http://www.nbcchicago.com/traffic/transit/des-plaines-mayor-moylan-rail-inspection-heat-kinks-162798496.html
Here is a blip from the article........
With the season's high heat, Moylan's concern may be well-founded. A safety advisory notice from the Federal Railroad Administration, released July 11, points to rail buckling -- commonly referred to as "sun kinks" -- as the preliminary cause of four derailments within a two week period.

A Union Pacific train derailed in Junction City, Kan., on June 27, when the temperature rose to 107 degrees. Days later, in Mesa, Wash., a BNSF Railway Co. coal train derailed amid 90 degree temperatures.

So it's not just Glenview/Northbrook that this has happened at, sadly the one here resulted in a death.

Ummm, derailments happen. And trains will blow their horns so long as the community does not have a quiet zone ordinance. So if you dont like the noise of trains, dont live near the tracks. And obviously you know nothing about trains, because sun kinks do happen and they do cause derailments. We had one last year where a train hit a sun kink and derailed and destroyed 2 50ft bridge sections. so dont try and talk about things you dont know about.

Derailments happen on cold days too. To be completely safe stay at least one quarter mile away from any tracks, not just bridges. Don't go near tanker trucks. Stay 25' from any power lines. Don't drive more than ten miles per hour. Don't cross any streets.

There are numerous derailments throughout the country, many involving hazardous materials.

The hot weather HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THIS ACCIDENT. Keith you have made it blatantly clear that you have absolutley no idea what you are talking about. Rail kinks happen all over the country when extemely hot ( or cold ) temperatures occur. Every year there are strectches of railroad that have speed restrictions on them due to excessive heat, usually in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. I also seem to recall dozens of instances of roads buckling up all over Chicagoland during the same week. You also contradict yourself in your post because last I checked the temperatures were controlled by mother nature. With your logic, Union Pacific should not be responsible. "Aside from acts of Mother Nature, vandalism, terrorism, or other such damage to the tracks beyond anyone's ability to predict or to compensate for". Are we going be selective now in what counts as mother nature? Unfortunatley these accidents can and do happen. We all need to grow up and accept that fact

Keith, yes this happens in Arizona as well, so they too then need to increase the robustness of their designs. Just like roads buckling and water mains breaking, even your tire blowing out on your car. These things happen, sadly like most accidents the one in Glenview took two lives. It is still more dangerous to drive in your car everyday than anything else.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/traffic/transit/des-plaines-mayor-moylan-rail-inspection-heat-kinks-162798496.html
" With the season's high heat, Moylan's concern may be well-founded. A safety advisory notice from the Federal Railroad Administration, released July 11, points to rail buckling -- commonly referred to as "sun kinks" -- as the preliminary cause of four derailments within a two week period. A Union Pacific train derailed in Junction City, Kan., on June 27, when the temperature rose to 107 degrees. Days later, in Mesa, Wash., a BNSF Railway Co. coal train derailed amid 90 degree temperatures. On July 4, and with temperatures in the high-90s, more than 40 coal cars came off the tracks near Pendleton, Texas. "

The heat does cause sun kinks. railroads do "heat patrols" but they will not find all sun kinks because some do not show themselves until the weight of a train is underneath of them. Railroads are dangerous, so stay away if you are really that worried.

The ambient temperature and the length of time that the rails are exposed to it has a lot to do with it. Recall basic 8th grade physics class? Heat expands. Cold contracts.

When it's hot, the rails EXPAND. If they're welded together at the ends, and held to the ties with spikes, then that metal's going to expand somehow. Sometimes it breaks the weld and moves to the left or right. Sometimes the weld doesn't break and the rail moves to the left or right.

The metal spikes are set in wood, and have thousands of tons moving over them every day, so they move up/down, and side to side a bit (i.e., they wiggle). There's NO WAY they're going to not move. So they get a bit loose, and the rail has a bit of play to kink in.

Even if you get a rail that's set on concrete, and the "spike" is set in concrete, then that rail still wants to expand, so it'll expand UPWARD, and then you have a bump.

Sometimes you don't see the "kink", but there's a weakened spot, and when you put a thousand tons over it and pound it repeatedly with a mile long set of train cars, you derail.

