I have never seen trains this long. Frankly, I'm astonished those couplers don't break all the time. The physical loads on those couplers must be enormous. Thank you for this video; it was enthralling.
It is all about momentum. You are right ,to just pull this enormous mass with one link will break anything, even highest grade of tungsten carbide. However if the acceleration is gently applied then the gain in momentum is gently applied from truck to truck, and the couplings can cope. However it takes skill from the driver. Moreover, before staring, often a train backs closing all the couplings together to ensure an even delivery, one truck at a time, as it then goes forward. Also they accelerate from zero mph very very slowly.
This isn't even that big. Looked about 120 cars. I've had more than a few that were 3 miles long. Regularly get potash trains that are 186 cars and 54 million pounds.
Most people have no idea how heavy these things really are - just the weight of one car is enough to turn a human into a pancake without even slowing it down. I worked in a rail repair shop for a couple years as a surface prep/repaint crewleader...really makes you appreciate the air brakes when you have to move uncoupled singles around without them. We had a couple of track engines but most of the time they were tied up or it wasn't practical to use them for moving just one car. We would usually shove the cars toward the blast booth with a skid steer to get them rolling, and we'd have to time the handbrake engagement to get it to stop within +/- 5 feet of where it needed to be so the blast hoses would reach. Kinda fun but nerve wracking at the same time - mistakes didn't happen often, but when they did it was usually expensive. 🤣
Thanks for sharing my friend. THIS is where school kids should be taken to for field trips... rather than just museums and sporting events. Maybe then they'd appreciate the electricity in their homes... and the men behind the scenes who provide it. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🇺🇸
@@mrswampgass2186 Most people have no idea. They think the locomotive is the heaviest part, with empty traincars being comparable to semis in weight. They ain't.
@@tlong4577 you're absolutely right.....would be much prettier with the valley filled with broken abandoned freight wagons and the carcasses of the thousands of horses that would have died trying to produce that same amount of energy.......should I even mention the environmental devastation that would result from the use of land as animal breeding and feeding......or perhaps it could all be done with magical electricity.....ya know.....the kind of electricity that doesn't rely on coal , oil , river dams , or nuclear energy.... There are 7 billion of us on this planet.....the cell phones and computers we use to write these comments , as well as use of long life batteries and solar panels are being proven to be much more environmentally dangerous than modern rail service or the diesel they consume
Nah, that's one pissed off Conductor, and dispatcher! That Conductor gonna have to tied brakes from here to Christmas,...on grade too!! Lordy help him,..plus he got to get that knuckle back there somehow!! And it could have been a draw bar with that much weight!! Better him that me!!
This use to be much more common then people think. RRs started using motion simulators in the 1980s to train engineers to deal with the forces faced with the chain of cars.
traveling out west from ohio earlier this year i couldnt believe how massive the trains were. 2 engines in the front. 1 in the middle and 2 at the rear. very impressive
This occurs more frequently than most folks might imagine. No matter how skilled the engineer ("hoghead") is in managing "slack" (which is the key to how locos can move so much tonnage), the breakage of a coupling knuckle or, more seriously and far less frequently, a drawbar will occur. I saw this as a fireman when serving with one of the most competent locomotive engineers I had the pleasure to work with. Spare knuckles are kept in the locos that brakemen are taught to replace when this happens.
@@ryry187 don't get hooked on uranium or any other radioactive material, it's just like eight-track tapes. Actually the universe is full of energy which comes from the spiritual side of our reality. The same energy that keeps the spirit in our bodies and leaves when we pass is tappable and usable for all our needs.
With all the thousands of miles of tracks one has to wonder HOW and WHY that drone was in EXACTLY the right place to catch this on video ??? And can you imagine the HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of TONS that long ass train must weigh?? Absolutely amazing...
If you look closely during the drone shot, the wagons are cg. Its clear as day. I gotta admit its very convincing to the casual viewer. But you look a little closer and its clear. It would certainly answer your questions about the chances of it happening right in front of him. A very clever blend of real world camera footage and a CG train overlayed on top.
@@justandy333 Think you may be right. Just watch the motion of the train as it passes, its not moving in a fluid like motion. It moves in frames per second kinda jerkiness. Another giveaway is the way the coal is spread inside the cars you can see like every second car has the same shape of cargo and the color of the left hand wall`s shadows is the same every second or so car.
