Was that Amtrak train derailment Sabotage?
Serious question
= new reply since forum marked as read
It is odd that the relatively smaller, lighter-weight passenger train derailed instead of one of the many daily trans-continental container, grain, or oil trains that have dozens more cars and much heavier loads, traveling over the same rails…
Last edited Mon Sep 27, 2021, 10:38 PM - Edit history (1)
Of the two locomotives pulling 10 cars, I believe it was the last 8 cars that derailed.
Russ Quimby, a former rail-accident investigator for the NTSB, said heat is the most likely explanation. He is convinced because the locomotives in front did not derail, but eight lighter coach cars behind them did.
“This has all the earmarks of a track buckle also,” Quimby said. “Sometimes a locomotive, which is heavier, will make it through” a buckled track, “but the cars following won’t. You saw that in this accident,” he said.
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/27/amtrak-derailment-montana-under-investigation-three-people-killed/5886070001/
ETA: On the other hand, I don't know why "heat" would buckle track in northern Montana almost up to the Canadian border when I haven't heard of track buckling in places consistently hotter than that.
Last edited Tue Sep 28, 2021, 07:02 AM - Edit history (1)
First of all, I am not at the site. I am not an investigator. This is all speculation, but at DU, that doesn't seem to matter.
I noticed something from the pictures that gives me a clue as to what happened.
The train was headed west on a single-track main line. Every few miles, single-track lines have to have passing sidings so that trains headed in opposite directions can get past each other. These passing sidings also allow a fast train to go around a slower train headed in the same direction.
The sidings can be two miles long in some cases. Up on this section of track, called the High Line, unit freight trains can be 160 cars long. If cars are fifty feet long, or even more, there's 8,000 feet right there.
I can tell by the signals and the equipment bungalow that the derailment occurred at the east end of one such passing siding. It's at a place known on the railroad as East Buelow. The west end of that siding, about two miles ahead of the westbound Empire Builder, is the other end of that passing siding. I can guarantee that it's called West Buelow.
On occasion it occurs that railroad wheels can "pick" a switch. They lose their footing and don't go in the direction intended.
Here are the pictures.
Sun Sep 26, 2021: From the Flathead Beacon:
The photographs in the article in the Helena Independent Record show that the derailment happened at the east end of a siding, at a place the railroad calls East Buelow.
3 dead in Amtrak Empire Builder derailment on Montana Hi-Line
PAUL HAMBY Sep 25, 2021 Updated 7 hrs ago
{snip}
Amtrak's westbound Empire Builder derailed near Chester Saturday afternoon.
Photo courtesy Jacob Cordeiro
Empire Builder Passergers shared photos on social media of the train's derailment Saturday afternoon.
Photo courtesy Jacob Cordeiro
An ambulance is parked at the scene of an Amtrak train derailment on Saturday near Chester, Mont. Multiple people were injured when the train that runs between Seattle and Chicago derailed Saturday, the train agency said.
Kimberly Fossen via AP
{snip}
In the upper picture, off to the right and almost out of the picture, is one of the signals that control eastbound traffic at the east end of the siding. In the background is the signal that controls westbound traffic at the east end of the siding. The picture was taken on the south side of the railroad.
In the middle picture, the signal bungalow is clearly labeled. In the background, you can see the two signals that control eastbound traffic at East Buelow. There are two, because an eastbound train can be either on the main track or on the passing siding.
In the lower picture, you can see one of the signals that control eastbound traffic at East Buelow. It's the one that's to the right in the upper picture. The dirt road and the parked vehicles are on the north side of the railroad.
There's something called a turnout where the tracks come together. If a set of wheels goes the wrong way at the turnout, a derailment will occur.
The speed limit for passenger traffic in this area is 79 mph, or less, depending on any curves. If there's a derailment at that speed, this is what happens.
Again, I haven't been there, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened.
{edited}
Here's the result of a picked switch:
Source: http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2018/11/halterm-cut-off.html
I see that someone else has expressed the same opinion:
September 26, 2021
{snip}
April Smith > Stultus • 2 days ago • edited
It isn't Amtrak's track. This is BNSF trackage. If I was to speculate they "picked a switch". In which an out of adjustment switch moved from the main line into the siding underneath the train. Being a main line they can run up to 79 mph so any derailment can cause those cars to topple over like that one did.
{snip}