When things contract, the rails SHRINK, and welds can break because the ends pull away from each other. This leads to a gap that gets pounded by the wheels of the train cars, and causes deformities in the rails and/or wheels which can lead to a derailment.

If you think about it, those tracks are an inch or two wide - that's how much play you have for the wheels before they go off the tracks.

Greg,

Thanks for your unpleasant display of emotion and your accusatory tone. You say I know nothing about the science of this failure. Well, please realize that you don't know me nor my background, so I suggest that you restrain yourself in the future. Please tell us, what qualifies you to tell everyone how it is?

To clarify, I was saying that the thermal expansion of tracks is a predictable, calculable design parameter, unlike an earthquake or a terrorist bomb or vandalism, or perhaps a sink hole. I'm saying that yes, Greg, railroad engineers should be selective about design parameters. They should select all of them, if possible. But it's not possible, so we should at least design for those we can predict and calculate. I'm saying that if the calculations didn't work for continuous rail, given the expected moving-loads per axle, the number of axles, heat and speeds, then other methods should have been used. I'm saying that if the failure was due to heat, then the design was inadequate from the start.

Keith, so what you are ready saying is that we need to redesign something that almost always works as intended just because one bad thing happened? Very rarely do sun kinks result derailments of any magnitude. Obviously its not a big enough problem that it becomes financially viable to fix. Also I think the prissy chicago attitude shows as people dont seem to understand just how dangerous the railroads are. Sometimes ship just happens, it sucks but it happens and at some point you have done enough and things are just going to happen. People seem to forget than a they are not in control.

Obviously you dont understanding what a blessing continuous welded rail is. You obviously know nothing about the history of rail. So we should go back to jointed rail that costs exponentially more to maintain and in reality is more dangerous than CWR? This always happens though, one thing happens and then the general ptublic gets all over it making unreasonable demands but then it fades away. Ill leave the engineering work to the experts that have made railroads much much safer in the last 40 years.

Christian,

Were you at the meeting Monday night at GBN? Did you hear the gentleman in the audience give us a little statistical analysis? He took the number of derailments in our length of tracks, over the number of years in which they occurred, and by ratio, compared it to the miles of tracks in Illinois. I think he said that if the derailment rate in all of Illinois was the same as for our stretch of tracks, IL would be having around 750 derailments per year. His point was that there's obviously something way wrong with our tracks.

Tell me, if the heat is the problem, then why weren't there any derailments in any of the commuter rails around Chicagoland, on that same day in that same heat.

And yes, I think that if people are at risk and/or dying as a result of a great rail design, which seems to be sensitive to hot climates, then we should seek alternative designs. When the Challenger blew up, they didn't just say "oh well, shit happens".

Keith, it is not possible to predict exactly where, when or if a sun kink will occur. There are so many variables that have to come together and they just dont happen that often. The challenger disaster cn be pin pointed to one flaw that caused the whole disaster, a different situation entirely. The simple fact is that rail today works just fine. It is not perfect, but it is much safer than the jointed rail of old. The gsituation here was merely a combination of events that hardly ever happen. People seem to think that this is a daily occurrence and it is not.

Christian....you are right this doesn't occur daily. However, it has occurred more than one time at that bridge. If you go to the other side of Shermer off of West Lake you'll see a curve that is a sharp S. It is like a blind spot. If I remember correctly, that is where each of the derailments have occurred within the Northbrook/Glenview area. As citizens we can't just go with the theory sh*t happens. Not at this specific spot with the UP. The other thing is...I think we all have to remember that Northbrook residents are raw with emotions. We have had a death of a teacher at GBN, two suicides of young men, one a senior in high school one a recent graduate, another death of a senior at GBN by a car accident, and now we have lost two more community members by a derailment. People of Glenview and Northbrook want answers to why the derailment keeps happening at this particular spot. Accidents are accidents...you are all right about that...unfortunately when a derailment at one spot happens once then it is an accident, when it happens twice then you are thinking what's the problem, when it happens a third time right after that area has been closed for a greater period of time than we were told...then it is no longer a feeling of an accident. Heat playing a role...sure....totally accept it. Carrying that amount of coal that I've heard was too much weight, then I say it was probably an accident waiting to happen especially with the heat factor.