@@leemer1 Yea, the coal spread also got me, its too uniform and the lack of soot or dirt on the wagons. But I gotta hand it to him, its very convincing at a casual glance. If I was a CG talent scout, he'd definitely get a job!
A good demonstration of built-in safety features of the air brakes; train breaks, air pressure drops, uncoupled cars stop themselves. I bey those breaks were hot.
He did help. He went to the back of the train and pushed it up to the front part of the train. They coupled the cars back up a few zip ties and some duct tape. Good as new, off they went.
This happens more then you think and not just hauling black rock. Used to be around trains in Northwestern Montana back in the Burlington Northern days. Derails from snow drifts and even the small trestle failures is pretty scary.
Thanks algorithm for reminding me of the chem plant job I hated but made alot of money at. Also for letting me see all these comments where people fail to understand how air brakes on trains work. Hand brakes on rail cars are a backup in case someone leaves the airline valves closed while the car is parked... temperature change can create enough pressure to potentially release the brakes if the valves are closed. To who ever needed that your welcome.
Coal trains are usually the biggest culprit for coupler breakage because the load can freely shift back and forth in the open hopper car during transport (usually to a power station or steelmaking facility), thus putting tremendous strain upon the coupler mechanism...
I am a railroad carman, 24 years. It does not look like a coupler break, the knuckle broke. Common, I see several a month. We look for cracked knuckles during inspections, but it can happen online as well. If its a bad coupler or draft gear arrangement, car has to be set out on nearest siding. Carmen then come fix it. If its just a 75lb knuckle, well poor conductor, he/she has a couple on the locomotive pilot. its not too hard to change just really heavy, bad thing is getting knuckle to the place train broke apart. Conductor also has to walk full train, to make sure its all on the rail. Meanwhile other trains on the line are stacking up, may need recrews. Corridor manager is pulling his/her hair out, as the dominos start to fall. Then some poor carman gets a frantic call, grab a knuckle, drive to wherever, save the train. Phone/radio calls don't stop, till train is fixed, as each manager in the chain, gets more excited. That said, that's a good break apart, everything worked. Nice catch.
I never had to carry a knuckle far. I would throw the spare knuckle on the ground, have the engineer pull the train forward, stop the last car near me, put the spare knuckle on the last car on top of the draw bar, climb on the ladder, and have the engineer shove the train back to the other half of the train where the separation was 👍🏻
Coal trains I ran had a 25 mph speed limit. Usually about 125 cars. Dynamiting the train can be dangerous as the heavy coal cars can tear up the track. I'd tell you a REAL scary story, but I probably shouldn't.
Wow there is no scenery like that here in South Jersey! What luck is that to have the broken train stop right in front of you, while running a ground camera and a drone. Thanks much for sharing.
How many people are waiting for the decoupled cars to start rolling back downhill? Hell of a coincidence to happen right when someone's recording too. I love these drone footages in the middle of nowhere, That mountain scape in the background is so beautiful
No one that knows anything about trains would because once the pressure line is severed on the cars the brakes automatically cut in and stay locked until pressure is reapplied after the cars are reconnected… Been that way since the mid 1800s…
“1989 Helena train wreck” From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Helena Train Wreck occurred in the early morning on February 2, 1989, in Helena, Montana, United States, when 48 cars of a Montana Rail Link freight train that had been decoupled from their locomotives by a train crew on Mullan Pass rolled backwards down the pass, traveling nine miles back into the city of Helena and colliding with a work train at a railway crossing near the center of the community. The collision resulted in a fire and explosion that damaged Carroll College and other nearby structures, knocked out power to most of the town, and led to the evacuation of residents within an area of 2 square miles (5.2 km2) due to concerns of possible toxic chemical release. The event occurred during a severe cold snap, with temperatures below −30 °F (−34 °C) that morning and with a wind chill factor of as much as −75 °F (−59 °C), which froze the water that firefighters used to attempt to extinguish the fire.
