I know that other countries HAVE bus shelters, but I think the key insight the consultants should have gotten from their vacation is that bus shelters are a lot less important when transit vehicles come every 5 minutes instead of every 45 minutes.
@@basedeltazero714 I find it hilarious how we are "mystified" by black magic technology of things like bus stops or rails. MFers in power will rather rediscover rail and rail electrification from first principles than actually just build rail and pass laws banning extremely stupid truck routes
Best we can do is widen the highway by three more lanes and then scratch our heads in amazement as traffic into and out of the city gets astronomically worse. Also we removed every bus shelter in the city because we found one in a rough neighborhood that had a possibly homeless person (We don't know, we didn't actually _speak_ to him, what are you crazy?) that also had some vaguely threatening looking graffiti on it.
@@GoredonTheDestroyer what you have to understand is that they interpret a bunch of effects of people using the bus shelters as negatives. Like, homeless people resting there, people drawing on them or graffitiing are just *what happens when they are used* Therefore they have cleverly eliminated these negative effects by creating a bus shelter that can’t be used at all!
This is an exercise in civic branding, like a displaced plantation using some affect of the wrong african culture to sound cutesy. The fact that ~anything~ got built in its wake is a wonder in itself.
so funnily enough I know a guy who worked with the crew that went and stopped 8888 and apparently when dispatch got them in the clear the called and basically asked "hey, you can say no and it will be perfectly fine. BUT, if you can go after this train that's going to pass you in a bit we will let you break every rule in our rule book with 0 cosequence just stop the train"
The control stand on CSX 8888 was a bit different than the control stand picture Rocz had. Instead of separate DB and throttle handles like the picture, 8888 had an older version with one big power controller handle and a smaller selector switch to decide whether the big handle would be throttle or dynamics. As you can imagine it was set for throttle, and the engineer thought it was in DB. This confusion was not helped by the fact that when older EMDs go into DB the engine automatically revs up to the equivalent of notch 4, and between the revving engine and the howling grid fans this means that going into DB sounds very similar to throttling up.
@@Loanshark753 That's a reasonable control scheme, fairly similar to the combined throttle and automatic brake commonly seen on modern passenger trains. Really most anything's better than having a switch that makes the throttle act like a DB.
@@Caparo479 that and/or an episode on danger/hazard signage and communication. 11 foot 8 has everything short of a laser turret that shines "don't do it dumbass" into your retinas, and people still hit it constantly. There is definitely an art to effectively communicating hazards universally, a lot of failures and systemic negligence, and a lot of really funny signs about lube oils. Also, it's apropos of @DoNotEat It seems really silly and lame, but as a tradesperson, it's insane how much our lives hang on LOTO tags and shitty plastic caution tape.
@@BravoCharleses But a 4 hour episode would usually be a two-parter. I think the sweet spot between good content and WTYP host's irreversible brain damage is somewhere in the 3-3:30 hour range. That's where the delirium usually sets in.
"Cooper, what are you doing?" "Docking" -- Interstellar theme intensifies We desperately need this seen animated with Gareth piloting the train as Alice is blasting "No Time for Caution"
Fun fact about the number 8 is that in certain East Asian cultures, the number 8 is an auspicious number tied to wealth and prosperity, and people will pay a LOT of money for vanity plates that have as many 8s in them as possible.
I worked for a Massachusetts company which did manufacturing in China. When we moved to a new office park, we got the city to renumber our main building's street address to '8' for this very reason.
@@sakomeow People do it in America for exactly that reason. Usually, they do three or four 8s, so it doesn't get confused with the Nazi thing. But it's always a good idea to interrogate it when you see it.
I'm not too proud to admit that I let out a small whoop of joy when I saw they were doing this one. And it's with everybody's favourite Guest Replacement Rail Service, too!
1:34:34 that isn't true Alice. In episode 21: 1953 Federal Express Wreck, on of my personal favorites, we learned that a train station can stop a runaway train. That episode was also slapstick and Gareth.
This story reminds me of story in Poland with a lot more at stakes there as it was with 2 passanger trains near swinna (also known as jelesnia runaway) the new composite brake type started failing in the cold and the passanger EMU was left without breaks going single track line for passing with another train from the other direction. The problem was that the trap siding on this station was at this speed dangerously close to the river so the dispatcher ordered the train from other direction to change cabin and run back while giving the train without brakes through station run. The conductor in the working train was in the now back cabin giving instruction on how far away the runaway was and once he shouted 50m over the radio he himself left the cabin and the trains colided at 70/90kph as driver applied brakes. Despite there being passanger in both trains nobody received any major injuries Crews of both trains and the dispatcher later received medals of courage from the president
I'll admit that I like the movie "Unstoppable" (even when the impossible physics on the s curve...) which the movie used the Crazy Eights incident as inspiration for the movie. So good to see this finally being covered.
I watched that movie last week, thought it was a fun but stupid flick, and didn't know it was based on a real thing, and only sometime around the mention of "Train D.A.R.E." did I realize there were just a few too many common details
Today, we have a different kind of "Engineering" disaster. Glad to see Gareth back, he's probably my fav guest (Riley and the Trillbillies are close seconds)
*"WILL! HIT THAT INDEPENDENT! HIT THAT INDEPENDENT AS HARD AS YOU CAN!"* _(This was all i could think about when they were talking about locomotive braking)_ Thank God WTYP created this episode. It unfortunately will only rank in second place for documentaries on the Crazy Eights incident. First place will always be the Documentary featuring Denzel Washington, "Unstoppable", which EXACTLY recreated the incident and told a story of true heroism. _/s plz don't kill me tren guys!_
@@jrmurph that's a perfect way to put it. Amazing in so many ways, ridiculous in others. But a good watch nonetheless imo. But TBF if I'm watching anything that involves nuclear physics or nuclear weapons, I get bothered extremely by the bad science cause of my former job in the military. But that's partly because I hate the misinformation about nuclear energy and sometimes movies and TV shows will do things like insinuate nuclear reactors will detonate like atomic weapons (totally not true), and other stuff like that. Just a pet peeve of mine. I'm sure train guys think the same thing about Unstoppable.