Christian,

Most of this discussion concludes that heat is the cause for these "sun kinks". Now you're saying that they are hard to predict, that there are so many variables. So which is it?

These "sun kinks" aren't random events that just plague us for no apparent reason. They're not just accidents that happen, like a car accident caused by a moment of bad judgement. If heat is the culprit as it affects the continuous rail design, then, as I've said, there's a weakness there, or at least, specifically in the way our section of rail is built.

I'm saying that if this is all about heat, then this is no mere unpredictable event. The rails gain (or lose) heat from: 1) direct sun radiation, 2) conduction from the bed on which they sit, and 3) convection from the ambient air temperature. - - - All of these parameters can be closely quantified as estimates of maximum and minimum heat gain, and therefore used in calculations to predict the thermal expansion. In doing this, if continuous rail is characteristically subject to thermal expansion, the amount can be predicted, and alternative designs, to compensate for that expansion, should be employed, even if it only takes a spot of an alternative design, say, every 5 miles or so.

But as "Curious Resident" suspects, we could have some sort of problem in the curvey portion of our rail, I think he/she is saying, between West Lake and the bridge. If that's the case, then we're barking up the wrong tree.

Keith, If only it were so simple. Yes you can calculate thermal expension of steel but you can't take into account a lot of other variables. Consider a piece of steel that is slightly stronger, weaker, thinner or thicker at a particular spot. A weld that has a slight defect. Consider slight movement of the track bed, a loose spike, a kid putting a rock on the track, intensified sun reflection on a section of track, a strong wind, etc. Consider the myriad of mechanical parts on a rail car that can either fail or cause a freakish movement of the car. Calculations are made and safety factors are built in but you can't account for all possibilities.

You're right, when Challenger blew up they didn't say "stuff happens." They took a rational and careful approach to finding our exactly what happened without jumping to conclusions and making irrational accusations. I, for one, hope the true causes of the derailments are found and can be remedied.

One potential reason why commuter rail lines experience less derailments? LESS WEIGHT on the rails. Shorter trains. Less locomotives. Overall, less stress on the joints and other parts of the entire system.

Commuter trains weight on the order of hundreds of tons. Freight trains? Thousands of tons. There's a lot of friction and heat generated, and add in the factor of the ambient temperature and sun heating, and you get more problems on a Freight line than a Commuter line.

Of course there's more factors that come into play, but that's one reason why.

Ed60062,

Yes, I know there can be other variables, but in the context of this discussion, people have been blaming the heat. After all, they're called "sun kinks", right? This is why I'm saying the effects of heat can be predicted and designed around. Like I said, If Cont Rail is desireable, then by all means, employ it, but make damn sure that your design is over-designed to take into account all the variations of temp. If you can't take them into account, supplement with a different design. And your safety factor should cover the minor anomolies you mentioned. Next to other engineering problems, believe me, rail design is one of the simpler ones.

Derailments from mechanical failures in the train cars are not a part of this dicussion because they are not caused by the CR design. The UP rightly considers those as separate causes.

And speaking of over-designed, weren't you shocked to learn that the bridge didn't collapse due to an overload of train cars, accordianed up along its span (which is what I assumed from viewing the aerial photos). Rather, UP says a car, or the cars, somehow knocked the entire bridge structure off its abutment! I would call that under-designed; that the bridge support should never be affected by tumbling train cars.

Yes, I agree, obviously. I certainly do hope the answer is found. In particular, the cause for the failures in our stretch of rail, which seem to be inordinately frequent.

Keith, as I said before, you can predict when a sun kink may happen, but you will never know when and where one is going to strike because there are so many factors that cannot be accounted for, simple as that. I dont see why thats so hard to understand.

Keith said:
"And speaking of over-designed, weren't you shocked to learn that the bridge didn't collapse due to an overload of train cars, accordianed up along its span (which is what I assumed from viewing the aerial photos)"

Uh, ummm, no not at all. Because it has happened before. When you have a 10,000 ton (yes, TEN THOUSAND TONS!) you have an incredible amount of energy (momentum) that has to go somewhere. Get the right angle and the bridge is gonna become a play toy. Even if there are only going 10, they will still pile up and accordian if the train is big enough. Weve gotten 95% of the issues taken care of, that last 5% costs more than the other 95%. Railroads are dangerous, why cant the general public accept that? Whats so hard to get?

