So much to see, and just enough time. We welcome you with Railfanning Magic! Music: “Letter to Natalie” by The Great North Sound Society & “Easy Seas” by Chris Haugen
Thanks for the likely explanation. There are a lot of details about these beasts that I still don't know. My haziest speculation was catastrophic failure of the prime mover and a massive discharge of diesel smoke.
Es44ac tier 4 locomotive. More than likely the EGR cooler let loose and the carnage when that happens is epic. It literally turns the oil into mayonnaise and the coolant into jello.
@19:11 After visiting Skykomish, Horse Shoe Curve, and La Grange we finally made it on a grab bag! Honestly, the best of the locations we've been to yet. Where we try next... nobody knows! (we have no idea... zipo, nota, ziltch) Happy travels rail fans :) EDIT: Apparently I can't spell shoe without supervision... thanks hun
Couple of things from a railroader's perspective: Looking up the road number, the lead engine is a Dash 9-44CW, so it's old enough that it doesn't have any emissions controls on it (such as DPF, EGR, or SCR). The "scream" you're hearing is cooling fans. I'm not especially familiar with GE prime movers but I know that GE cooling fans, even just the radiator fans sound like that. The engine might be as high as notch six (give or take a notch) guessing by the rpms on the prime mover (the "thum thum thum" sound). Now, that kind of like high-pressure air hiss/whoosh sound you hear is common as well when the railroads do things like not change air filters to save a buck (or so they think). Basically it has a partially restricted intake path somewhere as a guess. The engine isn't smoking or throwing flame out the stack so it isn't running excessively rich, which suggests engine management is getting all (or almost all) the air it's asking for (GE prime movers specifically seem to be less than great at adjusting for reduced combustion air). So, up until the prime mover releases the forbidden glitter and dumps steel McNuggies in to the cylinder heads, it appears to be functioning as intended (minus potential restrictions in the intake system). However, when whatever it is goes, you hear a "THRASH TRHASH CRASH" sound. Having said all that, I can see two possible scenarios: 1) Turbo grenade, and 2) Rod went bye-bye and tossed a piston up and out the top of the power assembly. Given a quick search for known failures on those prime movers, and how they react to them a totally blown turbo wouldn't actually shut the prime mover down, just drastically de-rate it and put a bunch of warnings up on engine management (and email the power director the loco is attached to). In this case, my semi-educated guess is that there are now unintended windows into one or more cylinders on the prime mover. Specifically that higher-rpm thrashing sound makes me think something like a journal or rod bearing gave up and trashed the prime mover. This might actually get someone a text message instead of just an email ;)
The locomotive is NOT a Dash 9-44CW, it is an ET-44 Tier 4 emission-controlled locomotive. The offset exhaust stack and overheight radiator is the visual evidence. It obviously did suffer a major mechanical failure--maybe or maybe not related to the complex Tier 4 emission system.
Over the early days of January we had a marathon of Train videos. I enjoyed this so much, especially+I ally those involving Horse Shoe Curve in Altoona, Pa. The grade there is mre difficult than it appears, Norfolk Southern had two issues there over the last summer, but this event more recent. Train stalled, engineer on “hot mic”, calling for help as he is stalled. The dispatcher asked about the engines, the engineer replied “I have two on the head end.” “What does that mean says the dispatcher?” The engineer at this point says, “where do they get these people?” The remainder of the conversation was hysterical as the engineer cannot understand the management response to the events on the high iron.
Gotta get a cam over in Portland Oregon or Vancouver. Anyone on here that can help get one up and operational? I've been thinking of speaking to the folks at Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation, or the Oregon Historical Society to see if they'd sponsor a cam.
At 14:13 when I came to a complete stop I would look at my watch to determine how much time I had to work and with one engine you pretty much have them “ in a pickle”……call us a cab~~~ an in these situations train dispatchers get dumb in a hurry and he’s looking at his watch to see how much time until he goes home because no one gives a * hit anymore….