12:18 good thing someone mentioned the HVAC units, since they have been instrumental in a few building collapses before, like the New World Hotel in Singapore in 1986 and Sampoong Department Store in Seoul in 1995 (WTYP Ep. 2)
Can confirm that the SD40-2 is the everyman's locomotive. Super reliable and very easy to run, they respond to the throttle very quickly which makes them great for switching. And there's no sound quite like a turbocharged two-stroke EMD 645, when running at high speed under heavy load with the turbo off the clutch that signature scream drowns out everything else, they sound like a bass-boosted jet engine.
SD45's are even louder. In 1994, I watched two Wisconsin Central 7400's get the green board north on the Illinois Central at 52nd St. in Hyde Park, Chicago. They had been stopped at a red board, but in one SD45 length, the engineer ran them up to Notch 8, two notches at a time, and when they passed the parking lot of the Hyde Park Bank, which is across Hyde Park Boulevard from the IC, they set off dozens of car alarms. I was on the sidewalk on the other side of the lot, right next to the cars, and I could barely hear them over the SD45's. Any turbo EMD is cool, though. Ever hear a GP20 switching? They sound like a Rolls-Royce DC-10 engine and a vacuum cleaner had a kid, and that kid is NOT happy to be there. And holy shit are they ever loud in the cab.
Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro 0:03:47 The GD News: Painting Brick Bad, Landlord Worse 0:25:03 The GD News: Ten Thousand Dollar Stick [Woke] 0:37:41 Context: Flat Switching 0:47:48 Context: The SD40-2 0:54:44 Context: The Dynamic Brake 0:59:40 May 15th 2001 1:08:29 Routing and Attempts 1+2 to Stop The Train 1:16:13 Attempt 3: The Police Get Involved 1:21:50 Attempt 4: Molten Phenol Doesn't Mix With Washing Machines 1:24:44 Attempt 5: Only Option Extremely Cool 1:30:13 The Consequences 1:35:39 Safety Third: The Day Our Correspondent Punched a Pigeon in Zurich
ROFL I literally just hit 'send' on my comment with timestamps because I hadn't seen these yet. Thanks once again! These are much more useful than the ones I do myself. :D
@@Xanthe_Cat I decided not to timestamp highlights, partically so I'm not incentivising 'skipping to the good bit' when the whole podcast is the good bit, and partially because if I timestamped every time Devon did great work I'd run out of space. That was a good one though.
I'm sure there will be plenty for a long one. There are people who are looking into the slumlord and all of his properties and shady dealings. There is a town hall meeting tomorrow that will be overflowing out to the parking lot. Citizens want city officials fired and held accountable. Families have already hired a firm from Chicago. Heads are going to roll with the way this has been handled. The last body (that they know of) was found at 2:30 am today. There are rumors that homeless people would sneak into the basement so I hope no one was down there when it collapsed. I drove by that place on my way to work for close to 24 years and didn't really pay much attention to it.
Its always good hearing Gareth back to the podcast! Here is 2 FUN FACTS about the SD40-2: Fact 1 - The only American loading gauge, hood unit type SD40-2s built in Europe were an order for Rede Ferroviária Federal SA (RFFSA) of Brazil in between 1979 and 1980 under license by Material y Construcciones SA (MACOSA) of Valencia, Spain Fact 2 - The last SD40-2 ever built in the world left the factory in October 1989, it was unit number 429 built by Equipamentos Villares SA of Brazil for Estrada de Ferro Carajás a part of CVRD, now Vale EFCs SD40-2s are in a league of their own as they have to cross the Amazon rainforest dragging long iron ore trains, for that they had extended range dynamic breaks, SD50 style radar track slip control and to deal with the humidity and heat two electrical cabinets filter boxes, one of the SD40-2 type and a larger one of the SD50/SD60 type to prevent moisture
Devon is the interlocking brake of the podcast desperately and nobly hopelessly fighting the wild madness of Liam and Alice’s full open throttle antics. (Roz is the forward/brake toggle that got left on standby on accident)
Just as long as it stays at "almost." It would honestly not be WTYP without someone fixing their levels, knocking something over, getting interrupted by the Greek Orthodox Church, or being left to helm the podcast alone during a bathroom break at least once an episode.
In the winter of 2010, my brother and I were watching the film based on this incident when a snowstorm collapsed several trees into high voltage lines, causing a power surge that fried everything in our entertainment center and exploded several light fixtures.
The combo of control positions that set off this whole thing really feels like the sort of trick speed runners use to run when a game tries to make you walk for a cinematic moment.
I am sure it has already been said but. Walbridge yard affectionately known as "Wally World" was a Chesapeake and Ohio yard. It was formerly a hump yard, to my knowledge Stanley Yard has never been a hump yard and has always been flat switched. And of coarse CSX has been trying to close one or the other yard for years. Even tried to build a connecting track on the South end that the NIMBY's promptly stopped.
(re the building collapse at the beginning) I think the real winners here are the engineering ethics and structural engineering books that just got an excellent new example for their next editions on what NOT to do
All I can imagine is a cop driving up next to the train while his partner takes potshots at it with a .50 caliber Barrett rifle they "borrowed" from a local gun store.
What's funny about freight poling is it was so ingrained into the culture that even in the slide at 36:45, you can see the poling pockets on that steam locomotive! They legit built the locomotives to do it.
An episode about the Camp fire in California or Ft McMurray would be interesting. Can spend a lot of time talking about what a disaster it's been to build in the wild land-urban interface
43:00 I was in a conductor training prgram years ago, and was taught some of these techniques. I got on and off moving equipment (trailing foot first for both getting on and off), and also rode a car that had been cut off in-motion (read: lightly kicked) and used handbrakes to stop it in the right place. Very fun
There have been so many Crazy 8 videos on UA-cam by foamers it's gotten a little tiresome. But even though this has just been posted, I declare this the definitive account. Just like how their episode on the Hilton Skyway collapse is the best account of that disaster. I dont make the rules.
When rocz said the building collapse in Davenport was in full view of the city hall, I didn’t expect him to mean that the streetview angle is from the front steps of city hall
Gareth - the three MU air hoses (main reservoir, actuating/bail off, and independent), trainline brake pipe, and 27-pin jumper cable are the standard modern connections between North American locomotives. The three MU hoses are the same on each side, only one side has to be coupled up in order for everything to work. In Britain you would probably call this the AAR system to distinguish it from all the other funky systems you guys have.
