled to death. It was horrible because it took around 4-6 hours before the water the guy was in (which was up to his waist) could cool down enough to be approachable by emergency services, the guy was alive through the entire thing, was "rescued" out, but was basically too far beyond saving at that point, and it was in a NYC sewer, so who knows what kind of infectious grime was sitting down there. It was Sean Doyle in 2002. So steam is powerful, but also quite the hazard.
There's a little motivational moment in here for all of us: We may fuck up sometimes, but we're unlikely to ever have a worse first day at work than that section hand.
Now, depending on the simulation and who's playing it, that's either a smear of shame you can never get rid of or an accomplishment. Kind of looking at Hyce, Spiffing Brit, and Let's Game it Out on that one though.
big boy bit the ballast pretty hard there, another interesting fact about 4005: she was oil fired for a season due to miner strikes to test the plausibility of converting big boys to oil, she was converted back the next year
It's weird there are channels dedicated to air accidents and ocean accidents, but I've yet to find one about railway accidents. I think these videos are so interesting.
I like how Chis Eden-Green put it in the SLIPs chapter regarding the Big Boys: “Seeing the 4005 on its side must have been the same as seeing a blue whale washed up on a beach.”
I think I heard somewhere that Mr. 80 Minutes on the Job was also not just from Puerto Rico, but had both arrived in the country within a week before he threw that switch and did not speak one bit of English. His understanding from the pointing and rambling he couldn’t understand from the supervisor who threw it twice to teach him was that throwing that switch would somehow magically make the train stop between one tie and the next… and seeing the disaster he caused, he of course denied doing it… guilt does things to a person, and it’s never pretty. Hey, Hyce? You should make another video about the journey of the 4005 to the museum… the many, many fields, roads, and strips of red tape and all makes an epic tale to rival The Lord of the Rings itself, but is a true story!
In 2008, a german ICE derailed near Fulda when he ran into a herd of sheep that were chased into a rail-tunnel by a pack of wolves. The Deutsche Bahn later created a 3D simulation to calculate how many sheep it takes to derail a ICE. You should look at the "Untersuchungsbericht" for this and translate it. It's quite an interesting read.
Hey Mark, just wanted to thank you for all the content, as a class one conductor and railfan, it's enjoyable seeing the otherside of the rail industry, and it makes me want to someday go to work in the tourism side. Also, if you're interested in unique railroad stories from history, I'd suggest looking into the 1972 Cass Shop fire.
That article really is a look back to how things were done differently than today. (On the lighter side, An hour and 20 mins sounds about right for the career length of an SD&S MoW crewman as a whole. Or the experience needed to be an ES&DT track foreman. 😂)
That 4005 has been through a lot including the failed oil conversion from coal. That was the locomotive my father (Tom Miller) modeled in 1.6" live steam. Recently it was sold to a gentleman in New Zealand where it now lives. The number 4005 will always have a special place in my heart. Love your content, very good, fun and accurate information. Keep up the good work! Brian Miller Sherwood, OR
That was absolutely horrific to hear, just the thought about the high pressure steaming of the crew gives me the shivers. I haven't been around steam engines, but I've been around industrial, offshore and refinery equipment, so I have some ideas about the physics involved. Hyce is such an amazing orator, storyteller and educator with such a great knowledge base to "dumb down" the stories to their core details without making it a stale recital of details, but make it come to life and anchor it in his audience's reality with gripping effects. Hyce has some sort of railroad history midas touch, elevating history out of the shadows and putting the necessary spotlight on the relevant details. In those cases his knowledge falls just too short, he has an mind boggling array of specialists and like minded individuals that fills in the gaps with unbelievable levels of details. Anything you make Hyce is so intriguing to learn about, masterclass in interesting history delivery! I saw a clip about a police officer who placed the patrol car on a unsecured railway crossing during an arrest, put the arrested in the car and then the train came... The locomotive plowed the car off the track, the arrested was seriously injured but survived, the police officer was charged and got community service for the wrongdoing. Have you seen that Hyce, are there anything you would discuss there and is there any chance for a video on it? Please more of everything you do, everything is great content and a surefire source of knowledge I hadn't been aware of without your work.
Thunderbolt 1000 has a pretty good animated video of this event. As with all things there is no one thing that caused the accident, and no one thing that would have prevented it. But the culture of safety we have now is much different and much appreciated
Defintly a story in had not heard before and it's definitely a sad one given how preventable it was. Rest in Peace to the crew of the 4005. You mentioned seeing the 4005 in a building is a site to be hold like how can they make the building that big. Well we have our equivalent in Minnesota, up in Duluth at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum they have one of 3 remaining DMIR Yellowstones inside the building. It's also elevated slightly and has its drivers spun my a motor every few minutes with sounds and a documentary playing about the engines. Absolutely stunning to see inside and it just feels so surreal to see.
@@Hyce777 Oh please do a video on that if you do It would make my day. I love going up there and have even been on the NARCOA speeder run up to the museum and it's always a fun time when I go.