Keith said:
"Yes, I agree, obviously. I certainly do hope the answer is found. In particular, the cause for the failures in our stretch of rail, which seem to be inordinately frequent."

Lots of trains = more things can go wrong. The statistic about having 750 derailments a year has to assume that every stretch of track in Illinois is as busy as that section which is not true.

Keith said:

"Most of this discussion concludes that heat is the cause for these "sun kinks". Now you're saying that they are hard to predict, that there are so many variables. So which is it?"

Ummm, both, duh! They are not mutually exclusive.

Realistically, the bridge falling is irrelevant. If they had net been hit with the bridge they would have either been hit with a car or would have been crushed by the weight of 100 tons + of coal spilling out of the cars. They simply were the wrong place at the exact wrong moment, its just that simple.

Christian,

A pileup on the bridge shouldn't be able to bring down the bridge. That is just good engineering practice, regardless of the fatal reality that occurred here. I can think of all kinds of ways for a bridge to be fastened to its abutments, that would prevent it from coming down. Pileups on road bridges, intended for automotive and truck use, don't bring down the bridges.

I brought up the accordianed rail cars because I thought readers might share in the amazement, that it wasn't their combined weight that overloaded the bridge; rather, the defective way in which it was attached to it's abutments. I thought you would appreciate that since you've been thinking about loads and weight.

The numerous variables you mentioned, that cause sun kinks, are really just one - that is, insufficient restraint, to prevent the rails from moving longitudinally or laterally due to thermal expansion. The loads are predictable; and so is the heat, but if the ties aren't buried into the bed properly, or if the rails aren't attached to the ties good enough, a failure can happen. And there are expansion joints that can be used in areas where rail restraint is dicey.

It might just be that the sharp curve "Curious Resident" mentioned, might be making for a dicey situation. There is more friction and heat there, and I would think that lateral restraint of the rails against thermal expansion would also be more difficult in curves.

Keith, a pileup of railcars on a bridge does have the ability to bring down a bridge. Look up a derailment in Morristown Indiana a couple years ago. Exact same situation, I dont understand why you are having such a hard time understanding this. Your little car weighs maybe 3000 lbs, one loaded coal hopper weighs about 300,000 lbs, and there are probably 10-15 piled up there. You obviously dont understand the concept of momentum being related to weight and speed. If youre going 10mph they are still going to pile up due to the mass involved, cars dont act the same because they are so small and light. Obviouisly you are naive enough to think that the field is the same environment as in a lab: it isnt. Railroad s are dangerous and these things are always going to happen, even with your "vast" knowledge [sarcasm]. Not everything is as cushy as you chicago lifestyle. If you dont like railroads dont go around them. Works out better for us because then we dont get frivolous lawsuits that make our jobs harder.

Keith: Here you go. So are you telling me that this did not happen and it is simply a figment of mine and everyones imagination. Amazingly it appears that a sun kink caused a derailment which collapsed a bridge, but, no, Keith says thats not possible, so we must all just be stupid. Face it Keith, you know you are wrong, even with evidence for that you probably wont get it. Obviously you dont understand how many thousands of trains run over those tracks without a major derailment, but then again, logic doesnt work with stupid people.

http://www.wthr.com/story/15037103/train-derails-in-shelby-county

Christian,

You said, “logic doesn’t work with stupid people.” I say that stupid is as stupid does. It’s only you who’s slinging arrows and you seem to persistently misunderstand what I write.

I didn’t say the pileup couldn’t bring down the bridge. I said it SHOULDN’T be able to. There is a difference. I still say that the bridge is inadequately designed if railcars can take it off its mounts.

Regarding my understanding of momentum, I’ll simply say that my call to Greg for his restraint applies to you and for the same reasons.

You said that if I don’t like railroads (because they’re dangerous) that I shouldn’t go around them. Well, it’s you who said they’re dangerous in your replies on 7/26, 7/21, and twice on 7/18. It’s you who claims they’re dangerous because at anytime and anywhere, a sun kink can take out a train with no warning, no predictability, and no prevention possible. Under this philosophy of yours, engineers should just give up their trades because mother nature makes everything impossible to analyze and nothing they do will work.

