Work Train Derails While Dumping Ballast, Caught On Camera
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- Опубліковано 23 лют 2024
- On February 23, 2024, I was in Sonora, CA when I observed a Sierra Northern Railway work train dumping ballast at the site of a previous derailment. This is something I had never seen up close and personal before, at least on the Sierra so I thought it would be a good catch. The location was along Hospital Road between Washington Street and Mono Way. The previous derailment had occurred on January 19, 2024 when the “ Hill Job” passed this location. Two of the rear tank cars derailed while traveling over soft ground that had been compromised by recent rains. When the derailed rear tank car reached pavement at the hospital road crossing it swung out to the right into the roadway and struck several parked cars. The tank car eventually struck the crossing gate tower at Washington Street, which pushed the tower over and knocking it to the ground. Luckily there were no injuries as a result of the derailment and the tank cars were empty at the time.
On this day I filmed the train crew dumping ballast from a two bay hopper car. The crew was having to manually open and close the bay doors in order to release the ballast. I caught the train initially traveling westbound while dumping ballast down the middle of the tracks. The train stopped and the work crew decided to then dump ballast along the outside of the rails. The train reversed direction and began dumping the ballast along the outside of the rails. I couldn’t help but notice big piles of rock collecting on the tracks. Initially I thought this may be a problem but the hopper car and locomotive seemed to roll over the accumulated piles of ballast with no issues. After repositioning my camera to get a clear shot of the operation I decided to narrate in my intro, which I had planned to edit into the beginning of the video later, something went then went wrong. The hopper car rocked to one side and the train abruptly stopped. By the reaction of the work crew on the ground I knew the car had derailed. This was a first for me to actually catch a car detail in front of me and on camera. This was certainly not the intent of the video as my intent was to catch images of how the crew ballasted a section of track, but things unexpectedly happen on the railroad. I was just at the right place at the right time to catch this event unfold on camera. Needless to say the ballast of operation was over, at least until the crew could re-rail the hopper car. Be sure to hit like and subscribe, and thanks for watching!
Gonna take a guess and say these guys have no clue what they’re doing. You have to unload these cars at a certain speed, or else the ballast will just pile up and subsequently cause a derailment! It’s not rocket science.
anb7408, you did notice they had to stop account of the asphalt covered track they were approaching. Read my other comments as of how to safely perform this task.
World needs fry cooks too. They'll be juuust fine. "Want fries with that?" @Mrright87
These guys are dumb. They had to back up because they screwed up and did not get the outside rock flowing out.
Or am I tripping?
@@southernsalvageonyoutube951 You've never dumped ballast out of any type of railcar so you're talking out your @$$. You're the dumb one here. Just zip it Skippy. And yeah, you're trippin alright.
Did not seem this crew was trained very well.
I see what you did there. 🤣
@@KiddBloo86 I wonder if it was done on purpose
these guys arent conductors they are an engineering crew. they dont work around trains very often
MOW crews are suppose to put a 1/4 tie block across the rails and in front of the ballast hopper wheelsets to prevent this. At slow speeds the block will smooth chunks of ballast while being pushed by the wheelsets. The rail is smooth enough to not cause the car to run over the wooden block.
Very info to know...thanks for the tip!
Except the trains wheels can and do ride over the top of a tie in front of them and then it's a real pain in the butt to get the tie out from in-between the trucks
We used a crosstie chained in front of the wheels of the rear truck on our ballast car, a 3-bay hopper from the East Broad Top RR, when we dumped ballast. That car had the doors crosswise of the track. This car is a ballast car with the doors above and in line with the rail so the ballast can be dumped either inside, outside, or on both sides of the rail. Our car was designed as a coal or rock-hauling car not as a ballast car. The special ballast cars are from about the last 40 years of railroading.
Thanks for insight! 😊
Children are "suppose" to learn proper grammar by the time they graduate 5th grade.
Derailing while fixing a derailment spot. The irony
So dumb that its very funny
Common sense would tell you train cars run better on rails and not rocks!