I visited the Forney Museum during my trip over for NNGC, the Sunday after everything else wrapped up. My reaction to seeing a Big Boy was pretty much exactly as you described it! And that's saying something, because I don't think even the SP's Cab Forward in Sacramento elicited that from me. You can still see quite a bit of damage on the sides of the engine if you know where to look.
My uncle, dad, and I, went to the Forney museum just last month thinking it was just for cars. Walking into the showroom and seeing 4005 sitting on the far side was the best part of my day. I spent an hour telling them everything I knew about steam trains using 4005 to point out details.
That is a fascinating bit of history and a reminder of how fast things can go horribly wrong. I did read the article, and if/when I ever make it to Colorado the Forney museum just went on the list. RIP to the head end crew of 4005 that day. 🙏
We came pretty close to having a rollover derailment near me recently, caused by driver error, poor signal and junction design, and trains running out of timetable order. Video here: ua-cam.com/video/ic_UUCCrKmw/v-deo.html For all that we learn from mistakes, we continue to make similar mistakes the world over. I can't help thinking sometimes that maybe humans aren't clever enough, in aggregate, to be operating heavy machinery.
@@Hyce777 Yeah, seeing that video was definitely a sobering experience for me, it made me rethink how safe I really am when I ride the rails as a passenger, because clearly all of the possible (and probable) errors involved in rail operations haven't yet been learned. I'll still get on a train, but I'll definitely be a lot more cognizant of the fact that all it takes is one little human error, and the train I'm in could well be in the dirt.
We’re fine, as long as we put in sufficient safeguards. That sort of incident couldn’t happen in the US, because we implemented PTC. I know it’s a meme, but PTC would actually have prevented that.
The man who threw the switch, Ralph Vicenty, was a puertorican whobarley spoke english, so its not surprising he didn't know what was really going on until it was to late.
i went to the Forney museum a couple years ago with my brother, neither of us knew that there was a big boy there because it was a very spontaneous trip. it was really weird to see something so big inside a building just like you said, in fact it took a few seconds to even realize what it was.
I always thought this story was bs when a old head told me it when I was a child on 4005 . Over the years I've heard a couple versions of it .. Hope you make it threw a real usefully shoving platform weeks
The National Railroad Museum in Green Bay WI did just that for the Big Boy locomotive they have. They designed their main building around the Big Boy 4017 than built it around it. If they would ever have to move 4017, thay would have to demolish the back wall and lay new track just to move it.
There's a small 4005, something like 12 inch gauge, miniature in New Zealand. It was made in the UK. They had no idea out of all the big boy's they chose the one that wrecked and killed the crew when they numbered it. Really bad mojo not to memorialize the crew some how with their engine.
hey Hyce, i went to knotts berry farm recently and they have a galloping goose in there shed, they also have a Betsy out for display (its actully called old betsy too) but this gallopiong goose looked like it was more for passenger service
Great video today. One of the little things that makes me laugh in relation to the wreck is that it was a livestock train. The cleanup crew would be doing their thing, and every so often a pig would get up out of the dirt and run away squealing!
If you ever get out to the East Coast again, see if you can get a look at the airship hangars at Lakehurst. You think you've seen big buildings before, then you get up close and realize that the doors on these things are moved on railway tracks by their own little shunting engines!
It's a nightmare when the big boy comes off the rails because there's no other locomotive or Crain strong enough to bring her heavy carcus out of the ditch
Another great place to see a Big Boy safely sleeping in a building is the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay Wisconsin. If you are ever up near the frozen tundra it is quite the sight to see it there proudly next to another great behemoth, Pennsylvania Railroad #4890 a GG1. The two of them together is such a sight to see.
UP has a museum in Ogden Ut with a large shed that at one point held 4014 and 844 in preparation for the 150 anniversary of the wedding of the rails man that was a sight to see. There are a few other historic locomotives there like D&RGW 223, UP 833, SP 1297, UP 4436, and a few others like up 26 and sp 7457 (carried the Olympic cauldron) and some derricks
Have they ever tried using flare pistols? I imagine that'd work quite well. If you see a red flare over the track ahead, you stop, and send you brakeman ahead on foot to see what's going on and ascertain if it's safe to proceed. I kinda feel like that'dve been a better option here, as you don't have the delay waiting for someone to walk all the way out there, not sure how far they'd go out, but I guess something like a big boy at track speed is going to need a mile or more to stop, so that's quite the walk. The immediacy of the flare would avoid that temptation of flipping switches too for a quicker signal. I'd still say have someone walk out there too, cos obviously a flare only lasts so long. Here's another question actually, so, you send a guy out to flag down anything that's coming while the sheep cross. Potentially you're guy has just walked out a mile or more to ensure enough stopping room, so now lets say you're sheep are safely across and clear of the rails, the trains running late and hasn't been seen yet, how do you let your flagman know he can come back? You have to send another dude to walk out there and tell him to come back?
I've now seen 3 videos about this wreck. The 1st was probably over a year ago, so I don't remember the channel. And haven't seen anything fron that channel in quite a while. It was a computer simulation of the wreck. The details are obviously the same, but I didn't remember the mention of the heard of sheep being large.