0:13 CP 8781 as mid-train DPU on a container train 1:27 NS 4125, UP 7272 in new paint (not the new livery since it has the wings and no flag at all), and NS 1072 Illinois Terminal heritage unit. The Illinois Terminal was the biggest interurban system in the country and was able to transform itself into a diesel freight railroad in the 60s 2:06 two RailPower RP20CD gensets. They each have three smaller diesel engines instead one big prime mover 2:24 GEVO, Dash 9, GP60M, SD40-2, and SD60M triclops 3:02 unusual replacement panel on this BNSF GEVO 3:17 Amtrak business cars on the Southwest Chief! (again at 15:54) 3:43 UP 1989 leading 4:13 MARC coach on a freight train 4:58 five big locomotives and 16 hopper cars! 5:42 12-unit light power move 6:12 CSX 4568 leading 7:22 this geep has a nice K5LA 8:16 Amtrak 145 leading the Lake Shore Limited 8:33 this idiot tries to cross between stopped tankers, even when the cars are still making noises 9:52 2-piece Loram grinder in Roanoke yard (full grinder at the same location at 17:29) 10:43 Herzog MPM the 28th with MOW hoppers and well cars 11:38 WOW! tie carrying cars with new, untreated ties 12:06 BNSF 6887 has a Santa Fe sticker on the nose like some CSX engines have stickers of their predecessor roads 12:30 10-unit light power move 13:00 an ET44AC suddenly starts smoking up! 14:56 this guy doesn't care there's a train speeding towards him from behind 16:20 CSX 3194 trailing 17:57 CN triple-header in Wichita 18:34 Texas Eagle racing an intermodal 20:28 ACS64 on the Pennsylvanina to Pittsburgh! The wires end at Harrisburg where the Keystone Service terminates 20:42 CP 8757 leading 21:18 warbonnet leading an 11-unit power move 22:14 Dash 8 on a Silver service in Plant City
Maybe I am not catching them, but it seems like very few Sante Fe warbonnet are passing the cameras, and the units in warbonnet livery have the BNSF marking on the side
this guy could have been a lot more of a DARWIN AWARD winner if he had waited for the train to clear ! standing outside in freezing weather in Canada is a quicker way to die than passing through a stopped train ! i've seen some trains sit for hours ! like the grab bags ; but the dummies here are anyone who thinks they would have stood and waited !
At 12:10, after the Heritage unit why would BNSF lower themselves to the tightwad level of CSX? Looks crooked anyway, taggers I hope. And at 13:11 whatever GE put in the Exhaust blew out, a T4 to T0.
That was probably a turbo that blew on the CN GEVO. Turbo diesel engines can run without the turbo going, so without a turbo it's not doing anything, so it wasn't going to make any power. They probably also had to emergency stop because it would no longer supply air to the brakes
That's a weird train at 4:53. You rarely show trains going slow there, but it had 5 or 6 engines, many with their cab lights on, pulling about a dozen hoppers.
Busy night. Speed is based on the track limits, and slowed by the actual traffic ahead of this train. I don't know the area, but, perhaps there was a pickup or set off at a nearby spur and the train is just getting up to speed.
I'm thinking the (EGR) Exhaust Gas Recirculation System failed given the top exhaust stack few off from the explosion, I've seen another video of this same Loco just slightly more down the track and that's what you see fly off is the Stack top.
You have to listen closely, but right when the "explosion" happens there a sound of a metal panel clattering off. VR has shown video before of an engine losing one of it's cooling fans, which jumps right through the roof and takes off on it's on trajectory. So whatever happened here, I bet there's a chunk of sheet steal missing off the roof of the cooling compartment.
From the outside looking in, I see a lot of trains with engines from various railroad lines. I would think that each line has a tremendous investment in locomotives. How does anyone keep track of their equipment?
Some quick research shows that those are Railpower RP20CDs. Very funky looking genset locomotives, meaning they have several (usually 2-4) smaller engines rather than one massive prime mover. Very unusual locomotives and I’m not exactly sure what they’re used for, but if someone knows feel free to add on to my comment
8:31 When I saw that on the live stream, as soon as that train stopped and he took those first slow steps forward, I knew what was coming. The next Darwin candidate. I guess given that the guy was actually standing there in the freezing night for 15 minutes waiting for the yo-yo train to finally move on instead of running back and forth, it was no big surprise.
13:26 turbo let go and the axial turbine wheel went into the exhaust and knocked the soot out of the particulate filer …the dash probly lit up from high exhaust temperature and a loss of intake manifold pressure
