Freight train crash in Missouri triggers highway overpass collapse

guardian.co.uk ^ | Saturday 25 May 2013 15.03 EDT

[DeaconBenjamin]

The National Transportation Safety Board said it had dispatched a team to investigate the train crash.

Two freight trains collided at a rail intersection in rural southeastern Missouri on Saturday, triggering the collapse of a highway overpass when at least a dozen rail cars derailed and struck a support pillar, authorities said.

None of the seven people hurt in the fiery crash – two train workers and five people who had been in the two cars on the overpass – suffered life-threatening injuries, Scott County sheriff Rick Walter said in a statement.

"One train T-boned the other one and caused it to derail, and the derailed train hit a pillar which caused the overpass to collapse," Sheriff's dispatcher Clay Slipis said of the pre-dawn crash near Chaffee, about 15 miles southwest of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

The collision of the BNSF Railway Co and Union Pacific trains also sparked a fire when diesel fuel leaked from one of the train engines, Slipis said.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it had dispatched a team to investigate the train crash.

Union Pacific said its train had been primarily carrying auto parts from Illinois to Texas when it struck the side of another train, and that a Union Pacific engineer and conductor were lightly injured, according to spokeswoman Calli Hite.

[NoCmpromiz]

diamond interlocking...cross each other at right angles.

It's a 'diamond' no matter what, but the rails are not always at right angles, and in some instances there are more than two railroads intersecting so the interlocking configuration can get, um, interesting...

Revisiting my previous comment, diamonds are controlled (typically) by the primary (first) railroad at the location. Thus if UP or its predecessor was the first track at this location and then BNSF or its predecessor arrived and created the crossing, UP would have the dispatching rights (and v.v.) Typically the 'owner' of the diamond tends to favor their own traffic over the traffic of the later arrival. What I don't know is which road controls this interlocking, but it would be a safe bet that whoever does would have given the approach (green) to its own train and the restricted (red) to the other train.

Speculating further, suppose that it was the UP that had the approach and the BNSF train blew through the restricted.. Normally if this occurred, the track circuit would have noticed the intrusion and dropped the 'red' onto all quadrants of the interlocking (again assuming a functioning signal system.) Also, most rules require the engineer to 'call' the signal when they pass (usually on the radio - that's how us railfans find out where the train is- you'll hear something like "OIBU milepost N657, approach medium..*" ;-) - so it can be assumed that in the logs of either train would be some indication from the engineer of both trains 'noting' the aspect of the control signal as they approached the diamond.

But again, no matter which train had originally been given the approach, once the BNSF train entered the interlocking, the opposing signal on the UP should have dropped to restricted immediately. Either way, if there was not a signal failure, one of the trains blew through a red...

*Fictitious train symbol at fictitious milemarker... Any resemblance to any real rail symbol and location is purely coincidental... ;-)

[Alberta's Child]

This is what I love about FreeRepublic. I can always find someone who knows a heck of a lot about almost anything!

[Rodamala]

Your fictional train symbol cracked me up. I can think of a good route to run from Oak Island to Buffalo. ;)

[NoCmpromiz]

Your fictional train symbol cracked me up.

It just seemed like a good collection of random letters that collect in blue dust in places like Nobody's, Gulf Summit, and the shadows of an old stone viaduct. I heard a rumor that a portion of that fictional route is now carrying a train with the fictional symbol "SU99", or maybe it was "SU100" but then that would be emulating a fictional train symbol BUOI, I think... I also heard that this fictional train occasionally looks like this:

But that's probably just hearsay, you know how those foamers are...

Have been informed that this fictional photo of a fictional train with a fictional symbol of "SU99" was not in fact taken upon the fictional route of the fictional OIBU but was taken at a fictional location named "Zink" in a state with a fictional conservative as governor... But then you probably knew that.