Actually on this side of the pond we can kind of one-up this story 😅Luckily without the deaths! It's 26 april 2008 and we're in the mountain range of Landsrücken. Quite literally *in*, because we're in the ca. 10.8 kilometre long Landrücken tunnel, the longest tunnel in Germany (for now, the Femern Bælt/Fehmarnbelt tunnel between Germany and Denmark is under construction and will be several km longer). A herd of sheep was scared by some dogs and ran into the tunnel. ICE 885 from Hamburg to München/Munich collided with the animals. Turns out the combination of 210 km/h (luckily it was running relatively slow, top speed at the place is 250 and of this train class 280) on one side and two to three dozen sheep (the exact number was never determined, but they had to clear out about 3.7 metric tons of mince out of the tunnel afterwards …) are a little bit too much. The first axle derailed. While the driver was braking, they hit the wing rail (or whatever you call the rail next to the common crossing?) of a set of points at 174 km/h, which led to a way more extensive derailment and throwing nearly all of the train (the traction heads on both ends and the last 10 of in all 12 middle cars) out of the track. It took 31 second to stop the whole mess, electricity and thus lighting failed and luggage was flying everywhere. The driver and 21 passengers were heavily injured, four restaurant coach stewards and 13 passengers were lightly injured - out of in all 148 people on board, which in and of itself is a great testimony to how safe the railway is in even such a bad accident. The whole trainset 111 was temporarily dissolved, used for reserve and such until reconstruction could be finished after five years. Now it's back in action and still running at 280 km/h on a daily basis. Funny enough it seems, according to my notes, I've only driven it twice in all those years. At least since 1 january 2019, before that I've been writing it down on paper and not digitally and never had the nerve to digitalise that.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the story of the railway is the story of the decline of the work force. Going from a two-person crew per engine, to a one-man crew for multiple engines. Having a guy whose whole purpose on the crew is to either be dropped off or walk a few miles down the line to guard and stop trains, to now trains being remote stopped miles ahead of where they even need to be stopped just in case. Whole loading crews being replaced by a single forklift. Now we are entering the age of unmanned warehouses and attempting to automate the supply lines to those warehouses to make it completely unmanned. It's to the point of stupidity that workers think their time is worth $1,000 an hour for the most basic jobs, then refusing to do the "barbaric" work demanded of them when they do get paid what they think they are worth and are more than happy to have a robot do their job for them until they realize that they don't get paid anymore because they aren't doing the work themselves. Enter Mcdonald's workers wanting $15.00 an hour to flip burgers and then they start testing a completely automated Mcdonalds in California. Doing lazy work has gone from doing the work with as little effort as possible to just don't do the work period. We are so close to manhours being obsolete, and only needing a single person pushing buttons to run a whole production yard in the era where everything is becoming too expensive to live.
Lol about 10 years ago, the intercity in my country made a emergency stop and was on hold for almost 2 hours due to hitting a cow. This still happens in modern countries to this day sometimes haha. By the time we got to the station the nose was completely clean as if nothing had ever happened thanks to the fire department.
Hey Hyce, I have a question unrelated to the video but still choo choo related. Why do some locomotives have holes in the sides of their fireboxes. I've seen footage of both WM 1309 and SRC 89 with holes that go straight through the side sheets of the firebox. I would think that would cause damage due to the draft of cold air rushing in (as you've talked about.) Any idea what they're for?
I've always said that sheep are somehow so stupid and so smart at the same time. That mix makes them the most adorable menace to society there ever can be.
Howdy Hyce, I’ve been frantically searching the descriptions of your videos and using Shazam in order to find out what song you are using at the end of your videos. I heard it the other night in your RGS 20 steak video and I’m hooked.
@@Hyce777 I had no idea it was with Wings and Strings, that’s awesome. I’ve got some of his railroad art saved as my wallpaper. I appreciate the solid content y’all are putting out for us. Keep up the good work and have fun.
I'm not a railroader but, can you judge if a train is going too fast for a curve? If so, it would have been safer to let the train go through the main and not throw the switch. I have no idea what kind of training that guy had before being on the field. For 1 hr, 45 min on-site experience, I don't think is fair to put all the blame on him.
That guy who has thrown the switch just before speeding engine- he (or a guy who hires him) has invented ES&D before it was considered "cool". As well as one who train the monkey to do the job, or a guy who fired his revolver at workers sent to prepare coal for the engine... The list of honorary workers is long and still growing 😉
In 2008 there was an accident between an ICE and a heard of sheep. An ICE high speed train collided with a heard of sheep inside a tunnel. A dog must has scarred the sheep to hide inside the tunnel of the high speed line. The ICE collided with the (20 to 30) sheep at a speed of 230 kph (143 mph). The train derailed and damaged the tracks significantly. But only minor injuries occurred for all human involved in the accident. The sheep where not so lucky. The Wikipedia article states 3.7 metric tons of animal carcasses had to be disposed of.
It didn't blow up because the boiler on a big boy is made of steel that's 1 and 3/8 inches thick, so it takes a lot more external damage than "just" a derailment to break it. And it's oil-fired, so the fire basically stops as soon as the fuel supply stops, and so it wouldn't have an overheated-and-weakened crown sheet from running low on water after the wreck.
