Posted on 12/18/2017 8:44:10 AM PST by ImJustAnotherOkie
Your tax payer dollars at work.
Check the pictures. Not wood. Typical steel beam overcrossing bridge of a highway.
Gotta admit....dude called it.
I was thinking software error.. if pushing (rear) engine is supposed to brake to 18 for overpasses, then resume speed, what if it measured the FRONT engine passing the overpass instead of itself and resumed push?
This looks terrible...Prayers for the passengers, crew and all harmed.
Typically this configuration does not have any actual “pushing” going on. The tail end engine is either just along for the ride and for the convenience of changing direction, or it is providing much less power than the lead locomotive, so that it does not “push” harder than the lead engine is pulling. The main motive force is always the “pull” of the lead engine.
You could have the rear engine doing nothing but braking, that’s stable.
You could have the rear engine provide 50% of the power of the front engine, just helping. That’s stable. The rear engine is just making the pull easier.
You could have the rear engine provide the same power as the lead engine. That’s very tricky to maintain stability. If the front engine slips and the rear doesn’t, you have a problem.
You could have the rear engine provide more power than the front engine. That would be instantly unstable, of course.
There are several different ways to arrange the locomotives and use their power to move the train. You commonly see helper engines in the middle of the consist, controlled remotely by the lead engine.
Well it was a high speed train.
It looks like a “slow” accident. Think about autos going 70 miles an hour then all of a sudden a train falls off of an overpass. You’d think a lot of autos would have rammed into each other. The autos in the pictures look like they all came to an orderly stop.
I’m looking at the Google Earth sat pics of that overpass, and it kinda looks like there’s a curve in the overpass as it goes over the highway....
There are TV reports that there are a couple of signs stating Speed Limit 30 on the tracks...
The whole thing sounds to me like the Captain of the Titanic trying to get to New York asap...
According the ABC news Amtrak’s system says that the train was traveling at 81mph.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csmkeJId7uk
Parts of my family ride that train regularly.
Nope. New stretch of track. Choo Choo lovers of Puget Sound’s fault.
You’re a lot more knowledgeable than me. But, as another poster posted, could be a computer problem and the rear engine, whatever percentage it was operating at, didn’t “get the message” that the front engine had slowed down for the curve. And that’s where the “18 mph” information came from.
Sabotage?
Latest issue of “inspire” magazine (isis etc.)calls for derailing trains...
Thanks bush and barry for opening our borders NOT :/
Thanks.
The Amtrak Loco sure stopped in a short distance then.
81 mph sounds high for the (my assumed) location:
https://zoom.earth/#47.082156,-122.675657,17z,sat
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