Alices whole 3d printed derailer joke feels like a joke specifically for me. Because I make derailers and the first thing they told me was derailers don't actually work. (I didn't realize it was going to be such a focus later on in the episode.)
To clarify they said anything over 20mph is basically Unstoppable (yes pun intended) and we can't make them harder because part of my job is to put a notch into them with a hammer.
Portable derails don't really work, that was the one part of this that 'Unstoppable' got right. 3D printed derails would be even less effective. Real, fixed derails absolutely do work but they are only as good as the ties they are mounted on, and the faster you go the more likely it will be for the train to knock the derail off or simply jump over the derail and land back on the rail again. The wedge derails are designed to protect against slow free-rolling cars, not an entire train at speed.
Because corpo media doesn't care and will not report the failures of the system unless it's either something they can spin into a political agenda or it's so big that it's going to be a national headline anyways
@@redblueandgray East Palestine wreck. WTYP covered it when it was local news, several days before national media started considering it a real health issue
Alice - if you think rotary dumping is neat, look up some old videos of unloading grain from boxcars (yes, we used to ship bulk stuff like grain and coal in regular old boxcars). The unloading machine would shake the car back and forth and tip it around a bunch of times, but they could never get all of it out that way so some guys with shovels would always have to finish the job.
I'm not even through The God Damn News yet and I have to say this with my whole chest: Liam's Shining Path joke was an all-timer and shame on the other hosts for missing it
As of 10 am on June 2nd, there's still 3 people unaccounted for. They're still finding animals alive inside the building too. They've recently started going through the rubble where they expect to find the missing people.
An important distinction is that the controller type on the 8888 was not the same type pictured in the slide. 8888 had an older control stand where the controller module has one lever for both power and dynamic. The mode is changed via a selector switch.
@@PanAndScanBuddy I once had a less-serious strain called Short Story Coronavirus. But what's even worse, is Poem Coronavirus. For ten days, you talk shit that makes absolutely no sense, unless you have the rare Haiku Strain. That can be cool.
59:00 This is something that Train Simulator got wrong (shocking, right?). The 10-second wait is actually in Idle to ensure the current in the motors has dissipated so the dynamics don't cause a sudden surge in braking. The actual Setup phase only takes a couple seconds. At least, that's the case on similar EMD models from this era, so the manuals say
On the control stand slide: that horn valve can be quilled. It's not as easy to do as on the older locomotives, but it can be done. The mystery button at the bottom is actually a pull knob to activate the bell. Also, at Idle, if you pull out the throttle lever and move it past the stop, it shuts down the engine.
A train episode under 2 hours?! What an accomplishment, although it is one that I think the community would not miss if it weren't here lmao. Love hearing yall be on trainchad activity
Gotta love when my local news makes it into my favorite engineering disaster podcast. Lots of places around here are dilapidated like that building in Davenport. This is the Rust Belt and no one cares about us, even us.
1:19:37 the light on the rear window is the alley light designed to shine perpendicular to the vehicle in a fixed position and operated by a switch while the forward light is the standard movable spot.
The lesson from the safety third is something the health and safety guy I work with always says and is always ignored. Always check your escape routes.
This show is so damn good. Just can't say it enough. Also, the improvement on sound quality. Dammit, I just convinced my poor arse to become a patron. Fine. Keep up the good work. Patreon goal : Safety Third marathon show?
If I remember correctly from Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions, 8888 was kept on CSX for some time, but simultaneously nobody wanted to run it and everyone stenciled or wrote in "Crazy 8s" in the cab area.
Still on the news portion: Liam saying that the genius grant funds NPR and thus could fund the podcast, great news. One person from Germany was watching me work while I listened to the pod and they assumed that WTYP was in fact, publicly funded education and they wished they had something like that. Which in this case I think is a good compliment to your quality.
Gareth - I think the thing clamped to the back window is an old radar unit. I say I think because that's how they used to be mounted but I've never seen a chrome one.
It kinda was 🤔 Crazy 8's got to take itself on an ride, it took sustained fire and kept on going, did train stunts with other locos and didn't hurt nobody 🫡 I've heard of worse trains
Toledo Local here to clarify something mentioned in the episode at 47:30. CSX Stanley Yard is the yard mentioned as the Ex NYC Yard. It actually was a Conrail yard till mergers in the 90s. It has an existing hump yard. CSX closed hump yard operations in the yard in 2018/2019. It is used occasionally for car storage. The yard to the right is CSX Walbridge Yard. Ex Chesapeake and Ohio Yard. Has always been a Chessie then CSX yard. It is a flat switching yard, originally had a hump yard but was removed extremely early on in the 60s or 70s (don’t have an exact date.) Walbridge Yard has now become the main CSX yard for operations in the Toledo area.
47:33 - Stanley is a former New York Central yard, while Walbridge is a former Chesapeake & Ohio yard. They're located beside each other because the New York Central and Chesapeake & Ohio shared trackage between Fostoria and Toledo.
CSX may not have access to an AC130 gunship, but it does have access to it's own police force AND a SWAT DETATCHMENT. (they are used for training and hostage situations but it is still very funny to see a bunch of SWAT operatives next to a CSX locomotive)
The point of modern bus shelters is to be anti human. Need to make it an uninhabitable area for people to wait in. Bus shelters in my area got smaller and less sheltery every time they came out with a new one and then finally just removed em entirely. Really wonderful on a rainy or windy day.
Hi folks, I'm very glad you done that news segment. Working in architectural practice on historic buildings and new buildings in the UK; your assessment of what occurred to the Davenport building is pretty much spot on. It's what I would have pointed out in a building survey prior to carrying out any architectural works that we do as part of any work with a client (not legally mandatory, but we choose to do it for safety reasons). And we ALWAYS get those works rolled into the proposed works, prior to commencement of any extensions or alterations, and our clients are really glad we do this. The irony is a limewash would be more suitable. Always limewash instead of paint. Also its undoable. Lime mortar not cement mortar, lime plaster instead of gypsum plasterboard, linseed oil paint not gloss plastic paint, and limewash instead of exterior paint and good ventilation and you cannot go wrong. The moment you put modern non-vapour permeable materials made from petrochemicals into traditional vapour permeable structures all of a sudden a 100 year old building collapses. Not a surprise to me at all. Very sadly. The worst irony is that limewash can be made from lime for literally pennies, whereas that acrylic based paint used that is totally inappropriate is really expensive.