"Ok, so I throw over this lever to throw the switch?" "Yes" "ok, I'll do it!" "Don't do it!" *Rumble* -> It was at this moment that he knew - he fucked up! Would be kinda funny story if not 3 persons died in that accident, that makes it kinda sad :(
What if the computers get hacked? Then they'd have to go back to flagging trains down. The problem is we forget to do things manually because we have computers do everything.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
There’s a quote from when 4005 was brought back that gives me goosebumps every time I read it.
“Several days later I was back at work on the graveyard shift and the Dispatcher told us the engine from the derailment was being brought back in and was just at the west end of the yard getting ready to come past the little Dispatch office/passenger depot. We all stood outside and in the still of darkness, not yet visible, we could hear this groaning and wrenching of metal coming very slowly down the rails being brought in behind the wrecking train, it was the ‘Big Boy’ and it gave you a very eerie feeling as it became visible in the old lamps of the Dispatch office, slowly it came into view and if ever I thought I had seen a ghost this was it. I did not know a ‘Big Boy’ could die but there it was and how sad it was just limping along like an old gray horse with one leg broken. The cab was completely gone, only the gray color of the firebox was visible and some of the side rods were missing and it looked as if even the frame had been broken. It just lumbered by all us, standing there with our mouths open not believing what we were seeing, this once huge, big, beautiful thing that was once a living machine of giant steel. It disappeared into the darkness like it came, being dragged like a person to the grave, at the east end of the yard for temporary storage. I could almost see Fireman Endres waving to me as it went past.”
Just goosebumps... ugh. How horrifying.
After reading this I did get a slightly different feeling. This was a wounded Titan, something that few ever think they will see. But it was *not* dead. It was on the rails and rolling maybe not under its own power but it was on the rails and refused to die completely and require to be cut up and brought back in pieces.
That is a truly haunting description
If she had truly died she wouldn't be here today
I wonder how much of this catastrophe was due to mutual incomprehension between the new employee with minimal English and the foreman with no Spanish. The primary fault was with the foreman, who failed make sure his order was understood.
It’s amazing the amount of damage locomotives can suffer and still be returned to service. In the early 50’s a PRR GG-1 had a total brake failure approaching Union Station in Washington, crashed through the barrier at the end of the track, fell through the floor of the passenger concourse and wound up in a sub-basement. There was no access for a heavy lift crane so the loco was cut into four pieces before being dragged out. Incredibly, it was welded back together and was among the last GG-1’s in service until 1983.
The guy who threw the switch was from Puerto Rico and didn't speak English, so all of his testimony was through an interpreter. After he and his foreman engaged in several rounds of finger pointing at each other, Union Pacific just threw up their hands and fired both of them: the new guy for throwing the switch, and the foreman for letting him.
Under 2 hours on the job and three people die. So much power, so little time
Perfectly sound decision imho.
@@michaelmoses8745 Right? What could possibly go wrong?
The guy must have been a complete idiot, regardless of English or not!... he would have seen the train! Hope he had a long happy life! I'm just happy the train didn't hit him when it derailed... that would have been terrible!
I remember hearing about the 4005 story of the wreck a few years ago because of another UA-camr, I forgot it was sheep that caused the derailment in the first place. For her to wreck but also be saved that's amazing, Poor front brakeman though, being hit with steam for what may be 20-30 minutes and your only protection is your own hands.
Something to keep in mind, not trying to make things worse, but steam burns are different from like fire or electric burns. Just about every other burn type there is, everything gets burnt and crisped; which sucks and isn't good. But steam burns are unique in that it essentially (for a severe lack of a better term) cooks the flesh while the nerves stay intact through the entirety of the event. Most other burns you end up losing those nerves as they're burnt away. Steam burns, they stay and you unfortunately end up feeling everything from the pain of the deformed flesh to the impossible coldness from the extreme temperature difference. It's not an ideal way to ever go and it's, in some cases, even worse if you survive through it.
There's an account of a guy in New York City who fell into a manhole where they were draining a boiler up the ways into that line and he basically boiled to death. It was horrible because it took around 4-6 hours before the water the guy was in (which was up to his waist) could cool down enough to be approachable by emergency services, the guy was alive through the entire thing, was "rescued" out, but was basically too far beyond saving at that point, and it was in a NYC sewer, so who knows what kind of infectious grime was sitting down there. It was Sean Doyle in 2002. So steam is powerful, but also quite the hazard.
@@steeljawXnow that’s an effort post! 👍🏻
There's a little motivational moment in here for all of us: We may fuck up sometimes, but we're unlikely to ever have a worse first day at work than that section hand.
Now, depending on the simulation and who's playing it, that's either a smear of shame you can never get rid of or an accomplishment. Kind of looking at Hyce, Spiffing Brit, and Let's Game it Out on that one though.
big boy bit the ballast pretty hard there, another interesting fact about 4005: she was oil fired for a season due to miner strikes to test the plausibility of converting big boys to oil, she was converted back the next year
It's weird there are channels dedicated to air accidents and ocean accidents, but I've yet to find one about railway accidents. I think these videos are so interesting.
