Is it possible to derail an engine on a straight piece of normal track with only the controls in the cab?

adofmsu@aol.com

> Is it possible to derail an engine on a
> straight piece of normal track with only the
> controls in the cab?
Why would you want to? Here at the HRR we try to keep everything ON the track.

Martyhuck@aol.com

I've helped clean up a few derailments. They've always been caused by one of the following:

Track, ie. out of gauge, sun/heat kink, bad ballast etc.

Poor train handling.

Equipment failure.

So I would say no, but qualify my statement by adding that Murphy, from Murphy's Law fame was a
railroader...Or so I'm told.

-Alan Levy

alanl759@aol.com

> I've helped clean up a few derailments.
> They've always been caused by one of the
> following:

> Track, ie. out of gauge, sun/heat kink, bad
> ballast etc.

> Poor train handling.

> Equipment failure.

> So I would say no, but qualify my statement
> by adding that Murphy, from Murphy's Law
> fame was a
> railroader...Or so I'm told.

As a conductor I can tell you anything is possible, most common is broken rail, and too hard joints made..I've literally seen freight cars jump right up vertically on impact, usually empties, would be much harder with an engine due to the weight involved. Track spreading due to poor ties, loose spikes also can do this.

Now on my fourth railroad I have always seen a triad of reasons why derailments occur. The Engineer said he picked the points on a switch due to a bad switch point. The Track Supervisor said yes the point was not perfect, but the train would not have derailed if not for a sharp flange on the locomotive. The mechanic agrees that the flange was sharp, but it had gone over that switch many a time without derailing, therefore the cause was that the engineer was going too fast!

On the Maryland & Pennsylvania they had only replaced ties on the curves for the 20 years prior to my getting there. Yet even though no ties were replaced on the tangents and the average age of ties on them was over 40 years old. We still only had derailments on the curves. Straight track is VERY forgiving.

Stone Consulting & Design
garyland@stoneconsulting.com

OK, thanks for the answers. I thought I knew the answer but I wanted to make sure.

adofmsu@aol.com