18 sheep and counting
@@trains2057 🤔
I mean... I'm not a genius but I knew that was going to happen without looking at any comments or description. Trains ride on rails, not rocks... lol
Yeah sure did
Ya
Seems nobody on that crew was sure of what they were doing! Just watching the beginning, I knew something would go wrong!
Thanks for sharing
Great video of the ballast spreading. I did quite them doing this without having the leveling board that keeps it off the rails. When I saw the locomotive drive over ballast as it was backing up made me cringe for a moment. I don't think these guys have done this enough to know what not to do. Cheers from Laurel, Delaware USA.
ThNks for sharing 😊
It was obvious that was going to happen when the ballast completely covers to track.
I think they had some new people working those dumpers. They didn't seem to have experience.
Imagine you should try it some time lol. Much harder than it looks most times.
@@daveschmitt4499 You don't spread ballast like that,they have made it hard work.
It's like they never put down ballast before... yikes...
Aye, let the new guys do that little bit, they won't get into any trouble 😂
You should have been with a crew I was a part of once in downtown Eau Claire Wisconsin as we were doing something similar. Our boss at the time decided the 10 foot long railroad tie should be chained to the trucks on the engine closest to the cars with ballast. As the engine pushed the ballast cars forward the ends of tie got stuck on a blacktop sidewalk and up over the tie went the first set of trucks / engine wheels catching between the two sets of engine wheels. It took all 8 of us that day with 4 track jacks to jack up the weight of one end of that engine high enough to pull out the railroad tie. It literally took hours of hard physical labor. Those engines are not light. I believe we broke one of the track jacks in half that day. 6 of us pulling down on 1 bar in each jack at a time. We would get one notch in one jack on one side and then work on the jack right next to it. Only raised the engine 2 inches in hours of back-breaking work. But we got it out. Boss was happy but first he had chewed us all out for letting it happen in the first place. To which a couple of us said, we yelled at you several times we were getting close to a road and probably should stop.
Working with idiots lol.
Thanks for sharing that story😁
Pretty obvious they have no clue what they're doing.
I just can't believe they were PROPELLING a ballast train!
Sloppy distribution of the ballast . . . when the locomotive's pilot is functioning like a plow, you know something is amiss.
Thanks. It was looking sloppy to US.
@@bourbontrail565 but always remember putting a penny on the tracks is not allowed
@amergrant-ns5cr as a kid we were told Don’t put pennies on the tracks because we could get hit by the train, as an adult we know it’s Trespassing.
I like to see you do better.i don't see you out there doing that job
I fly a 787 - not much opportunity to lay ballast. Nonetheless, I spoke to a BNSF crew who put down a two-mile siding a couple years ago; real professionals in all respects, so I know what a good job looks like.
Before the advent of powered hoppers, BR in the UK, had screw jacks operating ballast doors on their hoppers with large 'steering' wheels for manual operating, set on a platform at one end of the vehicle. If significant amounts of ballast were to be layed a special ploughing van (caboose) was used in the train to spread it on the move and prevent such events.
Spent many weekends on ballast trains as a driver back in the BR days 70s/80s.
12/15 hour shifts not uncommon.
Warlus, seacow, sealions 😂😂
Yes - definately needed a SHARK there (former guards van fitted with a ballast plough for those who don't know). Surpried they don't have something like that in the states.
When a fifty year old guy with a ponytail on top of his head is dumping ballast anything’s possible.
seriously? Wow. Wonder why railroaders more and more don't like railfans
The ponytail hairdo is his way of expressing his low IQ....
Work fascinates me. I can watch it for hours…
Not much productive work here to see.
Would more call this here " unwork"
Wow, they keep moving and dumping ballast while not realizing the engine has derailed!
Great catch!
Great video!!!
I have been there done that with CN. Those ballast cars are horrible to work with. The chutes are hard to open and a hard to close, hence too much ballast on one spot as you struggle to regulate the flow. SD 40 went over no problem crushing rock. We were very close to derailing one car. Hi level of anxiety to say the least.
Thanks for insight
Do you ever remember using a wheel on the side of a car to open a car door. They were about 4 feet in diameter and attached to a square rod sticking out near each door. You stuck the wheel with a square sprocket center on that square rod and then spun the wheel to open the door one at a time
@@daveschmitt4499 yep!