You also said, “Works out better for us because then we don’t get frivolous lawsuits that make our jobs harder.” Christian, is the death of two people a frivolous case? You seem to have a liability-related interest in this crash. Why? Just who is the "us" you refer to? I can't help but wonder who you work for...

And you're final comments are simply too irrational for me to bother with.

Keith, thats not the only reason they are dangerous. I work for a railroad and ive seen guys get crushed between two coupled cars because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of my best friends broke his back because he was thrown off of a derailing car and landed 15ft down on the ground, railroads are dangerous and the people that work for them are aware of that. Sun kinks only happen when its extremely hot and theres no practical way to predict where they will happen. Did you read the story I posted? it was the exact same situation. I got the inside scoop on that incident and a maintainer doing heat patrols was running about 15 minutes in front of them and there was no problem then. On the subject of bridges, do you have any idea how many rail bridges they are? There are so few bridges knocked off their abutments that it is merely a very rare incident. The railroads dont see it to be practical to alter the basic design of rail simply because they have 1 or 2 derailments because of them, obviously its more expensive so unless someone else pays for it nothing will really change. When the railroads get sued for incidents involving the public new rules are established that really only make management happy and make our jobs more difficult. I have no interest in this crash, I dont work for the UP, I dont neccessarily like the UP, but I dont like to see a railroad get beat up because the general public is ignorant on the operations of railroads.

Keith, watch this video and you will see the massive amounts of momentum. At the 4 minute mark, watch how the rest of the train, not connected to power, keeps moving along. And this train is only going <10mph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Nq632eV6I

Then watch this one. Notice the momentum of the rest of the train as it slams into the locomotives. The momentum of railcars is exponentially greater than the transfer of energy in a rear end automobile collision, not even in the same league, train cars pile up easily as speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WADnriWzJes

This is a good photo emphasizing the difference between a car and a train:
http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=643&tbm=isch&tbnid=97DEVA7sv6uDoM:&imgrefurl=http://autoworld.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/train-collides-with-car-carrying-truck-in-kent-washington-cadillac-dts-damaged/car-carrying-truck-collides-with-train-in-kent-washington-cadillac-dts-damaged-img_1/&docid=hWqingABF6cxUM&imgurl=http://autoworld.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/car-carrying-truck-collides-with-train-in-kent-washington-cadillac-dts-damaged-img_1.jpg&w=608&h=408&ei=JBAYUNiiEoOx8AGolICYCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=571&vpy=156&dur=395&hovh=184&hovw=274&tx=133&ty=85&sig=106644361506693767579&page=1&tbnh=138&tbnw=184&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:82

Ed60062, thanks for being realistic. I too feel bad that this tragic event happened. I too sat at the meeting listening to some people in the audience that made a legitimate point. But there were others that did not have a clue on how to run a railroad and did their best to try to make it a circus. If we ran our trains at 10 MPH, we would never get the coal to the power plants in Wisconsin and poeple would then complain to Wisconsin Electric Power about the brown outs. Also, if we were not allowed to ship fuel in tank cars, the cost of getting the product to market would go sky high. I believe that the officials from Glenview, Northbrook and Federal (and state) governments ran an excellent meeting last evening. The UP presentation was very honest and forthright. Mr. Connell of the UP deserves 4 stars for telling all of the signal inspector who called for assistance that arrived to late. THANKS to all.

Kristyn, you make it sound so easy.

Because the signal maintainer is NOT an inspector. They don't have the same level of expertise. One can shut down a section of track because of the level of expertise - that costs a lot of money, and depending on what's wrong, can require different crews to come out, bring supplies/materials, etc. which costs MORE money - and not just to the company - it could be that a train stops where it is, and can't move for a few hours until other traffic is cleared - which could block a crossing or two or three.. So to ensure they get it correct, there's a person with a higher level of expertise that comes out to inspect, and "pull the cord" if necessary.

It's not as simple as it would appear to be.

Of course not, but some of the demands were unrealistic and not thought out.

JMW2323 - here is the definition of an accident, I do beleive this is exactly what this was. a : an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance b : lack of intention or necessity : chance <met by accident rather than by design>
2a : an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance b : an unexpected and medically important bodily event especially when injurious <a cerebrovascular accident> c : an unexpected happening causing loss or injury which is not due to any fault or misconduct on the part of the person injured but for which legal relief may be sought d —used euphemistically to refer to an involuntary act or instance of urination or defecation

Shit happens, as simple as that.