I’ve heard from residents that the cars were traveling about 80 mph by the time they collided in Helena. I think that now cars have brakes that automatically engage if they get disconnected from the main train.
bigedslobotomy kinda crazy to make you think that it would take a major tragedy like that before someone would finally say "hey, maybe we should install something like an automatically locking break mechanism on these trains Just in case they ever break a coupler or something..." And then his boss would be like "Carl, would you shut up!! That'll never happen. These trains *never* break couplers."
I hear about things like this and wonder if a town had advanced warning would it be illegal for them to sabotage the tracks outside town somehow? That is force a derail away from people.
That looked like a CN coming along the lower track in the background right at the end. I wonder if they opened the window and gave a "HA HA" on the way past.
Emergency brakes are released at 2:08. You can see the break at 2:30 and 3:15. As long as that train was (a helper engine can be seen in the middle at 1:30), I bet it took a while for the engineers to trek their way back. And I feel sorry for the people who got stuck at the railroad crossing. Just a little bit furthur, and they would've been able to go through.
Guys, "breaking" is when something "breaks" or falls apart. "Braking" is applying "brakes", the two words are completely separate and not interchangeable.
There was a "break" in the train which caused the emergency "brakes" to apply. When the cars separated the lines connecting the brakes were broken. With a broken air line the brakes apply. The OPs grammar might have been off a bit but his word usage was spot on. Give us all a break on the grammar lessons.
@@tsmcraedy4564 For someone who likes to critique others' usage of the English language while simultaneous complaining that others do, you have pretty poor usage yourself. I have corrected your post. It should have read as follows: There was a break in the train, which caused the emergency brakes to apply. [Using quotation marks like you did is completely incorrect, and generally used to imply "so-called." Were you saying "so-called break," and "so-called brakes," as though you thought that's not what they actually were?] When the cars separated, the lines connecting the brakes were broken. [Clearly you do not believe in commas, either.] With a broken air line, the brakes apply. The OP's [possessive needs an apostrophe] grammar might have been a bit off the mark, but his word usage was on point. [Ending a sentence with a preposition, while common even in the works of masters such as Dickens, is poor form. Additionally, how does one mount a bit to later get off of it?] Give us all a break from [unless you think taking grammar lessons IS a break] the grammar lessons. Consider yourself better educated now. :) I will say that the way you used both repeatedly in relevant sentences was funny and made me smile.
The timing was incredible. CGI? Too perfect. Prearranged test? Doesn't make much sense. Millions of people shooting hundreds of millions of hours of trains all over the world, someone HAD to catch a break (pun intended) sooner or later. Or, I could buy sabotage :o)
The odds of being right at the point of the train coming apart and stopping right in front of you. If Vegas had odds on that you’d be a gazillionaire now and CP Rail could be your “model train layout”
that's pretty good. light and shadows are the hardest and give you away here as well. Your shadows need work. See how the shadow of the train is a little too big and don't really match going down? Looks like you forgot the shadows for the two poles at 3.54, with the one pole after that showing way too tall of a shadow.
At 1:56 ish you can hear the slack run out or in. My guess is the engineer knocked down the throttle or backed off the dynamic and that force went through the train and found the weak knuckle. Changes in terrain over scanners can be difficult because you can't use the air brakes on the cars cause there's a good chance it will set off the detector with hot wheel alarms.
This is as good as train watching gets ! Wow at the right place at the right time.....Wow !! The sounds, the scenary, again as good as it gets and this is comeing from some one who has visited Tehachapi, Cajon and Garland Pararie Crossing.
I remember when a nearby NFS train that was heading back to load up with coal for the next day, just lost the last car. It stopped on the slightly up hill section of the track, and then somehow derailed on a curve.
No, I personally talked to a CN Engineer( the driver of the train), and he told me( actually two of them in my car) they said sometime the length can be 5 miles.
My daughter in an engineer for CP Rail, there is no max in train length, the limit is after 5 miles / 8 km the head end has an issue with controlling the helpers and pushers.
There is a max train.length for sure! If there wasnt and you had 2 trains that are 5 miles long each and they have a meet and the siding is only 4 miles long what are they going to do? So they definitely have a max train length I'm not sure what it is though
Think god locomotives today carry extra 1 or 2 couplers on there rear or front cattle or debris gaurds, well I don't know about all of em I've seen a few that did 👍 , good catch and love the view
