Train 58 derailed in Mississippi - April 6, 2004

Last I remember both Kensington,MD and Crescent City, FL were caused by misaligned rails caused by heat.

correct see :http://www.dcfd.com/fg130.htm
but your the one who confused the isue by quoting: Silver springs Md, that accident was caused by Human error onbehalf of MARC crew.

My Mistake.

Mine too. The report I quoted was indeed for the Crescent City incident. I appreciate the correction.

What I'm calling "Kensington" occurred on July 29, 2002. Couldn't find a final report posted on NTSB's website. But AP reported that "human error" on CSX's part--the premature lifting of a 25 mph speed restriction--may have contributed to that derailment. Other reports at the time, though none official, pointed to a heat kink.

cbaker wrote:Mr Fels,

This is what came out of the inquiry of the Kensington collision:

The Inquiry held by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported some 17 months after the accident. It found that the immediate cause was due to "apparent failure of the engineer and the traincrew, because of multiple distractions to operate MARC train 286 according to signal indications".

Sounds like human error to me....

The report in your link refers to the Auto Train derailment in Florida.

No, Kensington was the Capitol Limited derailment in 2002, involving no MARC trains, when the train ran over a heat king in the rail, causing a derailment (but no deaths).

The incident involving MARC train 286 and the Capitol Limited occurred on Feb. 16, 1996, near Silver Spring, MD.

Full report (155 pages, PDF) is here. The passage quoted appears to be from the executive summary on page 9.

Thanks for that link. That was a nasty wreck.

Yep, the Silver Spring did not involve AEM-7's. I believe the Amtrak train was led by a P42 (or similar Genesis). The Amtrak Engineer, realizing that there was no way to avoid the accident, sped up his train so that it would begin over the interlocking and the MARC train would split the Amtrak train between the locomotive and the first car.

No, actually, it was led by the now-retired F40PH, F40 0255 to be exact. I saw a photo of 0255 online, and the wreck fallout aftermath was pretty grim........ I guess it must have been saved or scrapped, unlike 0272 and 0366, those were immediately scrapped right after their 12/12/90 accident right here at Boston Back Bay with MBTA F40PH2C 1073.

Robert you are wrong the train was led by P40/42 and a trailing F40. it consisted out of 14 cars.
see : http://danger-ahead.railfan.net/acciden ... /home.html
the bottom picture clearly shows the Gennie after the side collission.

Ok, DR. Although the trailing F40 was indeed 255.

Can any confirm that the Genny was rebuilt after the accident it was 811 and one of the pages i looked on said it would be scrapeed and I did some searching and found on google that it was rebuilt and painted into North East Paint. There are some pics on google of Wrecked 255.

Amtk 255 Wreck Silver Spring MD 16 Feb 1996, was at Altoona PA in 2000 and scrapped by end of 2002.

Amtk 811 - Stored at Bear DE. here are some pictures of burn and picture after rebuilt/repaint :
http://www.4rr.com/810/811_001.htm

Thanks DutchRailNut. :D The Poor F40 looks like it took the heat of the wreck.

Yeap, that's right, 255 was REALLY hurt.....

Thanks for the scrap info, Mr. DutchRailnut.

PennsyFan wrote: Believe it or not, freight derailments are a potentially far greater risk than carriage of passengers. In a worst-case passenger scenario, a derailment, head-on or terrorist bombing would possibly claim 100 or so lives (Amtrak's worst accident, the Sunset Ltd. derailment at Bayou Canout in 1993 took less than 50.) But if a freight carrying the wrong substance in the wrong location derails, heaven help us. A tank car hauling poisonous gas that ruptures in an urban area could result in a mini-Bhopal.

This has already come close to happening with CN, in 1999 a gasoline train derailed near Mont-Saint-Hilaire QC, cars from the train fouled the adjacent track and another train which was travelling in the opposite direction collided with the derailed cars. There was an explosion and some cars burned for more than four days, creating a smoke plume about 1,500 feet high. The two crew members on the second train were fatally injured in the accident. If that had happened 30 miles west of there it would have been in downtown Montreal.