Hi everyone, I've been reading here for some time but have never posted anything. Over the last few days, I have read tidbits about the two subjects I have brought up. I cannot find any info on the events so I thought I would join this group and ask. Please excuse me if these subjects are off limits. I don't mean to bring up bad memories. On to the questions....

Can someone tell me about the SP&S 700's lube failures? Or Nevada Northern #93's head on?

Thanks

Hello

From what I understand the nevada northern head on happen because for the following events.

1. Contactor work crew place loaded Tie/mow car on grade on the main line.
2. Contrator crew failed to tie down the car.
3. Car some how got lose ( I can remember how)
4. Car when runway and hit tourist train.
5. There where some injurys of the crew and passenger.

I know I left alot of details out, But this is what I could remember from what I was told by my friend Tony Bond who was on the nevada northern crew that got hit.

Chris

In the summer of 1995 Magma Copper was in the process of re-opening the mines above Ely. When Kennecott pulled out, all tracks above Keystone (the end of the NNRy trackage) had been removed. Kennecott had hauled the raw ore out of the Ely mines- which yielded somewhere around 2-3 percent copper- to the smelter at McGill, which smelted the ore down to 99% pure "blister" copper that was shipped out over the Nevada Northern. However, by the time of this story the McGill smelter was long, long gone, and Magma elected to build a concentrator adjacent to the mines to concentrate the raw ore to 40% copper, which would then be shipped out to their smelter in Arizona. Part of this project involved building a four mile long spur from Keystone up to the concentrator. Four centerbeam flatcars loaded with ties had been delivered to the work site, with a pile of dirt placed on the tracks to protect the active NNRy museum trackage below. The contractor attempted to move the cars with a backhoe, and somewhere in that process one of the cars broke away and rolled free. It blew through the pile of dirt and took off down the canyon, attaining speeds of around 60 m.p.h. (if I remember correctly). Just above Ely there is a curved tunnel, and when the car entered the tunnel enough ties had shook loose to the point they knocked against the supports, which dramatically slowed the car down. The collission point happened a few hundred feet north of the tunnel entrance. Due to the tunnel and terrain the train crew first saw the car only a few seconds before it hit them.

The situation, while terrible, could have been much, much worse. If the excursion train or the car had been a few minutes earlier the collission could have occurred somewhere above the tunnel- where the car had been going much, much faster- or worse yet in the tunnel. As it was several people from the train were airlifted to Salt Lake City, but everyone did survive. The #93 of course has been repaired, along with one of the passenger coaches, and the mangled flatcar is still in the East Ely yards.

That's what I remember of that event. It happened on the day my wife and I got married...17 June 1995. The Gettysburg steam locomotive blew up the following day, and I seem to remember two other collissions that weekend as well, one involving a Steamtown excursion running down one or two four wheelers and the other happening on a traction line someplace. Not a good weekend for excursion trains.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Please don't perpetuate that description of the Gettsyburg incident. The crown sheet failed due to overheating from low water level. Definitely a bad deal, but not nearly "the Gettysburg steam locomotive blew up".

Regards,

It sounded pretty "nearly" to me, from my limited research into the event.

The construction of the boiler to specifications specific to the the Canadian road that had it built, I believe Canadian Pacific, prevented the boiler from blowing itself off of the frame, killing the crew, and/or killing passengers. Had it been any other steam locomotive the results both actual and in the national press would have been very, very bad. Not just for the Gettysburg Railroad but for the steam tourist industry in general.

Additional conjecture. It wasn't the only locomotive so equipped, it hasn't been proven that any low water incident on any even not so equipped would result in such a catastrophic an incident. Let's be careful with the truth here.........if we aren't nobody else will. I personally have laid eyes on the result of a dry crown sheet incident that just resulted in the firebox turning into a steambath with no explosive consequence.

dave

You've read the NTSB report? My interpretation of that report is that a culture of neglect existed and both the shop and the crew had made every single one of the prerequisite mistakes for a full-on "find the steam dome in the next county" boiler explosion. That it didn't happen is a miracle, nothing less, which is why I have no problem calling it a boiler explosion even if it fell somewhat shy of the worst-case scenario for same

So. What is the value of downplaying that?

From NTSB, Publications, Railroad Studies and Special Reports: http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/R_Stu.htm

National Transportation Safety Board. Steam Locomotive Firebox Explosion on the Gettysburg Railroad near Gardners, Pennsylvania June 16, 1995. Washington, D. C., 1996. http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1996/SIR9605.pdf

Yep. read them all. No fault with their conclusions, or with the characterization as an explosion of some magnitude. My disagreement is with the idea that any explosion is going to inflict massive damage such as removing the boiler from the frame and sending it a great distance. Some have, certainly.....but we don't have any evidence that that would have happened here. it might, or something lesser might have happened. I'm simply suggesting there are a wide range of possibiolities inherent in boiler failures, ranging from damn inconvenient to catastrophic.

Has anybody considered that the button head stays might have held the pressure and crown sheet tight against being relieved such as might have happened with ordinary stays had they started leaking enough to put out the fire (or finally attract the fireman's attention) until it reached a magnitude of crisis?

I'm not trying to downplay anything - just eliminate unsupported versions of potential events that did not materialize. It taught us a lot about the importance of knowing what the real condition of your locomotive is, which has since been better codified, and of the importance of adequate training and qualification, which has not. I'm not sure that it is possible to mechanically eliminate the potential for operator ignorance to contribute to troubles, but that's another thread.......

dave

"Can someone tell me about the SP&S 700's lube failures"

In early 2001 the SP&S 700 ran a three day excursion east from Vancouver, Washington.

The previous week the loco was hooked on to the front of a Northbound BNSF freight for a test run as far as Longview, Washington where there is a balloon loop.

The loco ran really well on the test run and one day one of the excursion on which I was a passenger.

On the second day it all seemed to go wrong. At least one car derailed as the consist was being made ready and lubrication problems surfaced which I believe lead to piston valve damage. The excursion either took on a diesel pilot or, a diesel took over

That's all I know....

TH

I believe the NTSB investigation found that one of the flatcars, a UP car, had a defective handbrake. I believe that car may still be sitting in the East Ely yard. One would think that the dirt berm placed as a derail or bumper would have been more effective, but an eye witness said that when the car hit the birm the dirt just "exploded" and the car kept on going.