Fact to note about the Davenport collapse situation and their suspiciously fast decision to demolish: The property owner is the mayor's father. I would bet my meager life savings that this is the landlord calling in a favor to make it impossible for building inspectors to figure out the exact nature and severity of his negligence.
I'll still drop a non-ticking 📦 in the mail for ya but I had to get all 4 tires last month and they're f'n 20's and a ball joint and an alignment. Kinda f'd me up for a while. On that collapsed apartment; Turns out the contractor that got turned-down a few months prior had been posting multiple tiktok vids of the walls out a foot, split-away right up the corner and he had been calling the city repeatedly and was even there a few hours before and the brick was sagged like warm wax for 100 feet up. He was telling people to gtfo right then, it coming down was "imminent". Maybe 10 pieces of lumber propped at 45's and that was it. He did an interview, I pretty much repeated it. Three still missing. They called it a "resting place" last I heard. People have survived more than two in these situations with water and found alive and recovered. Turkey was weeks also. Some cases of people surviving 2 or more.
I know that other countries HAVE bus shelters, but I think the key insight the consultants should have gotten from their vacation is that bus shelters are a lot less important when transit vehicles come every 5 minutes instead of every 45 minutes.
The sombrita is a decent looking sign, but it sure as heck isn't a bus shelter. Bus shelters are not a mystery yet to be solved.
@@basedeltazero714 I find it hilarious how we are "mystified" by black magic technology of things like bus stops or rails. MFers in power will rather rediscover rail and rail electrification from first principles than actually just build rail and pass laws banning extremely stupid truck routes
Best we can do is widen the highway by three more lanes and then scratch our heads in amazement as traffic into and out of the city gets astronomically worse. Also we removed every bus shelter in the city because we found one in a rough neighborhood that had a possibly homeless person (We don't know, we didn't actually _speak_ to him, what are you crazy?) that also had some vaguely threatening looking graffiti on it.
@@GoredonTheDestroyer what you have to understand is that they interpret a bunch of effects of people using the bus shelters as negatives.
Like, homeless people resting there, people drawing on them or graffitiing are just *what happens when they are used*
Therefore they have cleverly eliminated these negative effects by creating a bus shelter that can’t be used at all!
This is an exercise in civic branding, like a displaced plantation using some affect of the wrong african culture to sound cutesy. The fact that ~anything~ got built in its wake is a wonder in itself.
so funnily enough I know a guy who worked with the crew that went and stopped 8888 and apparently when dispatch got them in the clear the called and basically asked "hey, you can say no and it will be perfectly fine. BUT, if you can go after this train that's going to pass you in a bit we will let you break every rule in our rule book with 0 cosequence just stop the train"
that does sound like a cool story at least, lol
You know that old head engineer was pulling a mad grin when he got that request lol.
The control stand on CSX 8888 was a bit different than the control stand picture Rocz had. Instead of separate DB and throttle handles like the picture, 8888 had an older version with one big power controller handle and a smaller selector switch to decide whether the big handle would be throttle or dynamics. As you can imagine it was set for throttle, and the engineer thought it was in DB. This confusion was not helped by the fact that when older EMDs go into DB the engine automatically revs up to the equivalent of notch 4, and between the revving engine and the howling grid fans this means that going into DB sounds very similar to throttling up.
Thank you. I thought I was going crazy when Rocz described his controls instead of a selector switch.
Would having a single throttle lever from - 100% to 100% be better.
@@Loanshark753 That's a reasonable control scheme, fairly similar to the combined throttle and automatic brake commonly seen on modern passenger trains. Really most anything's better than having a switch that makes the throttle act like a DB.
Crazy 8s and 11-foot-8 bridge are my two favorite light-hearted disasters! Always love a good idjit singularity where nobody gets seriously hurt.
11'8 is so great
@@embersaffron5522fuck yah. It literally generates the most wholesome car incidents, if they can be wholesome.
If you don't have time for a whole 11' 8" video, they now have the abridged version.
They could also talk about the general concepts of 'low bridges that fuck up trucks' (thinking of the Montague St Bridge in Melbourne)
@@Caparo479 that and/or an episode on danger/hazard signage and communication. 11 foot 8 has everything short of a laser turret that shines "don't do it dumbass" into your retinas, and people still hit it constantly. There is definitely an art to effectively communicating hazards universally, a lot of failures and systemic negligence, and a lot of really funny signs about lube oils. Also, it's apropos of @DoNotEat
It seems really silly and lame, but as a tradesperson, it's insane how much our lives hang on LOTO tags and shitty plastic caution tape.
All I can think about now is Liam standing alone on a beach, longingly staring out at the ocean while holding a mic stand.
I love this podcast so damn much
And we love your videos
I wish there was some way I could hit the like button every time Devon provokes open guttural laughter with one of their notes.
😂
Yes. Seriously, if it matters, like comments you like, reply to them. Engagement affects the algorithm.
-> absolute classic of the genre
-> Gareth Dennis as guest
-> under two hours
This one’s gonna be good
Yes, but imagine how great it would be if it was 4 hours! If some is good more must be better.
@@BravoCharleses But a 4 hour episode would usually be a two-parter. I think the sweet spot between good content and WTYP host's irreversible brain damage is somewhere in the 3-3:30 hour range. That's where the delirium usually sets in.
Nah, you got the under 2 hours one wrong. OVER 2 hours is where it's at.
Two out of three ain't bad!
"Cooper, what are you doing?" "Docking"
-- Interstellar theme intensifies
We desperately need this seen animated with Gareth piloting the train as Alice is blasting "No Time for Caution"
Fun fact about the number 8 is that in certain East Asian cultures, the number 8 is an auspicious number tied to wealth and prosperity, and people will pay a LOT of money for vanity plates that have as many 8s in them as possible.
I worked for a Massachusetts company which did manufacturing in China. When we moved to a new office park, we got the city to renumber our main building's street address to '8' for this very reason.
