I agree,Ron. The question remains, though: Why?

Why? is right... Why is this being beaten to death in a "Preservation" forum? Is this not something that would best left for Union Pacific to handle internally? It happened the locomotive has been repaired and is back rolling on the railroad. Union pacific has put forth an extremely professional steam program for many years and the preservation community should be grateful for that. This thread has gotten about as productive as a recent debate about a shade of blue.

I would like to suggest that it is time we thank Union Pacific for sharing their great company heritage with those of us who enjoy it. Gentlemen it is time that the Monday morning quarterbacking comes to an end. No one here posting was in the cab that day and none of us have a dog in this fight. So drop it!

To the officials at Union Pacific, Thank you for the professional heritage program that you have put on. You have shares with many over the years who would never seen what a steam locomotive is or can do had it not been for your program.

Mark A. Frazier

The allegation that the crew of #844 reversed the engine raises some questions. If we look just at the later days of steam as an arbitrary period, how often were there stopping events during which the engineer would reverse the locomotive? What would be the typical reason for an engineer to reverse during stopping?

Which of these three scenarios would produce the greatest stopping force?

1) Independent fully applied with no wheel slide.
2) Independent fully applied with wheels sliding.
3) Engine running in reverse

Mark, you are completely ignoring the fact that if mainline steam cannot be preserved and run safely, it won't run much longer, no matter whose railroad we're talking about.
That is why the preservation community needs to know what happened and why. How else are they going to know how to correct such problems and or prevent thme in the future?

Do you actually believe that the preservation community should just whistle in the dark and hope nothing like this ever happens again. Amateurs and foamers may think that's the way to go, but not the people who work with this stuff every day of their lives.

Pros know that things like this don't just happen; they happen for a reason or reasons.
The sooner the mysteries are cleared up, the sooner corrective actions and/or procedures can be put in place to make sure it never happens again. If it does happen again because no effort was made to find the cause or causes and correct it or them, where does that leave mainline steam operations on UP or any other railroad?

And what makes you so certain about who was or wasn't in the cab?

I'm looking at it and asking the questions that real investigators (e.g. FRA or NTSB or a state PSC) would.

You are right that UP does a great job with it's heritage programs. Nobody is bashing UP. I, for one, would like to see more railroads do this kind of thing. But they damn sure won't if things like this happen.

Try to think beyond individual railfan ego and realize what's good for the preservation industry in the long run.

Lincoln,

I respectfully thank you for so eloquently implying that I am an ignorant, foaming egotistical railfan. I was actually looking at this as how I might look at it as a manager dealing with a situation that is something internal. You are correct that I am over a couple of thousand miles away and was not in the cab or know anyone who was. So therefore I apologize to you suggesting that it was time to end the conversation.

Mark

Much as I may agree with Lincoln Penn (wait, wasn't that a technical school?) that in the long run we do need a safe operating environment for mainline steam, this thread has descended to a back-and-forth between Ron (who has been here on this forum for a while) and Lincoln (a newcomer), and the latter seems eager to pin this accident as human error, in a manner that starts to smell a bit like a personal agenda.

Much as I agree that we need safety in 21st-century steam, I will reiterate my original claim: There are damned few railroads and railroaders in the North American scene that have a pressing "need" to examine this incident from either a technical or training/personnel matter. Unless we're going to sit and outright accuse UP of an actual cover-up, I believe that those who actually know what happened, or will have good use of said information, will find out eventually.

Until then, I suggest a cease-fire in the debate.

No apology necessary, Mark. Just trying to get you to see it from a different perspective.

ADM, I wondered when you were going to pop up about a personal agenda, real or imagined.

There is none. I look at it from the standpoint that if it was human error, how do you fix that? The same way other industries do: More and better training, maybe more time apprenticing, maybe closer monitoring, perhaps new policies and procedures to be used when things turn to crap before your very eyes. I also look at it from the perspective that there is often more than one causal factor in any incident (see also: TITANIC, the sinking of which was due to numerous causes, including, but not limited to, multiple human errors).

I am a bit surprised that this thread hasn't been locked or deleted by now. Which, IMO, would be a mistake, because there obviously are things to be learned from this, even it's only something not to do.

I don't want to see a public hanging. I never intended to imply that I want to see people fired or publicly humiliated.

I also don't want to see the preservation field simply pretend that nothing important happened, whistle off and go our happy way, blissfully ignorant.

Lastly, yes, I am a newby to this forum, but hardly to the preservation field.

Well, in my mind, the debate, if you want to call it that, is about discovering a possible scenario that would fit the known facts and the generally reported premise of the runaway under power. And in this case, just discovering a plausible scenario is an incredibly difficult challenge.

I don’t see this as a “back and forth” if that is meant to imply that because nobody really knows what happened, no discussion or speculation accomplishes anything. All I am trying to do is find a plausible scenario that fits what we know. I don’t care if it actually happened or not. I agree that trying to discover what actually happened without being directly informed is a fruitless exercise. That is not my intent. It is almost a fruitless exercise to just come up with a possible explanation let alone the correct one. In that sense, I have never seen a railroad incident like this one.

Okay everyone, just sit back and take a deep breath.
Let us just wait for the UP to issue a public statement and stop all the foaming, IMHO.
Ira Schreiber

Why do people come on here with their own personal interpretation of what is being discussed here and then call for it to stop?

Any allegations coming from that post on the O Gauge boards really need to stop right now. It's an extremely unreliable source. (Not the board as a whole, just that post)

In my case:

Because I feel that nothing of any use or value is likely to come out of it. It's wasted electrons and speculation after a point, and does indeed run the risk of "rumor-mongering" to the point of gossiping and scandal-making.

Pretty much all we can say without fear of being wrong is that what happened, in terms of the result of flat wheels on 844, was mechanical error, electrical error, electronic error, or human error, or a combination of any or all of the above. If an answer is deduced and recommendations made after the fact, then we should listen, if applicable.

The UP pretty much has no reason to listen to Strasburg's "complaints" about 7002 or 475, because those presumably won't apply to 844, 3985, or their rebuilt E9's. And vice versa. In the case of Brother Anderson's diatribe on 7002, it's fun reading (and I want to submit it to Trains Magazine on his behalf!), but now it's just cracker-barrel bull-slingin'.

This is a topic, which can easily evolve into speculation, rumor and nonsense.

We need to be careful... Name calling and additional speculation is not needed, and will not be tolerated.

Thank You, Your always friendly moderator

Duplicated in error

> Well, if there were not an emergency requiring all possible
> braking effort, why would they reverse the locomotive?

I have never attempted to stop a full size locomotive by putting her in reverse. I have done so on a 15 inch gauge live steam locomotive since it was the only method of braking that particular train.

Based on that experience, it seems to me that putting the engine in reverse would make the wheels spin (in reverse) rather than stopping in one location resulting in a flat spot. On the live steamer, she would slow down a bit as the resistance increased, and then break traction and start spinning backwards if you put too much steam in the cylinders.

I suppose you could put the engine in center and then open the throttle to load up the cylinders, and if things were balanced, that would possibly lock up the wheels. How you would think to do that and why is unclear. Maybe the reverser was centered and pressure built up?