Autoracks dragged under bridge (video question)

[ctclark1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcqfa_uj2hA

Ignore the typically stupid Youtube comments. Does anyone know where this was or how it happened? In particular I'm curious why (based on the first few seconds of the clip) it looks like they backed up and tried again?

(Mods feel free to move this to a more appropriate discussion area, if necessary.)

[bostontrainguy]

Can we get these real cheap and run them to Moran in Boston?

[jwhite07]

And amongst the typically stupid YouTube comments, I didn't notice any smart comments about how massively idiotic the person filming was for not only clearly trespassing, on a bridge no less, but also for staying there on that bridge while it was visibly shaking and moving up and down from the impacts of the railcars underneath. Trying for a Darwin Award, was he?

[Ken Rice]

I came across that videoas well, and one of the comments now says where it was - near Riverport Rd in Memphis, TN. Google map link to the bridge in question: https://goo.gl/maps/nC1MWHqpbPHy8XPS9
The cars were moving in the direction of what appear to be some sort of stub end tank car terminal. But why?

[ExCon90]

If you can bear to plow through all those replies there are a few intelligent comments; it may have been a doubling move while assembling the train and the conductor may not have realized that part of the movement would pass under that bridge.

[ctclark1]

Wouldn't the conductor been on the ground for a coupling move like that?

[BR&P]

I could not tell whether there was another track beyond the racks or not. It's possible the other track had more clearance and should have been the one used for high cars.

In late PC or early Conrail days, they sent a train east out of Niagara Falls on the wrong track. The result was Cadillac "convertibles" which were not in GM's catalog!

[BR&P]

EDIT - I see near the end of the video that's the only track. So much for that theory!

[ExCon90]

Wouldn't the conductor been on the ground for a coupling move like that?

Probably was--on the ground, talking to the engineer on the radio, but not from where he could see the bridge. Or maybe he did, but too late for the engineer to stop the movement--imagine the moment ...

[John_Perkowski]

Admin note:

Topic moved to CN/IC/GTW forum.

[eolesen]

Conductor needs to lose his job. Someone should have been riding the back end if this was a shove.

Presumably this was within yard limits?

[ctclark1]

It's starting to piece together for me... If they were dropping off multiple cuts of tankers to the yard and the conductor was riding the back, they could have decapitated off a few of the autoracks the first time, pulled forward after dropping the first cut, and were backing into another siding to make the second cut? That seems to be the only reason I can fathom why there were already damaged cars at the beginning of the video, and obviously with enough time for someone to have noticed this, trespassed onto the bridge and started recording.

Wouldn't the conductor been on the ground for a coupling move like that?

Probably was--on the ground, talking to the engineer on the radio, but not from where he could see the bridge. Or maybe he did, but too late for the engineer to stop the movement--imagine the moment ...

I'm imagining the moment now, where the conductor is walking back from spotting the end of the train in the siding to make the cut... What's all this? I haven't seen an open top autorack in decades. Oh sh......."

I won't pretend to have any knowledge handling a train, but you'd think there'd have been some resistance to the locomotive when they started bunching up that the engineer would've noticed something? Or is that not really probable?

[ExCon90]

I was never involved with auto racks, but I assume that those roofs are not structural and are no stronger than necessary to hold up their own weight--it may be that the engineer didn't feel a thing until the effect of tearing off one roof after another became cumulative.

[eolesen]

Those roofs are there mainly to protect cars from rocks and debris... They serve no structural purpose.

[STrRedWolf]

From a management perspective, I would assume whoever gave those train orders is getting fired. Isn't route planning supposedly requires knowing how high those train cars are and how high the bridges are?

The engineer/conductor? I'm not so sure. It depends on how long that consist was and where they were during the event (definitely not at that bridge).

The dispatcher? Probably not.