China Syndrome but it's a wealthy real estate investor waiting for CSX 8888 to run through the Earth to his highrise in Shenzhen
I live in an area with a lot of Chinese expats. I'll see a vanity plate with "88" on it and have to play "Fascist or Middle Aged Chinese Dad"?
people do that in america but for different reasons
@@sakomeow People do it in America for exactly that reason. Usually, they do three or four 8s, so it doesn't get confused with the Nazi thing. But it's always a good idea to interrogate it when you see it.
Had dark horse for lunch 2 months ago. Grilled cheese overflowing and browned 3 cheese, and house chili also covered in cheese. It was glorious!
I'm not too proud to admit that I let out a small whoop of joy when I saw they were doing this one.
And it's with everybody's favourite Guest Replacement Rail Service, too!
Same
Ah yes, nothing like a good Schienenersatzverkehr bus that shows up half an hour after the trains started running again.
Same for last week's episode as a Floridian
1:34:34 that isn't true Alice.
In episode 21: 1953 Federal Express Wreck, on of my personal favorites,
we learned that a train station can stop a runaway train.
That episode was also slapstick and Gareth.
1:20:03 Shooting out the gas cap is video game logic. I'm honestly proud of them for thinking that up.
Yes, I was just thinking this sounds like something you'd do in uncharted or a yakuza game lol
This story reminds me of story in Poland with a lot more at stakes there as it was with 2 passanger trains near swinna (also known as jelesnia runaway)
the new composite brake type started failing in the cold and the passanger EMU was left without breaks going single track line for passing with another train from the other direction. The problem was that the trap siding on this station was at this speed dangerously close to the river so the dispatcher ordered the train from other direction to change cabin and run back while giving the train without brakes through station run. The conductor in the working train was in the now back cabin giving instruction on how far away the runaway was and once he shouted 50m over the radio he himself left the cabin and the trains colided at 70/90kph as driver applied brakes. Despite there being passanger in both trains nobody received any major injuries
Crews of both trains and the dispatcher later received medals of courage from the president
there's wikipedia article in English en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_%C5%9Awinna_rail_crash
How do more people not know about this. That was a extraordinary amount of coordination to pull that off.
I'll admit that I like the movie "Unstoppable" (even when the impossible physics on the s curve...) which the movie used the Crazy Eights incident as inspiration for the movie. So good to see this finally being covered.
and then MMA 2 was inspired by Unstoppable to runaway and blow up Lac-Mégantic
Unstoppable is a pretty decent movie.
I watched that movie last week, thought it was a fun but stupid flick, and didn't know it was based on a real thing, and only sometime around the mention of "Train D.A.R.E." did I realize there were just a few too many common details
Its such a fuckin meme movie, it even has an official flash game about it💀💀
@@aturchomicz821 THERE WAS A FLASH GAME!!1!!!! how the hell did I miss that
Today, we have a different kind of "Engineering" disaster. Glad to see Gareth back, he's probably my fav guest (Riley and the Trillbillies are close seconds)
I’d love another Trillbillies episode. “Vulcan Bridge” is one of my favourites.
aww ❤
@@robertgreensmith7985 same
@@GarethDennisTV oh hi Gareth! This is an excellent surprise!
@@robertgreensmith7985 the best Soviet anthem drop of all time
You think Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't would be a good guest for the California Wildfires episode? He'd probably have some good train stories too.
This must happen.
This is a very good idea.
Yyyessssss and I want Joey on Behind the Bastards too.
@@cholulahotsauce6166 Joey on all the podcasts.
Dream episode
Pogged out of my gourd for this new episode of Podcast™️ that I may listen to while I complete Tasks for my Simple Clerk Job
do not operate heavy machinery
The most important job in the Spreadsheet Mines
consume the slop. enjoy the slop.
@@anarcho-pingu but operating heavy machinery while impaired is the most fun way to operate heavy machinery.
*"WILL! HIT THAT INDEPENDENT! HIT THAT INDEPENDENT AS HARD AS YOU CAN!"* _(This was all i could think about when they were talking about locomotive braking)_
Thank God WTYP created this episode. It unfortunately will only rank in second place for documentaries on the Crazy Eights incident.
First place will always be the Documentary featuring Denzel Washington, "Unstoppable", which EXACTLY recreated the incident and told a story of true heroism.
_/s plz don't kill me tren guys!_
My immediate thought was “We’re gonna run this bitch down.” Such a great/ridiculous movie.
@@jrmurph that's a perfect way to put it. Amazing in so many ways, ridiculous in others. But a good watch nonetheless imo.
But TBF if I'm watching anything that involves nuclear physics or nuclear weapons, I get bothered extremely by the bad science cause of my former job in the military. But that's partly because I hate the misinformation about nuclear energy and sometimes movies and TV shows will do things like insinuate nuclear reactors will detonate like atomic weapons (totally not true), and other stuff like that. Just a pet peeve of mine.
I'm sure train guys think the same thing about Unstoppable.
I see Gareth, I smile. Simple as.
He’s not in any of the slides, though.
1b
I saw the topic, hoped for Gareth, smiled when I saw your comment
I see Activate Windows, I smile. Simple as.
'ate cars, luv trains, love Gareth, simple as
12:18 good thing someone mentioned the HVAC units, since they have been instrumental in a few building collapses before, like the New World Hotel in Singapore in 1986 and Sampoong Department Store in Seoul in 1995 (WTYP Ep. 2)
Jenga is the story of a building inspector turned landlord and their hubris.
Can confirm that the SD40-2 is the everyman's locomotive. Super reliable and very easy to run, they respond to the throttle very quickly which makes them great for switching. And there's no sound quite like a turbocharged two-stroke EMD 645, when running at high speed under heavy load with the turbo off the clutch that signature scream drowns out everything else, they sound like a bass-boosted jet engine.
SD45's are even louder. In 1994, I watched two Wisconsin Central 7400's get the green board north on the Illinois Central at 52nd St. in Hyde Park, Chicago. They had been stopped at a red board, but in one SD45 length, the engineer ran them up to Notch 8, two notches at a time, and when they passed the parking lot of the Hyde Park Bank, which is across Hyde Park Boulevard from the IC, they set off dozens of car alarms. I was on the sidewalk on the other side of the lot, right next to the cars, and I could barely hear them over the SD45's.
Any turbo EMD is cool, though. Ever hear a GP20 switching? They sound like a Rolls-Royce DC-10 engine and a vacuum cleaner had a kid, and that kid is NOT happy to be there. And holy shit are they ever loud in the cab.
