Runaway Train

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Saturday, August 13. 2011

As I've noted before, I'm a big fan of disaster shows like 'Seconds From Disaster' and 'Mayday'. Piecing the rubble together after an airline crash and answering the why has to be one of the toughest challenges on earth. They're the ultimate Holmesian puzzle.

But train wrecks are no slouch, either.

And runaway trains are a breed apart. The recent movie Unstoppable did a great job of portraying how mammoth — and unstoppable — these things really are. In that case, it was human error at the rail storage yard that started it off, but under normal circumstances there are three people on board, two up front with radio communication between them and the guy in the caboose, and there are various safeguards built in to stop the train in the exceptionally unlikely event that both people in the cab would become incapacitated.

A modern runaway train just doesn't make any sense at all.

Just ask the 23 people who died that day.

Update: A couple of people in the comments mentioned that it was downloading very slowly, stopping and starting, but I checked with the web hosting company and everything's fine on their end, so there might be a little 'Net congestion out there today. If it stops on you, just pause it and let it download for a while.

There's another interesting train crash mystery here. Like the most complicated airline disaster, it took a whole shitload of things to go wrong, in the perfect order, at precisely the right moment, to bring it crashing down.

Posted by Dr. Mercury in History, Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 10:00 | Comments (29) | Trackbacks (0)

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The news from China says their high-speed train wreck was buried, literally, days after the accident. Buried with bodies and, possibly, people still alive. Wonder what they are hiding?

#1 J on 2011-08-13 10:34 (Reply)

Doc, you and Maggie's must have started something pretty big! It is taking me FOREVER to get through this video! Their servers must be hammered! Good work!

#2 mudbug on 2011-08-13 11:00 (Reply)

I worked as an electrician for the railroad back in the day. The locomotives had black boxes, event recorders such as airplanes have.

They were also equipped with monitoring systems that required the engineer to make some positive move every 25 seconds or so. That might be sounding the horn, turning on/off the lights, braking, accelerating, there was a big red button not conveniently mounted that would suffice as an action. This was to prevent the engineer from falling asleep or pissing out the window or lying there with a massive coronary. He had to sit there and pay attention.

If a response action was not made within the time frame a level of action was initiated in the locomotive controls, setting up de-throttling and braking. If a response was not received after a further time the loco went into emergency shutdown mode. Throttle down, all brakes on, screech and grinding halt. IIRC the whole time interval was less than one minute. From rattling along at 70mph to dead stop in pretty quick time.

As Doc mentions, the right set of conditions could occur. Wires shorted, relays stuck, recorder stuck in a loop, engine throttling up and down by itself, hmmm, possible but less probable than being struck by landing gear from a plane flying overhead as you walk out to your mailbox.

#3 chasmatic (Link) on 2011-08-13 11:51 (Reply)

I saw one of those "engineer absent" tests - probably late '80's? It is amazing how fast they can back down a long train from 60 mph or so.

#3.1 Tom Francis on 2011-08-13 12:03 (Reply)

When a train be rolling, a train be rolling. Check out how long it takes this thing to stop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azV5bC2br-Q

#4 Tom Francis on 2011-08-13 12:01 (Reply)

Finally got to see the thing uninterrupted - till the end, that is. I was hoping they would (try to) explain why the crash happened. Does anybody know if they whole video is available and if it includes any analysis of the cause of the crash?

#5 mudbug on 2011-08-13 12:39 (Reply)

Er, that is the whole video. Didn't you see the credits roll at the end?

In a nutshell, the engineer, with a history of medical problems, might have either had a heart attack or simply fallen asleep, tool box firmly planted on the dead man's switch. The brakeman was probably long fast asleep. And the guy in the caboose said he never thought anything was wrong except that the radio wasn't working, although he should have noticed that they'd blown through the red lights and hit the emergency brake. He was probably asleep as well.

But, like the sleep expert said, people subject to odd work hours are almost in a permanent state of jet lag, then you throw in the lulling motions of a train and it's probably amazing this didn't happen more than it did.

And sorry you had problems with the streaming video. It's on my web host, not YouTube or whatever. Must have just been a bit of net congestion on one of our two ends. Normally, they play fine with a normal broadband connection.

#6 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-13 13:30 (Reply)

I'll try again. The interesting thing is that the two times I tried, it ended at the same place. The first time, it would stream about five or ten seconds at a time and then pause for about ten or twenty seconds. The second time was straight through. Now the this third time, it's pausing again but not as bad. This is such an intriguing story. I liked the one about the 747 flying through the volcano eruption, too.

#7 mudbug on 2011-08-13 13:42 (Reply)

Yeah, the volcano one was terrific. What an amazing story. And the link at the bottom of this post was a pretty cool piece of sleuthing. There's also another 'runwaway train' episode on YouTube.