You should check Plainly Difficult. He covers many kinds of accidents, including pretty decent videos on train accidents.
@@paveloleynikov4715 thanks, might check em out
Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions has a decently sized playlist of his own works at ua-cam.com/play/PLULsURa0yS0B0MA9cHYR2eBdQNeddVloH.html
Something so small can do something so big.
I like how Chis Eden-Green put it in the SLIPs chapter regarding the Big Boys: “Seeing the 4005 on its side must have been the same as seeing a blue whale washed up on a beach.”
I think I heard somewhere that Mr. 80 Minutes on the Job was also not just from Puerto Rico, but had both arrived in the country within a week before he threw that switch and did not speak one bit of English. His understanding from the pointing and rambling he couldn’t understand from the supervisor who threw it twice to teach him was that throwing that switch would somehow magically make the train stop between one tie and the next… and seeing the disaster he caused, he of course denied doing it… guilt does things to a person, and it’s never pretty.
Hey, Hyce? You should make another video about the journey of the 4005 to the museum… the many, many fields, roads, and strips of red tape and all makes an epic tale to rival The Lord of the Rings itself, but is a true story!
If you look closely on the conductor’s side of the boiler you can still see damage on the upper side. It’s pretty incredible
In 2008, a german ICE derailed near Fulda when he ran into a herd of sheep that were chased into a rail-tunnel by a pack of wolves. The Deutsche Bahn later created a 3D simulation to calculate how many sheep it takes to derail a ICE. You should look at the "Untersuchungsbericht" for this and translate it. It's quite an interesting read.
Remember kids first the sheep got the RGS now they’ve gotten the Union Pacific
So the sheep are dangerous, I knew it all along.
In famous brett words "The SHEEP!"
SHEEEP!
*SHEEEEEEP*
dangit! I was just in Denver!
I just missed the Forney museum's open days too..
next time, for sure
Yes, next time, friend. :)
Hey Mark, just wanted to thank you for all the content, as a class one conductor and railfan, it's enjoyable seeing the otherside of the rail industry, and it makes me want to someday go to work in the tourism side. Also, if you're interested in unique railroad stories from history, I'd suggest looking into the 1972 Cass Shop fire.
That article really is a look back to how things were done differently than today. (On the lighter side, An hour and 20 mins sounds about right for the career length of an SD&S MoW crewman as a whole. Or the experience needed to be an ES&DT track foreman. 😂)
You're not wrong....
That 4005 has been through a lot including the failed oil conversion from coal. That was the locomotive my father (Tom Miller) modeled in 1.6" live steam. Recently it was sold to a gentleman in New Zealand where it now lives. The number 4005 will always have a special place in my heart.
Love your content, very good, fun and accurate information. Keep up the good work!
Brian Miller
Sherwood, OR
That was absolutely horrific to hear, just the thought about the high pressure steaming of the crew gives me the shivers.
I haven't been around steam engines, but I've been around industrial, offshore and refinery equipment, so I have some ideas about the physics involved.
Hyce is such an amazing orator, storyteller and educator with such a great knowledge base to "dumb down" the stories to their core details without making it a stale recital of details, but make it come to life and anchor it in his audience's reality with gripping effects.
Hyce has some sort of railroad history midas touch, elevating history out of the shadows and putting the necessary spotlight on the relevant details.
In those cases his knowledge falls just too short, he has an mind boggling array of specialists and like minded individuals that fills in the gaps with unbelievable levels of details.
Anything you make Hyce is so intriguing to learn about, masterclass in interesting history delivery!
I saw a clip about a police officer who placed the patrol car on a unsecured railway crossing during an arrest, put the arrested in the car and then the train came...
The locomotive plowed the car off the track, the arrested was seriously injured but survived, the police officer was charged and got community service for the wrongdoing.
Have you seen that Hyce, are there anything you would discuss there and is there any chance for a video on it?
Please more of everything you do, everything is great content and a surefire source of knowledge I hadn't been aware of without your work.
I can truly agree with your comment at 8:35 having seen the Southern Pacific 4294, another huge engine.
Thunderbolt 1000 has a pretty good animated video of this event. As with all things there is no one thing that caused the accident, and no one thing that would have prevented it. But the culture of safety we have now is much different and much appreciated
Yeah have seen that video
what part is animated
Well done Hyce! So glad you got to see Forney, it’s such a cool museum. I absolutely love volunteering there
😢 I can hear the emotion in his voice, I can tell that this is your passion. Keep up the good work, I love your content.
Defintly a story in had not heard before and it's definitely a sad one given how preventable it was. Rest in Peace to the crew of the 4005.
You mentioned seeing the 4005 in a building is a site to be hold like how can they make the building that big. Well we have our equivalent in Minnesota, up in Duluth at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum they have one of 3 remaining DMIR Yellowstones inside the building. It's also elevated slightly and has its drivers spun my a motor every few minutes with sounds and a documentary playing about the engines. Absolutely stunning to see inside and it just feels so surreal to see.