Unstoppable, aka the safety film my trainer saw for my 1/2 a day railyard job as seen in a previous safety third 👋
I read the title of the episode first so i read the guest as “crazy dennis”. Thats gareth’s name in my head now
can confirm
C'mon down to *Craaaaaaaazy Dennis's* train depot and emporium!
As an Iowan I can't overstate how corrupt the state has become over the past 20 years
It's the ongoing Iowa Republican Party doctrine of "make the state uninhabitable for anything that isn't a soybean"
I've got family from Davenport, I've forwarded this episode to them. I'm assuming they know someone who's lawyers would be interested in this.
@@tuckerdrake2218 Oh man every lawyer in the city is probably chomping at the bit
Timestamps:
0:00:00 Intro
0:03:47 The GD News: Painting Brick Bad, Landlord Worse
0:25:03 The GD News: Ten Thousand Dollar Stick [Woke]
0:37:41 Context: Flat Switching
0:47:48 Context: The SD40-2
0:54:44 Context: The Dynamic Brake
0:59:40 May 15th 2001
1:08:29 Routing and Attempts 1+2 to Stop The Train
1:16:13 Attempt 3: The Police Get Involved
1:21:50 Attempt 4: Molten Phenol Doesn't Mix With Washing Machines
1:24:44 Attempt 5: Only Option Extremely Cool
1:30:13 The Consequences
1:35:39 Safety Third: The Day Our Correspondent Punched a Pigeon in Zurich
ROFL I literally just hit 'send' on my comment with timestamps because I hadn't seen these yet.
Thanks once again! These are much more useful than the ones I do myself. :D
The hero we need, but don't deserve
One time stamp to add:
0:38:55 Piss funny editorial intervention by Devon; love your work!
@@Xanthe_Cat I decided not to timestamp highlights, partically so I'm not incentivising 'skipping to the good bit' when the whole podcast is the good bit, and partially because if I timestamped every time Devon did great work I'd run out of space. That was a good one though.
Gareth is just the best guest, such a lovely guy, and it's great when he reminds the other 3 of their own in-jokes
❤
Now im just waiting for the full Davenport Hotel episode, when this is eventually sorted out
Can't believe the owner was only fined a single xbox
I'm sure there will be plenty for a long one. There are people who are looking into the slumlord and all of his properties and shady dealings. There is a town hall meeting tomorrow that will be overflowing out to the parking lot. Citizens want city officials fired and held accountable. Families have already hired a firm from Chicago. Heads are going to roll with the way this has been handled. The last body (that they know of) was found at 2:30 am today. There are rumors that homeless people would sneak into the basement so I hope no one was down there when it collapsed. I drove by that place on my way to work for close to 24 years and didn't really pay much attention to it.
Its always good hearing Gareth back to the podcast!
Here is 2 FUN FACTS about the SD40-2:
Fact 1 - The only American loading gauge, hood unit type SD40-2s built in Europe were an order for Rede Ferroviária Federal SA (RFFSA) of Brazil in between 1979 and 1980 under license by Material y Construcciones SA (MACOSA) of Valencia, Spain
Fact 2 - The last SD40-2 ever built in the world left the factory in October 1989, it was unit number 429 built by Equipamentos Villares SA of Brazil for Estrada de Ferro Carajás a part of CVRD, now Vale
EFCs SD40-2s are in a league of their own as they have to cross the Amazon rainforest dragging long iron ore trains, for that they had extended range dynamic breaks, SD50 style radar track slip control and to deal with the humidity and heat two electrical cabinets filter boxes, one of the SD40-2 type and a larger one of the SD50/SD60 type to prevent moisture
"I give my train trample." A runaway train feels like a Gruul creature.
Devon makes the podcast almost professional sounding
Devon is the interlocking brake of the podcast desperately and nobly hopelessly fighting the wild madness of Liam and Alice’s full open throttle antics. (Roz is the forward/brake toggle that got left on standby on accident)
Just as long as it stays at "almost." It would honestly not be WTYP without someone fixing their levels, knocking something over, getting interrupted by the Greek Orthodox Church, or being left to helm the podcast alone during a bathroom break at least once an episode.
In the winter of 2010, my brother and I were watching the film based on this incident when a snowstorm collapsed several trees into high voltage lines, causing a power surge that fried everything in our entertainment center and exploded several light fixtures.
The combo of control positions that set off this whole thing really feels like the sort of trick speed runners use to run when a game tries to make you walk for a cinematic moment.
I am sure it has already been said but. Walbridge yard affectionately known as "Wally World" was a Chesapeake and Ohio yard. It was formerly a hump yard, to my knowledge Stanley Yard has never been a hump yard and has always been flat switched. And of coarse CSX has been trying to close one or the other yard for years. Even tried to build a connecting track on the South end that the NIMBY's promptly stopped.
(re the building collapse at the beginning) I think the real winners here are the engineering ethics and structural engineering books that just got an excellent new example for their next editions on what NOT to do
All I can imagine is a cop driving up next to the train while his partner takes potshots at it with a .50 caliber Barrett rifle they "borrowed" from a local gun store.
1:28:07 They literally pulled an “Interstellar” there. “Match speed, connect, slow down” Holy hell
What's funny about freight poling is it was so ingrained into the culture that even in the slide at 36:45, you can see the poling pockets on that steam locomotive! They legit built the locomotives to do it.
went to B&O museum with Rocz on last year's US trip and there were poling pockets galore, horrifying
Get Joe for a wildfire episode. He's talked a little about his time as a firefighter, be cool to hear more of his experiences.
Yes!! This needs to happen.
An episode about the Camp fire in California or Ft McMurray would be interesting. Can spend a lot of time talking about what a disaster it's been to build in the wild land-urban interface
43:00 I was in a conductor training prgram years ago, and was taught some of these techniques. I got on and off moving equipment (trailing foot first for both getting on and off), and also rode a car that had been cut off in-motion (read: lightly kicked) and used handbrakes to stop it in the right place. Very fun
There have been so many Crazy 8 videos on UA-cam by foamers it's gotten a little tiresome. But even though this has just been posted, I declare this the definitive account. Just like how their episode on the Hilton Skyway collapse is the best account of that disaster. I dont make the rules.
