Re: NNG: Finger Lakes Railway locomotive rolls over after striking portable derail placed to protect track workers

Rick Rowlands Wrote:
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> I have always found it odd that the FRA's choice
> for protecting track workers was to create a life
> threatening situation. This locomotive rolled
> over which could have killed or severely injured
> the train crew.


Not really. It has always been the rail industry preference to intentionally detail something at low speeds rather than allow an uncontrolled and undesired movement.

In these days, there has to be some form of positive protection to protect track workers from undesired entry of rail equipment. The options are few on uncontrolled track ( a track not under the control of a dispatcher). Sometimes a derail is the only viable option. Shop areas often have details as part of their blue signal protection (also considered a stop sign) where lining a facing point switch away from the equipment being worked on is not available.

Typically, a derail only causes equipment at low speeds to do just that - derail. In this example, the engine rolling over was an unexpected extreme but not impossible reaction to the derail. As I stated before, if the train knew they were required to be able to stop short or they weren't authorized to be on that track - it's likely their fault.

Not protecting a work area can cause fatalities too. In this example, log cars being loaded got away from the loading crew, the derail failed to function coming loose due to rotten ties, and three track workers died when the runaway cars hit them. This also resulted in the closing of the last known active logging railroad in North America.

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/host-of-errors-blamed-in-woss-derailment-that-claimed-3-lives-4666915



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/07/2022 09:23PM by Dan Robirds.