It's very much on my list to come see that thing.
@@Hyce777 Oh please do a video on that if you do It would make my day. I love going up there and have even been on the NARCOA speeder run up to the museum and it's always a fun time when I go.
I visited the Forney Museum during my trip over for NNGC, the Sunday after everything else wrapped up. My reaction to seeing a Big Boy was pretty much exactly as you described it! And that's saying something, because I don't think even the SP's Cab Forward in Sacramento elicited that from me. You can still see quite a bit of damage on the sides of the engine if you know where to look.
My uncle, dad, and I, went to the Forney museum just last month thinking it was just for cars. Walking into the showroom and seeing 4005 sitting on the far side was the best part of my day. I spent an hour telling them everything I knew about steam trains using 4005 to point out details.
That is a fascinating bit of history and a reminder of how fast things can go horribly wrong. I did read the article, and if/when I ever make it to Colorado the Forney museum just went on the list.
RIP to the head end crew of 4005 that day. 🙏
We came pretty close to having a rollover derailment near me recently, caused by driver error, poor signal and junction design, and trains running out of timetable order. Video here: ua-cam.com/video/ic_UUCCrKmw/v-deo.html For all that we learn from mistakes, we continue to make similar mistakes the world over. I can't help thinking sometimes that maybe humans aren't clever enough, in aggregate, to be operating heavy machinery.
Oh wow... yikes.
@@Hyce777 Yeah, seeing that video was definitely a sobering experience for me, it made me rethink how safe I really am when I ride the rails as a passenger, because clearly all of the possible (and probable) errors involved in rail operations haven't yet been learned. I'll still get on a train, but I'll definitely be a lot more cognizant of the fact that all it takes is one little human error, and the train I'm in could well be in the dirt.
We’re fine, as long as we put in sufficient safeguards. That sort of incident couldn’t happen in the US, because we implemented PTC. I know it’s a meme, but PTC would actually have prevented that.
A driver?! If he didn't have a steering wheel he wouldn't have swerved!
The man who threw the switch, Ralph Vicenty, was a puertorican whobarley spoke english, so its not surprising he didn't know what was really going on until it was to late.
i went to the Forney museum a couple years ago with my brother, neither of us knew that there was a big boy there because it was a very spontaneous trip. it was really weird to see something so big inside a building just like you said, in fact it took a few seconds to even realize what it was.
I always thought this story was bs when a old head told me it when I was a child on 4005 . Over the years I've heard a couple versions of it ..
Hope you make it threw a real usefully shoving platform weeks
The National Railroad Museum in Green Bay WI did just that for the Big Boy locomotive they have. They designed their main building around the Big Boy 4017 than built it around it. If they would ever have to move 4017, thay would have to demolish the back wall and lay new track just to move it.
Same concept (build around the exhibit) for the Air & Space Museum in McMinnville, OR, that houses the Spruce Goose. It is the "Big Boy" of aviation.
There's a lot of other neat railroad stuff at Forney as well. I live in Cheyenne and make a visit to the meusem regularly.
There's a small 4005, something like 12 inch gauge, miniature in New Zealand. It was made in the UK. They had no idea out of all the big boy's they chose the one that wrecked and killed the crew when they numbered it. Really bad mojo not to memorialize the crew some how with their engine.
Heck of a first day on the job.
Yay Rare Wyoming shout out!!! Thanks Hyce
During the clean up some pigs that were on the train being hauled by the big boy would wake up and run off screaming
If you're not in Denver, but happen to be near Green Bay, WI, we have a Big Boy also stored inside a building.
It’s weird hearing a big boi video not about 4014 these days. I like it.
There’s a museum out here in Texas that owns a Big Boy (UP 4018), and they plan to build a building to house it, as well as Centennial 6913
Who wins
Big ass 550 kg Tube of steel which produces 130k lbf at a max speed of 80 mph
One soft boi
Boilers aren't made of cast iron. They're made of steel.
@@ferky123that is definetly what i wrote and didnt edit in
@@ferky123 Except for the Darjeeling Himalayan B class 778, who has a forged iron boiler. The more you know!
hey Hyce, i went to knotts berry farm recently and they have a galloping goose in there shed, they also have a Betsy out for display (its actully called old betsy too) but this gallopiong goose looked like it was more for passenger service
Great video today. One of the little things that makes me laugh in relation to the wreck is that it was a livestock train. The cleanup crew would be doing their thing, and every so often a pig would get up out of the dirt and run away squealing!
It's also neat to see an Allegheny in a building.
If you ever get out to the East Coast again, see if you can get a look at the airship hangars at Lakehurst. You think you've seen big buildings before, then you get up close and realize that the doors on these things are moved on railway tracks by their own little shunting engines!
It's a nightmare when the big boy comes off the rails because there's no other locomotive or Crain strong enough to bring her heavy carcus out of the ditch
I love the way you present things
As a steam Locomotive engineer whose wife has a flock of sheep, i find this video most entertaining.
My favorite quote was the guy that survived as he was getting cut out of the cab he asked for a cigarette and a glass of water
SHEEP
SHEEP!!
