Santa Fe locomotive goes through wall

brandi_n_la · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2011 2:55 pm

I'm sure everyone has seen the photo at least once, but the LA Times at http://framework.latimes.com/2011/11/14 ... ough-wall/ has reposted the famous image of the LA Union Station accident in their photography section along with the text of the article from 1948.

Brandi

weekendrailroader · **Joined:** Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:02 am **Posts:** 293

Gotta love the well-placed "No Parking" signs on the street below. Who knew there would come a day when they would protect a Model A from the Santa Fe? (Hey, that rhymed!)
:)

EDM · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:16 pm

Anyone else catch the error in the paper, understating the unit's weight? IIRC, a chicken wire F-3 is around 240,000 lbs, with a four unit set weighing 960,000 lbs. Even back then, the media had trouble getting railroad related issues right.

junior · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2011 3:30 am

good thing those transmission wires were there to hold it back.....

Newriver400 · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:01 pm

Well, I'll ask the first real railroader's question: "Wonder who got fired over that?"

:-)

Mike

tomgears · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2011 3:16 pm

Aliso Street is long gone but a Bing bird's eye view of the station shows the same wall with nothing but highways next to it.

http://www.bing.com/maps/?FORM=Z9LH4#Jn ... I5Mzc2MTU=

filmteknik · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:21 pm

I can understand the wires not breaking given enough slack but enough force was exerted to break the pole and they still held. Presumably they didn't have much to do with stopping the F but then again, with them creating enough retarding force to break a pole, maybe they did!

Steve

davew833 · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:22 pm

I feel stupid asking this question, but why didn't the front truck fall off? Can someone explain how the trucks are secured on an F-unit? I thought they were just held in place by the weight of the loco.

Ed Selinsky · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2011 11:14 pm

davew833 wrote:

I feel stupid asking this question, but why didn't the front truck fall off? Can someone explain how the trucks are secured on an F-unit? I thought they were just held in place by the weight of the loco.

It was not uncommon for passenger equipment to have locking kingpins on the trucks, so in case of a derailment the trucks would not disengage from the carbody. On Milwaukee road coaches there was a brass coverplate inside the coach over each kingpin which you would have to remove , reach in and pull out the locking pin first, then the three sections of king pin to be able to seperate the truck from the carbody.

Concerning what caused the locomotive to stop where it did is that the friction of the fuel tank on the ground after the truck went over the edge was greater then the friction of the four flanges on the rear truck pushing it ahead, and thus no more forward motion.

p51 · **Posted:** Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:34 am

junior wrote:

good thing those transmission wires were there to hold it back.....

Those wires wouldn’t possibly have provided enough support to have been any use against a weight like that. Touching alongside something metal like that, I wouldn’t be surprised if the power went out. Could you imagine the call to the electric company? “I’m sorry, Mr. Jones, it says here your power went out due to a locomotive in mid-air…. Hello? Mr. Jones, are you still there?”