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hoborich wrote: I still don't believe the speed they have now corrected. Neither the lead locomotive, nor any of the passenger cars even made it to the far side of the road.

hoborich wrote: stopped about three to four locomotive lengths from where it left the tracks,

The locomotive traveled farther than your estimate of 71 - 94 yards. While the measurement I did is not official, it does show likely how far the locomotive did travel.

This photo shows the damaged signal mast showing where the charger left the rails.

http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/70/13/26/14 ... 4x1024.jpg

This photo you can see and count three white lines on the pavement.

https://static.seattletimes.com/wp-cont ... 0x1040.jpg

Here you can clearly see the signal mast, so starting my measurement right before it, all the way to the third white line on the pavement. A conservative 144 yards.
144 yards is just a tad over 6 charger lengths, not 3 or 4. So if you were standing at the end of a football field looking towards the other end of that field, the charger traveled roughly 24 yards beyond that 120 yard field. A charger traveling that far with out the aid of rails is IMO, not a good thing. The NTSB will have the correct speed after the investigation.

hoborich wrote:Now they are saying 78 mph? Why the correction? Did the event recorders change?

Interesting that the lead loco showed 78 and the trailing locomotive showed 80 at time of derailment. I know 2mph isn't significant at that speed, in this particular situation, but...a discrepancy like that suggests other discrepancies may eventually come to light as well.

I used the actual photo of the scene, not Google earth. The actual photo shows about 4 loco lengths of travel. It shows the rear loco,also weighing 264,000 pounds, and still on the rails, stopped before even reaching the bridge, and several cars stopped in just a car length or two. And when the train brake airline was broken, it would have taken a couple seconds for full application of the rear locos brakes. It was still on the rails and should have gone a lot further than it did, if it was going 78 mph. The investigation should be interesting. But looking at the actual photo, I would have expected the whole mess to have traveled a lot farther than it did, if indeed it was going 78 or 80 mph.

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Interesting that the lead loco showed 78 and the trailing locomotive showed 80 at time of derailment. I know 2mph isn't significant at that speed, in this particular situation, but...a discrepancy like that suggests other discrepancies may eventually come to light as well.

Lead unit had independent brake on to slow train from 82, the trailing unit would still be slowing down with slack action. I could see a 2 MPH difference and a 2 MPH difference is not out of tolerance for a speedometer either. We are talking the difference between a new loco and a 20 year old veteran of the rails.

As for how fast the lead unit stopped one must consider that once the 260 ton loco leaves the rails it essentially becomes a massive dirt plow. As any farmer or dozer operator will tell you momentum don't mean crap when plowing dirt. You push the clutch too fast at full power you eat steering wheel. Meanwhile the real loco is busy stacking up light a$$ talgo cars like cord wood turning them into a make shift crumple zones.

The end result may have been different had they been using amfleet cars. Those stupid talgo cars are all coupled together so once one derailed, so did the rest of them.

hoborich wrote:I used the actual photo of the scene, not Google earth. The actual photo shows about 4 loco lengths of travel.

In this actual photo of the scene there is more than 4 lengths between the lead loco and the trailing loco.

https://static.seattletimes.com/wp-cont ... 0x1040.jpg

I was referring to the distance from where the lead loco left the rails and where it stopped in the road.

Wheel size will make a difference on the download of the event recorder....that's why engineers check that the speedo matches up with what speed they are traveling (and if they aren't, woe upon them if they are caught speeding ...regardless of what the speedo says)