Another great place to see a Big Boy safely sleeping in a building is the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay Wisconsin. If you are ever up near the frozen tundra it is quite the sight to see it there proudly next to another great behemoth, Pennsylvania Railroad #4890 a GG1. The two of them together is such a sight to see.
UP has a museum in Ogden Ut with a large shed that at one point held 4014 and 844 in preparation for the 150 anniversary of the wedding of the rails man that was a sight to see. There are a few other historic locomotives there like D&RGW 223, UP 833, SP 1297, UP 4436, and a few others like up 26 and sp 7457 (carried the Olympic cauldron) and some derricks
Have they ever tried using flare pistols? I imagine that'd work quite well. If you see a red flare over the track ahead, you stop, and send you brakeman ahead on foot to see what's going on and ascertain if it's safe to proceed. I kinda feel like that'dve been a better option here, as you don't have the delay waiting for someone to walk all the way out there, not sure how far they'd go out, but I guess something like a big boy at track speed is going to need a mile or more to stop, so that's quite the walk. The immediacy of the flare would avoid that temptation of flipping switches too for a quicker signal. I'd still say have someone walk out there too, cos obviously a flare only lasts so long.
Here's another question actually, so, you send a guy out to flag down anything that's coming while the sheep cross. Potentially you're guy has just walked out a mile or more to ensure enough stopping room, so now lets say you're sheep are safely across and clear of the rails, the trains running late and hasn't been seen yet, how do you let your flagman know he can come back? You have to send another dude to walk out there and tell him to come back?
Ive never seen a Big Boy in person, but I've seen the Baldwin 60000 in person and that easily has two stories of space where its at
The building that the for museum is at is owned by Pacific Railroad. It’s on their current yard in Denver.
UP Bigboy 4005 has a history for sure, it's amazing how she still is around.
Luvs it Hyce! Keep em coming.
One switch, and it derailed a big boy.
Hey Mark do you want to hear a story about sheep?
I don't think we want to hear it, John.
@@Hyce777 Well now I do!
I've now seen 3 videos about this wreck. The 1st was probably over a year ago, so I don't remember the channel. And haven't seen anything fron that channel in quite a while. It was a computer simulation of the wreck. The details are obviously the same, but I didn't remember the mention of the heard of sheep being large.
Actually on this side of the pond we can kind of one-up this story 😅Luckily without the deaths!
It's 26 april 2008 and we're in the mountain range of Landsrücken. Quite literally *in*, because we're in the ca. 10.8 kilometre long Landrücken tunnel, the longest tunnel in Germany (for now, the Femern Bælt/Fehmarnbelt tunnel between Germany and Denmark is under construction and will be several km longer). A herd of sheep was scared by some dogs and ran into the tunnel. ICE 885 from Hamburg to München/Munich collided with the animals. Turns out the combination of 210 km/h (luckily it was running relatively slow, top speed at the place is 250 and of this train class 280) on one side and two to three dozen sheep (the exact number was never determined, but they had to clear out about 3.7 metric tons of mince out of the tunnel afterwards …) are a little bit too much. The first axle derailed. While the driver was braking, they hit the wing rail (or whatever you call the rail next to the common crossing?) of a set of points at 174 km/h, which led to a way more extensive derailment and throwing nearly all of the train (the traction heads on both ends and the last 10 of in all 12 middle cars) out of the track. It took 31 second to stop the whole mess, electricity and thus lighting failed and luggage was flying everywhere. The driver and 21 passengers were heavily injured, four restaurant coach stewards and 13 passengers were lightly injured - out of in all 148 people on board, which in and of itself is a great testimony to how safe the railway is in even such a bad accident. The whole trainset 111 was temporarily dissolved, used for reserve and such until reconstruction could be finished after five years. Now it's back in action and still running at 280 km/h on a daily basis. Funny enough it seems, according to my notes, I've only driven it twice in all those years. At least since 1 january 2019, before that I've been writing it down on paper and not digitally and never had the nerve to digitalise that.
Holy crap. That's horrendous. Glad no one died.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the story of the railway is the story of the decline of the work force.
Going from a two-person crew per engine, to a one-man crew for multiple engines. Having a guy whose whole purpose on the crew is to either be dropped off or walk a few miles down the line to guard and stop trains, to now trains being remote stopped miles ahead of where they even need to be stopped just in case. Whole loading crews being replaced by a single forklift. Now we are entering the age of unmanned warehouses and attempting to automate the supply lines to those warehouses to make it completely unmanned.
It's to the point of stupidity that workers think their time is worth $1,000 an hour for the most basic jobs, then refusing to do the "barbaric" work demanded of them when they do get paid what they think they are worth and are more than happy to have a robot do their job for them until they realize that they don't get paid anymore because they aren't doing the work themselves. Enter Mcdonald's workers wanting $15.00 an hour to flip burgers and then they start testing a completely automated Mcdonalds in California.
Doing lazy work has gone from doing the work with as little effort as possible to just don't do the work period. We are so close to manhours being obsolete, and only needing a single person pushing buttons to run a whole production yard in the era where everything is becoming too expensive to live.
