Rail roads and their tracks.

[the old grind]

(Followers, notice at 14:00 in the long video how side-boom cranes have a c'wt that extends out according to load.)

Near the end of the short video you can see wind blowing snow in front of the camera. It appears the center-beam cars caught more wind than their empty weight could keep on the rails.

This also appears to be on a slight downgrade, and if so would add to the momentum of following cars and reduce tension on the couplers at this speed. Less chance of 'holding them down' by that.

btw, re: 'tension' .. this is a familiar scenario to RR modelers/players like myself. And conversely, with heavy rolling stock and tight track radii one learns to put heavy cars in the front of a consist. With them in the back coupler tension can cause light cars (IE: empty, flat) in the middle to fall inward on a curve. Banking from the rear or middle of any consist vs engines all up front considers this. (you knew that )

 

[MossRoad]

Lol, guy just keeps plowin.

hahahaha yeah he does! Wonder if he even noticed it?

 

[bcp]

Looks like an industrial roundhouse and turntable just SE of the junction in the video.

Santa Fe Junction · Kansas City, KS 66103

âââââ · Tourist attraction

www.google.com

Bruce

 

[BravoXray]

It looked to me like the empty cars were just pushed off the rails by the cars behind them. It's a known bad practice to put empty, light weight cars anywhere but at the rear of a consist for that exact reason.
Down hill and on a curve was too much to keep them on the rails.

 

[the old grind]

100% on that. And as I often say if there's any more than one possibility for something it's too often that more than one is a cause/contributor. Yeah, those tankers had plenty of KE, and it wouldn't take many if full.

btw, By opening the link in a browser (post #661) I was easily able to zoom in enough to see the tracks leading to buildings, apparently intact if not in use. Everything around it looks well-kept, if the layout is odd. It's not unthinkable that mat'ls could be moved within the operation by legacy rail infrastructure.

Bruce, thanks for the eye candy.

 

[bcp]

The old roundhouse and turntable are now part of a business park, but not RR connected.

Kansas City Terminal Railway Success Story | Missouri Department of Natural Resources

dnr.mo.gov

Westside Business Park, railroad roundhouse reuse project - Kansas City Aerial Photographs

https://www.steamlocomotive.com/roundhouse/photos/mo-kansascity-kct-barris.jpg

Bruce

 

[bcp]

Same junction, derailed on the bridge.

Bruce

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

Near the end of the short video you can see wind blowing snow in front of the camera. It appears the center-beam cars caught more wind than their empty weight could keep on the rails.

Looking at the trees in the background, the snow falling off the center-beam the snow blowing past the camera, and steam in the background on the camera on the engines, the wind couldn't have been blowing much more than 15 mph. Since the empty car weighs something north of 50'000#, I doubt the wind had any effect at all.

 

[the old grind]

3HR, one plus one equals two and two plus one equals three etc, so IMO good point!

WIMI is also that what I suggested is at best a guess, as much based on 'modeling' as reality, and may have been a lesser of possible contributors. Also glad to hear of more of them and never too proud to think mine is tops.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

3HR, one plus one equals two and two plus one equals three etc, so IMO good point!

WIMI is also that what I suggested is at best a guess, as much based on 'modeling' as reality, and may have been a lesser of possible contributors. Also glad to hear of more of them and never too proud to think mine is tops.

I am wondering what the loud bang was a few seconds before the derailment started at about 11 seconds in the first video. It was about as loud as two cars slamming together. Failure of something? Speculation since we are unlikely to see the RR incident report