2/28/2006: Train blown over
 

http://cellar.org/2006/train-blow.jpg

xoB via wunderground gets us this shot of a train crossing the St. Lawrence River near Montreal... when strong winds blew several cars right over.

IotD seems to enjoy engineering failures. In total, 5 cars wound up blown over; all of them were empty except for one, I guess the tank there, which contained canola oil. But this was only the start of the problem. How do you un-tip these big rail cars? one story on it.

They thought about just dropping them in the water, but figured that would take too much more work. So they decided to tip them back. They brought in cranes to do the job, but the cranes then faced a problem... wind! The first day it was too windy for the cranes to operate.

I found no stories after the 24th on it, so it seems they did manage to clean it up, about a week after the original accident.

Canola oil?! NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo!

OK, rapeseed oil, happy now? :) :P

Empty shipping containers stacked two high. Also know as sails.

Must be some really pissed off hobos now.

It never seemed to be a big deal when this happened on my electric train set...

Ther you have another example of how hard UT works to put the IOtD on for us every day.
I found that picture and thought it was pretty cool. All kinds of scenarios in my head about, what now??
But UT did the digging and came up with the whole story.
Thanks, man......you rock. :biggrindu

I gotta agree wholeheartedly. IOTD is one of my daily internet highlights. Thanks lots.:thumb2:


Sandra

This is a MESS , but train derailments all ways are .
The cool (???) thig is that train cars are designed to come appart , tip one to far and it will come apart like lincolin logs , bring in a crane and it goes back togather just as easyly

..."Pardon me... would any of you gentlemen happen to be smitties? Or if not smitties, per se, perhaps trained in the metallurgic arts before you were led to a life of aimless wandering?"

Must have been one helluva wind.