The ballast will hide any damage to the ties😂. I didnt see any shovels or rakes to spread/distribute the ballast? The 1/4 tie in front of the wheel seemed logical too. Thanks for the video share.
I railroaded for a major class 1 railroad (track department) and could one of you please explain what a 1/4 tie is. We'd use a full dimension 9 foot hardwood tie and just let it slide ahead of the trailing set of trucks on the last ballast car. I've never heard of a 1/4 tie.
Nice views..! Interesting to see the gensets.
Thanks 😁
@SERA52Railfan. If you ever record any other maintenance of way machines doing things like replacing ties or building track, I did all of that starting on a section crew all the way up to tie gangs, rail gangs, ballast dumping, and nearly everything else, lol. I have worked through swamps, the middle of nowhere, and on frozen ground throughout my time on the railroad.
Worked in the MOW for 38+ years until I retired. These cars can be a pain in the butt when the doors don't work right. But where is the tie that is used to clean the rail? You need a tie to clean the rail and spread the excess rock to the outside.
And one thing I really would like to know is Where Are Their Hardhats? Unless things have changed in the years since I retired they're in violation of FRA, OSHA, plus any state laws and the railroads safety and rules.
Yes, incredible in every industrial nation, thst there were hunfrets of rules and observing organisations, but no one of them is out there to control and regulate.all these people who make money with making rulws were in any office from 9 to 4 with coffee and talking whole day. Very poor society .
I am in constructing business and had in 30 years of work not one controll of legacy or safety gear or environmental protection.
Very sad to pay for those who weren't doing anythng😢
sloppy workmanship...........
Using a locomotive to spread and level ballast, now that's a Frick and Frack moment.
Clown show, you can tell how organised they are with SERA spray painted badly on the cab.
seriously? Oh gawd
This was agonizing to watch!
It seemed common sense to rake those rocks off. I would have just used the pole for a couple of swipes. I'm pretty sure he was new.
@@ut000bsthinking the same. That was a massive pile for those wheels to run over. Just asking for a derailment,
And they are looking for more dummies to work for them
Total Sparkies …
Looks like a couple of ex UP gen sets
Yes sir they sure are
Nice video :)
Thanks!
Supposed to put a cross tie on the rail in front of the trailing set of trucks to spread the ballast and keep from derailing the ballast car . Tie slides on the rail and spreads the excess ballast from the middle of the rails .
Doesn't always work perfectly like that. Sometimes the tie will get stuck on an open joint or anything sticking up causing the wheels of the car to run over the tie.
Pain in the butt getting it out.
@@daveschmitt4499 Where did this event happen? A yard track? I've never put a ballast car on the ground by using a hardwood tie ahead of the trailing set of trucks on the last ballast car in the sting. You must not have had the tie under the loaded end of the car.
@coldblue9mm . Every time a tie was used it was always under a loaded car and yes a loaded car can derail over a crosstie IF the tie gets caught in an open joint, an extremely mismatched joint, things sticking up like ties in the track, plates, crossings and sidewalks. I have unloaded thousands of rock cars in my railroad career.
Whatever they are doing, it looks and sounds like they are doing it wrong.
Any time I have ever dumped ballast, we always had a tie pushing out the ballast and regulating it very efficiently. Could they not afford the tie for this job?
I've seen that done as well but it looks like the space between the bay doors and the inboard wheels were unusually close. It looks like the biggest thing they could have gotten in there was an 8 x 8 or something similar, which the wheels would have just ridden up over. They should have planned this a little better, but then the jammed doors didn't help.
Maybe because they only had a small section to do they didn't want to mess with the tie?
It was said in the beginning of the video that they were fixing a derailment site from another train.
@bcrusher1979 not having a tie is like going to a job site with a box full of screws and no screwdriver or drill with a driver tip. You can do it but it's gonna be a waste of time cranking those screws in by hand...