#8 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-13 13:51 (Reply)

Fascinating

#8.1 BD on 2011-08-13 13:54 (Reply)

"the guy in the caboose" Huh? No cabooses since '70's.

#9 gonetoworkbbackin5min on 2011-08-13 14:43 (Reply)

Finally saw the whole thing. Very interesting and sad. I wonder what happened to Smitty. He must have been in bad shape after that.

As engineers we try to anticipate what can go wrong, but it's rare that we can foresee everything. Sometimes it takes a horrific accident to implement what then seems obvious.

#10 mudbug on 2011-08-13 15:47 (Reply)

You got something wrong with the video on your server Doc. It only goes about ten minutes in and stops dead returning to the beginning. Can't fast forward past that one spot either - three times I tried to watch. I don't think its net congestion and it sure as hell ain't this computer because its exactly two hours old out of the box. :>)

#11 Tom Francis on 2011-08-13 16:16 (Reply)

It took me a few times. Keep trying, Tom. It's very interesting.

#11.1 mudbug on 2011-08-13 17:00 (Reply)

Hum. Maybe the web host is having a problem. It's not the video. I double-checked the original, then checked the file size of the copy on the site, and everything looks good. They might be undergoing another DoS attack. A lot of them, like GoDaddy, have been under attack lately.

Also, for what it's worth, this player doesn't jump forward like the YouTube player does, unless it's already downloaded that part.

#12 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-13 16:24 (Reply)

I just called the hosting company out of curiosity and he said everything looked good on their end, so I think we'll just have to chalk it up to "one of those things." Anyone else having playing problems?

#13 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-13 16:39 (Reply)

I'm sure it's interesting but the narrative voice is hugely irritating. The writers should be shot.

Incidentally all your videos come in cropped windows that make it impossible to access controls, for me (Firefox and god knows what player is being used by them).

It would help to add an external link to cover the situation.

#14 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-08-13 20:16 (Reply)

Not sure what you mean by the controls not showing. The tool bar displays when you hover the pointer over the window in either browser. And if I just put the link to the FLV out there, no player would pop open, it'd just be a regular download, and then you'd need an FLV player on your system to play it.

#15 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-13 21:56 (Reply)

Only the top third of the control area at the bottom shows in the window.

That seems to renormalize if you click blindly at the bottom and get full screen and then esc back to the window.

#15.1 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-08-14 05:09 (Reply)

You mean the thin tool bar (normally about 3/8" tall?) is only a third of that? Using what browser and version? This is the exact same player and version that I've been using for years. Have you always had this problem with my vids?

#15.1.1 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-14 11:55 (Reply)

On all your videos, yes. The other Maggies Farm videos are okay.

The picture is cropped so a border is missing, and the missing border includes 2/3 of the tool bar.

It's okay if I go full screen (blind stabbing is necessary) and then esc back.

Maybe some variable is uninitialized.

#15.1.1.1 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-08-14 18:08 (Reply)

What browser, version and OS?

#15.1.1.1.1 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-14 18:13 (Reply)

XP Home, Firefox 3.6.18

I have no idea what player or version though. This is not shared with the user.

#15.1.1.1.1.1 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-08-14 18:45 (Reply)

screen pics
no mouse over
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhhardin/6043207751
mouse over
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhhardin/6043207839

#15.1.1.1.1.2 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-08-14 19:32 (Reply)

How bizarre, and thanks for taking the trouble to post them. Are you subscribed to this thread? Let me poke around tomorrow and get back to you. What's it look like with Internet Exploder?

#15.1.1.1.1.2.1 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-14 19:41 (Reply)

It's okay with IE.

#15.1.1.1.1.2.1.1 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-08-14 19:54 (Reply)

Well, I guess at this point the thing to do would be include a notice with the next video and ask if anyone else is having the problem. Like I said, this is the exact same player I've been using for years, and this is the first time I've heard of a display problem.

#15.1.1.1.1.2.1.1.1 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-15 06:19 (Reply)

I like the episode of 'destroyed in seconds' or whatnot that featured the explosion(s) of the rocket fuel plant in Nevada...filmed by some guys on a mountaintop three miles away. Go find it on Youtube. Best and most accurate description: the largest UNINTENTIONAL explosion ever caught on film. It's amazing.

#16 model_1066 on 2011-08-14 01:12 (Reply)

Not to quibble - and I don't think any of the other comments have noted this - but the days of 3 man crews and cabooses are gone, at least on most Class 1 railroad main line moves. Today there is an engineer and conductor on the head end and an EOTD (FRED) on the rear, with the heavier trains having a DPU "pushing" in those cases where needed. My own "observation" (stories I've heard, not personal experience) indicate that runaway trains likely stems from the guy at the controls "p*ssing away his air" and not some equipment malfunction.

#17 StlCard on 2011-08-14 11:29 (Reply)

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