Serious UP Wreck in Glenview/Northbrook,IL/Viaduct Collapse

thirdtrick wrote:Fair enough. I took this quote from the article out of context then: "The engineers and car crew said the bridge was intact when the train went over. It all seemed fine to them,” Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said."

That was before the derailment ... when everything was fine. Once the first car derailed and the others piled on the weight quickly became too much for the bridge to bear. It helps answer the question of what came first, the derailment or the collapse.

From various photos, it seems that this was an open deck bridge without ballast, with 4 "I" beam girders under each track, and ties to distribute the weight. The girders don't appear to be bent from crushing and falling straight down. Maybe the twisting cars dug through the ties and pushed the girders sideways until one end fell off an abutment?

Media reports say UP had their shoofly built and open by last Friday. The connection to the CP at Techny was just north of the bridge. Does the shoofly include a connection to the CP or is CP on their own for a detour?

I ask because tonight riding home on the MD-W 6:10pm train, I was surprised to see a fairly long CP freight coming out of Galewood yard and heading east towards A-5 (the head end already east of Cicero West (aka Cragin - the BRC connection). Since I doubt he was turning right at A-5 towards CUS, the only logical thing was he was making the left to head up the C&M and having never seen a long freight east of Cicero West, I am tentatively concluding this is how CP is getting trains from Bensenville to the C&M for now.

That may be the case, but every so often, CP does run freights out of Bensenville east to A5, then north on the C&M, even in situations where there's no detour in effect. In fact, I believe there is a daily intermodal train that uses this routing; not sure if this is what you saw...

doepack wrote:That may be the case, but every so often, CP does run freights out of Bensenville east to A5, then north on the C&M, even in situations where there's no detour in effect. In fact, I believe there is a daily intermodal train that uses this routing; not sure if this is what you saw...

Not intermodal (tanks I think). Sending intermodal that way makes sense since CP does much of their intermodal work at Schiller Park and would involve changing direction at B-12 to get to the New Line.

doepack wrote:That may be the case, but every so often, CP does run freights out of Bensenville east to A5, then north on the C&M, even in situations where there's no detour in effect. In fact, I believe there is a daily intermodal train that uses this routing; not sure if this is what you saw...

I've seen freights as far east as the Grand Ave zig-zag at night while coming home from Blackhawks games.

E Runs wrote:

doepack wrote:That may be the case, but every so often, CP does run freights out of Bensenville east to A5, then north on the C&M, even in situations where there's no detour in effect. In fact, I believe there is a daily intermodal train that uses this routing; not sure if this is what you saw...

I've seen freights as far east as the Grand Ave zig-zag at night while coming home from Blackhawks games.

Unless I'm missing where you mean, that's west of Cicero West (Grand/Cicero station) where the Belt Railway connection is. Lots of freight to/from the Belt; very little east of there.

When the UP put in the Shoo-fly the CP connection was temporarily broken. CP detoured their trains via A5, except for those trains that ran to BRC's Clearing Yard. The trains running to the Belt ran via the Chicago Sub and Iowa, returning to the Soo main at LaCrescent, MN (River Jc.). The CP connection was reestablished after a few days.

lstone19 wrote:

E Runs wrote:

doepack wrote:That may be the case, but every so often, CP does run freights out of Bensenville east to A5, then north on the C&M, even in situations where there's no detour in effect. In fact, I believe there is a daily intermodal train that uses this routing; not sure if this is what you saw...

I've seen freights as far east as the Grand Ave zig-zag at night while coming home from Blackhawks games.

Unless I'm missing where you mean, that's west of Cicero West (Grand/Cicero station) where the Belt Railway connection is. Lots of freight to/from the Belt; very little east of there.

Sorry, should have been more specific. The zig-zag I'm talking about is at Grand & Hamlin.

Still not sure where that is as I can't find Hamlin on a map. Did you mean Homan?

Yes, Homan. I only drive past there 45+ times a year, you'd think I'd know the right darn names.

Anyway, I see the freights headed eastbound down there presumably to clear A2 and then head north. But that's only after 10 at night so the one you saw was probably due to the accident. What I can never figure out though is where the head is. That's a heckuva long backup move either way, unless they're double ended? I always end up seeing the middle of the train.

E Runs wrote:
Anyway, I see the freights headed eastbound down there presumably to clear A2 and then head north. But that's only after 10 at night so the one you saw was probably due to the accident. What I can never figure out though is where the head is. That's a heckuva long backup move either way, unless they're double ended? I always end up seeing the middle of the train.

Doepack posted in the Chicago passenger forum (see my topic "2247 takes the Bloomingdale" - sorry can't post a link easily with this browser) that WSOR trains heading to the BRC come down Track 3 east of A-5, then back to Cicero West, then forward on to the BRC (and v.v. of course). I guess they can't use the New Line and avoid the reverse move.

Here you go, Mr. Stone:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 61&t=95509

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 9382.story

The news keeps getting better for UP, huh? Head-on collision, derailment/collapse, civilians killed.

Representatives from Union Pacific will appear at a community meeting to discuss the July 4 freight train derailment and viaduct collapse that took the life of a Glenview couple.

The meeting, requested by officials in Glenview and Northbrook, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday in the Sheely Center for the Performing Arts at Glenbrook North High School, 2300 Shermer Road.

Railroad officials are expected to discuss the derailment -- as well as past derailments at the viaduct, which passes over Shermer on the Glenview-Northbrook border.

The family of the couple killed announced this week it has retained the well-known personal injury firm Clifford Law Offices as lead counsel in its wrongful death suit against Union Pacific.

The FRA has published its report, citing the official cause of the accident as a "thermal misalignment of the track"(aka "sun kink") due to the very hot weather that day. Meanwhile, the city of Glenview is installing a new bridge at the derailment site, scheduled for completion later this year...