@Mrright87In every ballast dump I've been on, we tacked a spike in each end of a tie and set it ahead of the trailing wheelset. That way any ballast that was poured out above the tie was pushed down and regulated by the tie. Never used a chain, the weight of the wheels and the car usually kept the tie right where it needed to be. And most importantly, we never derailed!
@Mrright87 yes that's correct. I've dumped the ballast with the same lock levers or electro-pneumatic dump gates. I suppose if you're super careful to not dump over the rail, you can do it without the tie acting as a spreader. But I've never been without one and it always worked really well. Now I've only ballasts maybe 50 miles combined over 21 years but every inch of it was done that way.
Nice to see another SERA railfan on UA-cam
There aren’t too many of us
@@SERA52Railfan new sub👍 greetings from Southern Cali
Amateur hour !!!
“ hello honey? I’m gonna be late for dinner tonite!!”
Actually. When my dad was system construction for CSX. There is a photo he took of his crew trying to dig out a Ballast car that had buried its self in 1998(?)
Thanks for sharing 👍
Did not see them derail but IF they did it may have been because they were dumping both ends of the car and once and it is difficult to continue moving when the track under you is clogged with that much rock. As the car gets empty there is less weight to keep it on the rails and it rides over the rock !!! Backing through the rock isn't the wisest thing to do when it is that deep either.
It’s near the end of the video
11:24 she's sitting on the cross ties
Seems like the rock wagon was very uncooperative as well.
Great share and video new here looking forward to more content Have a great rest of your day 🚂😎
Thanks👍
I subscribed to your channel 😁
@@SERA52Railfan thanks I appreciate the support
Bad spot to ground out. It happens, nothing a few jacks, wooden cribbing and cables to winch won’t fix. Fortunately it looks like a lot of the load had already been dumped so that makes it all go easier. The old way of doing ballast.
I’d hate to be filmed all day while trying to work especially in these frustrating situations
Not surprised at all especially when all the weight was out of the car
If these side dump car doors actually work, it's not hard. But if you hear them pounding on the doors, it means finely crushed wet rock was let sit on the doors causing them to be a pain in the but to open
Another derailment 🙀
I used to fix the gyro crushers and set cone to disered stone diameters. And the feed rate . And it looks very exactly to their discharging of balast. My question is how much time does it take to empty. Give me 20 % percent and I could tell you when the next load is ready from the quarry is ready.,good thing they put the order in months ago.😅
Holy 🚬 🚬 smokes... what a mess...such an uneven spread...😮😮😮...some ones getting yelled at later....
great to see the initial ballast spreading first, although go to 10:30 if you're wanting to jump straight to the derailment
What a band of goof !!
Skip to 10:00 if you actually want to see it.
Two gensets for one ballast wagon. That’s a bit overkill.
Oak blocking boys
Was kinda hoping it was a gen-set that hit the dirt, im not a fan of locomotives that sound like lawnmowers 😂
BUT, BUT,BUT,--- I THOUGHT GENSET locos we the wave of the future!! Why did UP get rid of these!! Say it isn't true!!!
@@user-mr3ct1dm9pYou should see all the BNSF gensets that have been sitting idle in Galveston for years now, along with dozens of other retired units.
@@user-mr3ct1dm9plike electric mini- excavators? We rented one (at a discount, uh oh) for a couple of days work and got 2 hours out of it in the morning the first day then charged for 4.5 hours. It was dark by then. We hauled it back the next morning, got a refund for the second day. Then we rented a _real_ mini and worked the rest of the day.
I don't know why they're pushing this on us.
Is that Toecutter bangin' on the hatch?
Moving the coupler together and then reverse and give it a fast jerk should dislodged the stuck ballast
If those engines are anything like csx’s gensets. They are horrible.
The luck just wasn't theirs on this shift. That Ballast hopper is a bad order. Looks like they were up against the clock. Yeah I sure feel for them but they did it anyway. Thanks for sharing.
2611 is at the NWP / SMART
Call me a SERA fan. too. Ten years ago I did an externship on the Sierra Northern. One question -- I heard there was a subsequent sinkhole at just about that spot. Were these two coincidences, or had the train applied a little too much weight over an old mine and created the sinkhole?