The NTSB has to come in and investigate, just like if it were a plane that fell out of the sky. Yes it is a corporations job to put a spin on things, it happens every day and will continue to happen every day. I got news for you, the railroad isn't going anywhere and without it were all screwed. What do you believe is truly going on? Why is it so hard to believe that the excessive heat played a roll in this? We can all say yes they should have stopped all train traffic, then we could all complain about a crossing being blocked for however many hours instead while they made this line safe again to cross. Another thing that no one would be able to comprehend or understand, and the uproar over being inconveinenced by something like a crossing being blocked would have been just as great if not greater. You can say all you want that it wouldn't have but it would. UP didn't say "lets run the train and hope the bridge collapses from the weight of the cars piling up on it, that would be awesome....." There is no easy way out of this for UP either, how you can think there is one is beyond me.

Narib....The NTSB was called to investigate by the Linder's Family lawyers, not the UP. The UP was using the Federal Railway. I do believe accidents happen and heat was probably a factor. If you see rust building somewhere i.e. the bridge overpass on Willow Road and you live here and know that that the particular spot where the derailment happened had one in 2009 and was closed last year for repairs, you begin to question the people that maintain the bridges. Bridges and maintaining have been an issue for awhile. I feel horrible for the Linder family and went to school with one of the sons. When the NTSB comes....I believe there will be a complete investigation, especially around that area. I think the main concern of the citizens including me, is the old saying...first time shame on me, second time shame on them, the third time...well to me there should not have been a third time. I am concerned for safety...not questioning the heat. We have strange weather in Chicago...we all know that....how can we help as citizens to make sure we avoid the potential death of others in the future. Children, families, bicycles, etc go through/under all the time, especially with The Glen now....let's focus on safety. Is there anything that the UP can do to allow for that bridge to be a little safer? It isn't the first time and if we don't think beyond replacing it won't be the last. Let's focus on what we all are trying to...safety at the Shermer bridge and etc.

If you really want that "bridge" to be safer? you have to close off the part that is open to non-railroad traffic. But even then, I suspect you're going to get people who would climb over the fence and get involved in an accident, so it's never going to be perfect.

Or you could make the train go under the road, but even then you can have a host of issues that adversely affect the roadway. And as an aside, this also imperfect solution will have an associated monetary cost. Whether the surrounding community is willing to absorb that cost is another matter.

Ed you have made some excellent posts, and I thank you for bringing some sanity to this situation.

Yeah. I guess now we have to sideline every piece of machinery that has any rust on it because obviously it is not safe. {/sarcasm}

Did you not see the video all over the internet of the SUV flying over the "bump" across the highway? They didn't do the "prudent" thing and shut that highway down until AFTER that ACCIDENT. They allowed traffic to flow still until that event. Here is the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNu-BYNWCOw What about all the roads that buckled in the heat, did IDOT see that happening, should they have warned us first and done more? Had someone been killed by a road that had buckled in the heat would you be as upset? Shouldn't the roads all be shutdown and made safe until they can figure out a fix to keep that from happening??? The answer is no, it's not realistic to do that and there PLENTY of corporations that put the almighty dollar ahead of everything else. This was an accident, one that could have been prevented...possibly, but an accident non the less. I don't think people understand what the raildroad does, what is transported on a daily basis, why it's transported on the rails and the fact that it needs to be unless you can all figure out another way to do it. You know the military transports nuclear waste across the railroad tracks right? Right through your own backyard, they don't tell you when or what lines for security reasons but they are all used and it's transported all the time.

If profit is their motive, and surely it is because profit is what stimulates and runs the economy, then they would do anything within reason to avoid such an accident. The cost of one such accident far exceeds the cost of any other precautions that might be taken.

No, what they knew is that a Signal Maintainer - someone who's not a "track expert" THOUGHT there might be a problem, so he referred it on to someone who's job it was to deal with tracks. That person was on the way to review the situation when the accident occurred.

Trains are inherently DANGEROUS pieces of machinery - just like cars, lawn mowers, etc. You can try to remove as much risk in their operation as possible, but ultimately you're never going to remove ALL the risk due to the effects of entropy in the Universe (aka STUFF HAPPENS).