"I don't make the rules, I just think them up and write them down"
Well, it's like science, right? Nobody created physics, they just wrote down what existed already!
When rocz said the building collapse in Davenport was in full view of the city hall, I didn’t expect him to mean that the streetview angle is from the front steps of city hall
Gareth - the three MU air hoses (main reservoir, actuating/bail off, and independent), trainline brake pipe, and 27-pin jumper cable are the standard modern connections between North American locomotives. The three MU hoses are the same on each side, only one side has to be coupled up in order for everything to work. In Britain you would probably call this the AAR system to distinguish it from all the other funky systems you guys have.
THANKS BOB
Alices whole 3d printed derailer joke feels like a joke specifically for me. Because I make derailers and the first thing they told me was derailers don't actually work. (I didn't realize it was going to be such a focus later on in the episode.)
oh, trust me, they work. I've seen them work (unintentionally).
WAT. Please tell us more?!
To clarify they said anything over 20mph is basically Unstoppable (yes pun intended) and we can't make them harder because part of my job is to put a notch into them with a hammer.
Portable derails don't really work, that was the one part of this that 'Unstoppable' got right. 3D printed derails would be even less effective. Real, fixed derails absolutely do work but they are only as good as the ties they are mounted on, and the faster you go the more likely it will be for the train to knock the derail off or simply jump over the derail and land back on the rail again. The wedge derails are designed to protect against slow free-rolling cars, not an entire train at speed.
@@babyjesusvideo what if they give you a harder hammer?
"A hard limit on bus shelters" is a sentence I never ever would have expected to hear anywhere in the world, except maybe Monaco.
I was hoping for special guest Matt Gray, who was once on a quiz show about the crazy eights incident.
Any of the Techdifs on WTYP would be interesting. We could get uncensored Tom Scott swearing.
I've worked with wildfires for a bit and hearing y'all learn about some of the bananas stories involved would be an absolute delight lmao
Maybe cover the Mann Gulch fire?
@@Pheonixco or anything PG & E related, like the paradise or dixie fires
@@josiahbartel6650Oh yeah. I have a friend that subcontracted for them, and his stories are wild. They deserve all the lawsuits.
I appreciate Devon so friggin much. Much love to you. ❤️
Welcome back to our favourite guest, the "activate windows" popup
Fourth member of the podcast, you mean. Like the fifth Beatle.
How is this the second time that I'm learning about an ongoing deadly disaster from this podcast's Goddamn News section
Because corpo media doesn't care and will not report the failures of the system unless it's either something they can spin into a political agenda or it's so big that it's going to be a national headline anyways
What was the first?
@@redblueandgray East Palestine wreck. WTYP covered it when it was local news, several days before national media started considering it a real health issue
@@redblueandgray East Palestine Ohio disaster probably.
@@dr.velious5411 But Palestine is in the middle east, not in Ohio. LRN 2 GEOGRAPHY!
🙃
Alice - if you think rotary dumping is neat, look up some old videos of unloading grain from boxcars (yes, we used to ship bulk stuff like grain and coal in regular old boxcars). The unloading machine would shake the car back and forth and tip it around a bunch of times, but they could never get all of it out that way so some guys with shovels would always have to finish the job.
I'm not even through The God Damn News yet and I have to say this with my whole chest: Liam's Shining Path joke was an all-timer and shame on the other hosts for missing it
Sendero Luminoso moment hahaha
"I am a spectroscopist. I could punch a pigeon in Zürich und achieve ze same effect".
As of 10 am on June 2nd, there's still 3 people unaccounted for. They're still finding animals alive inside the building too. They've recently started going through the rubble where they expect to find the missing people.
SD40-2 were normally geared for road speed of 65mph but could be geared faster. UP had the well know Fast 40 block of 100 units geared for 80mph.
An important distinction is that the controller type on the 8888 was not the same type pictured in the slide. 8888 had an older control stand where the controller module has one lever for both power and dynamic. The mode is changed via a selector switch.
An episode about trains that's less than 3 hours long? Are you feeling okay?
No Alice contracted Novel Coronavirus
Devin hates three hour episodes
@@PanAndScanBuddy I once had a less-serious strain called Short Story Coronavirus. But what's even worse, is Poem Coronavirus. For ten days, you talk shit that makes absolutely no sense, unless you have the rare Haiku Strain. That can be cool.
@@emilyadams3228 I had Three Act Play Coronavirus, that wasn't so bad but the lighting was a pain in the ass to set up.
As someone who will soon study at ETH Zurich I need to find this door to the hidden interior courtyard
I'm going to bet it's HCI - the most expensive and depressing 5 fingers in the country. I may or may not know the lab
One tip for you: There's a lot of ETH buildings in the city you have to find the more likely building first then the exit itself
Devon's captions provide so much replay value when you listen to the pod first. Every hit sound is a secret waiting to be revealed
Enrages me that the owner of that Davenport building was only fined 1 XBox.
botes trens and plens are the cornerstones of quality WTYP eps.
“Translate to English”
LOL UA-cam now translates slop spelling
@@colonelgraff9198 haha! Did it actually translate it?
@@LudicrousBarchart YES
@@LudicrousBarchart It turned Botes trens to Boats trains but didn't know what to do with plens
59:00 This is something that Train Simulator got wrong (shocking, right?). The 10-second wait is actually in Idle to ensure the current in the motors has dissipated so the dynamics don't cause a sudden surge in braking. The actual Setup phase only takes a couple seconds.
At least, that's the case on similar EMD models from this era, so the manuals say
All the locomotives under the GT26 series were derived from the SD40-2 which includes the British rail class 59, South African Railways class 37-000
On the control stand slide: that horn valve can be quilled. It's not as easy to do as on the older locomotives, but it can be done. The mystery button at the bottom is actually a pull knob to activate the bell. Also, at Idle, if you pull out the throttle lever and move it past the stop, it shuts down the engine.
A train episode under 2 hours?! What an accomplishment, although it is one that I think the community would not miss if it weren't here lmao. Love hearing yall be on trainchad activity
Gotta love when my local news makes it into my favorite engineering disaster podcast. Lots of places around here are dilapidated like that building in Davenport. This is the Rust Belt and no one cares about us, even us.
1:19:37 the light on the rear window is the alley light designed to shine perpendicular to the vehicle in a fixed position and operated by a switch while the forward light is the standard movable spot.