Hard frigin work their buddy. This is why I went into live entertainment at a very young age. Smartz
Now i know where those NASA o-ring specialist went
God bless NS
Why were they not using the automatic controls for the doors?
Gump!!!! Ura gott....daaaaamd gene yus!
Wet ballast rock is like kitty litter, clumps up when wet
Only unsorted and unvlean ballast clumps together and causes from beginning on, what should be prevented of the railredbed and toäies. Material what does not drain and let ties rotten and unstabilizes the bed. Seems in america , everything is possible, even the wrong things whichvlead to huge problems and expensive derailments ( later ) of complete speeding freight trains😮
Three stoges Rail Services.
2 for 1 Derailment....another one bites the dust.
Why was the kid aiming the chute at the rail?
Why isn't there a "sweeper" device to push the rocks out of the way of the wheels and equipment?
The Cali Home Depot crew 😢
LOL! Why is there so much gravel on the rails?
It's easy to derail a train considering how small the flanges are.
So. you take the metal bar, and beat on the box.
It puts the lotion on?
Wasnt the loco already derailed before the hopper car .... 7:15 ?
Freaking amateur hour. What a joke...
Save the Whale!
Worked many....so many mistakes. Never saw an engine cow catcher/ plow or knock down ballast.
This is 2024, surely theres a better way.
Billion dollar companies, this is reality..pinching penny's to gain a dime..
That's gotta suck
What kind of film do you use?
lol whoops...inexperience has it's costs.
Nice vid. There's got to be a better way of doing that.
That's an old car
Modern cars have air lines to dump
I'd get the Retailer out and have it back on the rails in 20 minutes !
You me rerailer, not retailer?
What a piss por setup that is. Not only wasted man hours but very dangerous for the engine and cars.
these guys are going to apply for a job at CSX and they will get hired until they get fired 😊
smart..
Mickey Mouse railways :(
Why do they use both engines for this? Surely just one would do?
A quarter would have been overpowered
Better looking how german rairoad builders were doing and which esuipment they use. Very poor method here, with bumpkng with these bars agains railcar and thrown mountains of gravel on the rail😢
What did ya think was gonna happen when they made a huge pile and nobody cleaned the track off😅 this vid should be in the Next meeting they have lmao. What not to do
They needed to replace the tracks
The rail is smashed on the head
its 2024 we need to be using concrete ties.
Authorities are still uncertain if this incident was terrorist related.
To all you armchair experts who've never unloaded a car of ballast in your life, here's what went wrong here. You place a brand new, hardwood cross tie right up on the track, up against the wheels of the trailing set of trucks. As they center dumped the car, the cross tie will slide on the rails and knock down the high ballast between the rails. When you want to dump the shoulders, in a reverse move, you and pull the tie out and simply dump the shoulders as you go in the opposite direction. I wish I had a dime for every ballast train I've helped unload. Now, on a mainline major railroad, they come out with a Unit Ballast Train and the doors are all controlled remotely by computer. They have a person accompany the train to run the computer. Unloading ballast manually is becoming a lost art.
This Explains Why you need a Professional MOW Crew. Something is NOT Right with the Ballast Car. 🤪👎
A bad day at the office.
This is some seriously amateur hour stuff
For any railfans who are wondering why more and more railroaders are not as friendly as they used to be....read some of the comments below. Un-be-liev-able.
Comments were about these specialist who haven' t sny simpple clou on what could happen when a railcar snd train is rolling on rock instead of rails! And if the tipper car didn't work well, there is ylso posdubility of use hand tools to free the rails of the ballast. So they did a super poor job and than its absolutely ok to give a negative comment. Or should we all say " don't worry, this could happen to everyone ( who doesn't use his brain and isn" t lazy for using hand tools)"..
@@MrDriftspirit I guarantee you the employees shown absolutely know what happens when railcars leave the rail. And no, I never advocated what anyone should have said. I'm just pointing out that railroaders who work hard for a living are more are more and more becoming wary of railfans who sit back, watch videos and criticize their work.
they did this on purpose. lol. Thats a greenhorn mistake. This was the sort of shit the French would do to the trains during the Nazi occupation.