When problems occur (and they will - that's the only certainty), you evaluate things to see if you can remove or reduce the risk of that problem from reoccurring. In this case, you have rolling stock which weighs thousands of tons. Whether it's moving at 10MPH or 50MPH, it's not stopping on a dime, so whether those cars were going at 10MPH or 50MPH, it wouldn't have mattered one bit - you had one car derail, and the other cars behind it weren't stopping until their momentum was converted into something else (usually heat as in friction with the rails or a brake). In this case, the car derailed in an unfortunate location, and the other cars continued to hit that now somewhat fixed spot in space, and continued to add their mass to the fixed spot. The total mass of those objects at that fixed spot exceeded the fixed spot's capabilities, it failed, and a vehicle underneath was crushed with tragic consequences.

A derailment isn't the only way an accident could occur. It could be a failure of a wheel, breaking an axle, sidewall blows out on a car, some hatch gives way, a spring snaps on the wheel carriage, the hitch fails, an airline leaks or gets clogged, and so on... There's a GAZILLION possibilities, and you can't prevent 100% of all of them. All you can do is to do your best to prevent it by making wheels out of a certain metal alloy and inspect them regularly; only using axles for certain amounts of weight and lengths of time, inspecting and maintaining hatches, etc...

But even with all that, again, for lack of a better term - stuff happens that's unexpected and you have to deal with it from there. But to say "oh you can't run trains if you can't do it safely" is simply ludicrous. Chances are the railroad was there before anything else, and the towns were built around the existence of the railroads. So it's incumbent upon the towns to help with the safety issues.

Railroad puts up a fence and kids hop the fence - it's up to the town to deal with the situation because the railroad police might not always be there, or they might need the local PD to prosecute the offense.

And so on...

David--another voice of reason.

Mollie that is unrealistic. You can't predict sun kinks, no matter what keith may try and tell you. Its going to happen, doesn't happen often but it does on occasion. It was an example of being in the wrong place at the exact wrong moment. I dont understand why people think someone has to be responsible, sometimes things just happen, I dont know why that is so hard to accept.

The speed of the train is not relevant to who was under the bridge. The Lindners just happened to be there at the wrong time. With five or ten seconds difference it might have been someone else, or no one. I think UP is saying that at ten miles per hour the train would still have derailed and caused a massive pileup because of the inertia involved with such an enormous mass. Then it is an engineering question of whether the abutment would have been displaced at the slower speed.

The signal maintainer is not a layman. I'd be interested in how severe was the defect he observed and whether he took pictures. Expanding steel can go from nothing to severe in a short time when it reaches a critical point of tension.

Thats because the general public are morons when it comes to the railroads. I once heard in a community forum after someone ran in front of a train and was killed: "Why didnt the train swerve out of the way?" What a moron. The general public is "generally stupid."

A couple of other insights:

* Moving all those materials by truck would require A LOT of trucks. You think traffic is bad now? HA! Move everything by truck, and you'll see some REALLY bad traffic. Not to mention the pollution.

* Move all those materials by truck: Fuel prices will rise - A LOT.

* Move all those materials by truck: Watch the cost of goods rise - A LOT because of all the attendant costs of truck transport being factored into the cost of the item.

* Some items are too large to move by truck. They're too tall, too wide, too heavy... So you use a train to get it most of the way (if it's final destination isn't reachable by train), and then use a truck for the last leg of the journey. Ever see a bunch of streets shut down because something huge is moving down BOTH sides of the roadway? Yeah, real PITA eh? Imagine that every day if you remove trains from the equation.

* Trains move people too. Just imagine if everyone had to drive because there was no Metra or CTA. You think parking is a costly nightmare now? Wow. Just wow, "you ain't seen nuthin' yet."

Long story short - until we get the kinks worked out in the matter transporters, we've got what we've got. And trains are a part of what we've got. So we'll just have to do the best we can and improve when necessary.

Advertisements that run on this Patch do not affect the editorial content of the site. Likewise, editors have no influence or control over the ad space bought on Patch. If you'd like to learn more about advertising on Patch, please contact our local advertising manager, Michael Shalin, at michael.shalin@patch.com.