Hour and 20 minutes on the job and you already killed three people, god damnit Ron!
Lol about 10 years ago, the intercity in my country made a emergency stop and was on hold for almost 2 hours due to hitting a cow. This still happens in modern countries to this day sometimes haha. By the time we got to the station the nose was completely clean as if nothing had ever happened thanks to the fire department.
I want to se the bigboy to but i life in de nedelands sadly :c
Those darn prairie maggots.
Hey Hyce, I have a question unrelated to the video but still choo choo related. Why do some locomotives have holes in the sides of their fireboxes. I've seen footage of both WM 1309 and SRC 89 with holes that go straight through the side sheets of the firebox. I would think that would cause damage due to the draft of cold air rushing in (as you've talked about.) Any idea what they're for?
I certainly never heard about the wreck until now - very interesting and very sad.
I've always said that sheep are somehow so stupid and so smart at the same time. That mix makes them the most adorable menace to society there ever can be.
Howdy Hyce, I’ve been frantically searching the descriptions of your videos and using Shazam in order to find out what song you are using at the end of your videos. I heard it the other night in your RGS 20 steak video and I’m hooked.
Hey mate! It's an original of mine and my buddy Wings & Strings. It's called "end of the line". You can listen to it on my 2nd channel, "Hyce Studio".
@@Hyce777 I had no idea it was with Wings and Strings, that’s awesome. I’ve got some of his railroad art saved as my wallpaper. I appreciate the solid content y’all are putting out for us. Keep up the good work and have fun.
Reading the title, I was thinking sheep was a nickname of a friend who derailed a Big Boy, not the 4005 derailment.
Thanks Mark, cheers.
"-hey honey how has ur first day of work been?
*sips some coffee*
10:32 Mum look!, I'm in a Hyce video!
The Forney Museum also has D&RGW diner car “Pikes Peak” along with a D&RGW GP30 that I forget the number of, they’ve got some cooooool shit in there
3006 iirc. For sure, super rad museum.
As Brett once said, “SHEEP!”
I'm surprised the conductor didn't try and kill the section hand after he ran up from the back and found what had happened
I'm not a railroader but, can you judge if a train is going too fast for a curve? If so, it would have been safer to let the train go through the main and not throw the switch. I have no idea what kind of training that guy had before being on the field. For 1 hr, 45 min on-site experience, I don't think is fair to put all the blame on him.
The only big boy I've ever seen is the one at the Sacramento railway museum. It's a cab forward. No picture will prepare you for how large they are
Always such informative videos. 🐱
That guy who has thrown the switch just before speeding engine- he (or a guy who hires him) has invented ES&D before it was considered "cool". As well as one who train the monkey to do the job, or a guy who fired his revolver at workers sent to prepare coal for the engine... The list of honorary workers is long and still growing 😉
That darn sheep!
May the crew of 4005's wreck that day rest in peace.
whats the outro music
Mark we are going to CO next year
Sigma sheep
Lucky no one was hurt but poor big boy
In 2008 there was an accident between an ICE and a heard of sheep. An ICE high speed train collided with a heard of sheep inside a tunnel.
A dog must has scarred the sheep to hide inside the tunnel of the high speed line.
The ICE collided with the (20 to 30) sheep at a speed of 230 kph (143 mph). The train derailed and damaged the tracks significantly. But only minor injuries occurred for all human involved in the accident. The sheep where not so lucky. The Wikipedia article states 3.7 metric tons of animal carcasses had to be disposed of.
The problem here is the Big Boy was equipped with a cowcatcher and not a sheepcatcher. You gotta have the tools for the job.
Switchman was responsible
Hey hyce I have two questions first question is how did the big boy not blow up and the second question is does the 4005 still run
Only on of the Big Boy's is operational, 4014, after being restored by UP as part of their heritage fleet.
It didn't blow up because the boiler on a big boy is made of steel that's 1 and 3/8 inches thick, so it takes a lot more external damage than "just" a derailment to break it. And it's oil-fired, so the fire basically stops as soon as the fuel supply stops, and so it wouldn't have an overheated-and-weakened crown sheet from running low on water after the wreck.
I bet he felt guilty till the day he died
ooo, so thats the origin of that derailed big boy image.
You could see the dent in the side still
"Ok, so I throw over this lever to throw the switch?"
"Yes"
"ok, I'll do it!"
"Don't do it!"
*Rumble*
-> It was at this moment that he knew - he fucked up!
Would be kinda funny story if not 3 persons died in that accident, that makes it kinda sad :(
What if the computers get hacked? Then they'd have to go back to flagging trains down. The problem is we forget to do things manually because we have computers do everything.
That's a pretty baaaaaaaaad accident over a flock of sheep! And, yes, this is a baaaaaaaad joke.
"a foreman and his four men"
This is why you need a cow catcher
His first hour-or-so.
*First.*
*Hour-or-so.*
No pa really i was just trying to push that sheep through the fence
Im confused, how can a sheep do that when it was a track crew man that forgot to set the switch