The last episodes have been: Train, Plane, Bridge/Boat, Bus, Plane, Train
This is peak WTYP!
The lesson from the safety third is something the health and safety guy I work with always says and is always ignored. Always check your escape routes.
This show is so damn good. Just can't say it enough.
Also, the improvement on sound quality.
Dammit, I just convinced my poor arse to become a patron. Fine.
Keep up the good work.
Patreon goal : Safety Third marathon show?
La Sombrita is a seat, you just have to get up there
If I remember correctly from Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions, 8888 was kept on CSX for some time, but simultaneously nobody wanted to run it and everyone stenciled or wrote in "Crazy 8s" in the cab area.
Still on the news portion: Liam saying that the genius grant funds NPR and thus could fund the podcast, great news. One person from Germany was watching me work while I listened to the pod and they assumed that WTYP was in fact, publicly funded education and they wished they had something like that. Which in this case I think is a good compliment to your quality.
I was in Davenport, IA a few months ago. A city bus knocked the driver's side mirror off my work van.
Gareth - I think the thing clamped to the back window is an old radar unit. I say I think because that's how they used to be mounted but I've never seen a chrome one.
According to Chinese numerology, 8888 should have been the luckiest loco ever...
It kinda was 🤔
Crazy 8's got to take itself on an ride, it took sustained fire and kept on going, did train stunts with other locos and didn't hurt nobody 🫡
I've heard of worse trains
Looking at the collapsed building in davenport, "yeah I'm thinkin Arby's"
My take on brick is that it usually looks better not painted anyway so just don’t paint it. It’ll look better and last longer.
Toledo Local here to clarify something mentioned in the episode at 47:30.
CSX Stanley Yard is the yard mentioned as the Ex NYC Yard. It actually was a Conrail yard till mergers in the 90s. It has an existing hump yard. CSX closed hump yard operations in the yard in 2018/2019. It is used occasionally for car storage.
The yard to the right is CSX Walbridge Yard. Ex Chesapeake and Ohio Yard. Has always been a Chessie then CSX yard. It is a flat switching yard, originally had a hump yard but was removed extremely early on in the 60s or 70s (don’t have an exact date.)
Walbridge Yard has now become the main CSX yard for operations in the Toledo area.
EMD being a division of GM means essentially that most trains in the world are being hauled by Chevy trucks
Old friend of the podcast 'Activate Windows' makes a supprise return!
47:33 - Stanley is a former New York Central yard, while Walbridge is a former Chesapeake & Ohio yard. They're located beside each other because the New York Central and Chesapeake & Ohio shared trackage between Fostoria and Toledo.
My internet has been out for 48 hours, it finally came back up, I loaded up youtube... new WTYP 1 minute ago!
Its gonna be a good day.
Devon is so good at their job!
CSX may not have access to an AC130 gunship, but it does have access to it's own police force AND a SWAT DETATCHMENT. (they are used for training and hostage situations but it is still very funny to see a bunch of SWAT operatives next to a CSX locomotive)
Does "Train SWAT" get to drive around in armored trains?
BEST DAY EVER!! I remember watching this on the news when it was happening when I was 15 lol
Also: never wear a polyester sweater at the lithium cabinet. Bad things happen when clothes made from oil catch fire
UCLA student died handling tert butyl lithium that way
Now those were some badass railroad men . I ran huge construction equipment fo a career but my hats off to those guys
The point of modern bus shelters is to be anti human. Need to make it an uninhabitable area for people to wait in. Bus shelters in my area got smaller and less sheltery every time they came out with a new one and then finally just removed em entirely. Really wonderful on a rainy or windy day.
I love that Devon just flat-out accepts that the pronoun checks are both real and legitimate and a joke to piss off the gamers.
I find it's not good to let myself be fragile about purposeful misgendering. People are just d1cks.
Hi folks, I'm very glad you done that news segment. Working in architectural practice on historic buildings and new buildings in the UK; your assessment of what occurred to the Davenport building is pretty much spot on. It's what I would have pointed out in a building survey prior to carrying out any architectural works that we do as part of any work with a client (not legally mandatory, but we choose to do it for safety reasons). And we ALWAYS get those works rolled into the proposed works, prior to commencement of any extensions or alterations, and our clients are really glad we do this.
The irony is a limewash would be more suitable. Always limewash instead of paint. Also its undoable. Lime mortar not cement mortar, lime plaster instead of gypsum plasterboard, linseed oil paint not gloss plastic paint, and limewash instead of exterior paint and good ventilation and you cannot go wrong. The moment you put modern non-vapour permeable materials made from petrochemicals into traditional vapour permeable structures all of a sudden a 100 year old building collapses. Not a surprise to me at all. Very sadly. The worst irony is that limewash can be made from lime for literally pennies, whereas that acrylic based paint used that is totally inappropriate is really expensive.
I have subscribed through my work's 3 youtube accounts for your years of giving me something to listen to while not doing actual work.
Fact to note about the Davenport collapse situation and their suspiciously fast decision to demolish:
The property owner is the mayor's father.
I would bet my meager life savings that this is the landlord calling in a favor to make it impossible for building inspectors to figure out the exact nature and severity of his negligence.
I know jacksh about engineering and honestly don't care much either but I just love y'all and your energy, always a fun relaxing listen thank you 😘
This safety third is... Magical
I'll still drop a non-ticking 📦 in the mail for ya but I had to get all 4 tires last month and they're f'n 20's and a ball joint and an alignment. Kinda f'd me up for a while.
On that collapsed apartment; Turns out the contractor that got turned-down a few months prior had been posting multiple tiktok vids of the walls out a foot, split-away right up the corner and he had been calling the city repeatedly and was even there a few hours before and the brick was sagged like warm wax for 100 feet up. He was telling people to gtfo right then, it coming down was "imminent". Maybe 10 pieces of lumber propped at 45's and that was it. He did an interview, I pretty much repeated it. Three still missing. They called it a "resting place" last I heard.
People have survived more than two in these situations with water and found alive and recovered. Turkey was weeks also. Some cases of people surviving 2 or more.
15:49 that is the split. J.C..
What was the name of the guy on TikTok I'd love to check out those videos
LET'S GO, TREN EP
I like how ther is a secret podcast episode contained in the God Damn News.