Romulus CSX Derailment

[Burb8145]

At approximately 1:37 AM there was a bad derailment between Eureka and Northline in Romulus. A piece of equipment that was being brought in to assist in derailment cleanup brought down power lines while en route, resulting in power outages to traffic lights in areas immediately south and west of Metro Airport. From photos, this derailment was bad enough to severely damage a few gondolas.

[Chip]

Where can we se pictures?

[David Collins]

Where can we se pictures?

that thing is gnarly

[BL2-1843]

Heard about that within 30 minutes after it happened. Dispatcher said the train was K596, slab steel train and had both mains blocked, if there are two mains in that area.

[Eric Berger]

Heard about that within 30 minutes after it happened. Dispatcher said the train was K596, slab steel train and had both mains blocked, if there are two mains in that area.

It's double tracked up to Romulus, then single tracked from just before the Romulus diamond to just past Wick Road, then returns to double track again.

I wonder if this means they'll detour trains up the Lincoln Secondary until they clean this up. On the other hand, there might not be anything TO detour, considering this is a holiday, and I seem to recall trains being few and far between on New Years in years past.

[David Collins]

I wonder how it derailed though

[Racer]

Both mains have significant damage to them. Main 2 completely severed and the crossover at Sibley was wiped out, but somehow the wrecked cars missed the signals and rolled to the west side of the main. The damaged track goes all the way to the diamond at Romulus. There are slab loads along Sibley Road at the moment - haven’t seen a wreck like this up here in a quite awhile.

[Eric Berger]

Sounds like that line's going to be out of service for a couple of days, anyway, if the damage is THAT bad.

[AARR]

Can any of the slabs be cut to miniature size and used as weights in HO Scale?

[Chip]

I wonder how it derailed though

Based on what I see every time I see a train roll through there I have my suspicions....

[ns8401]

Both mains have significant damage to them. Main 2 completely severed and the crossover at Sibley was wiped out, but somehow the wrecked cars missed the crossover and rolled to the west side of the main. The damaged track goes all the way to the diamond at Romulus. There are slab loads along Sibley Road at the moment - haven’t seen a wreck like this up here in a quite awhile.

I’m gonna hazard a guess that something was dragging on the ground until it hit that crossover if the track is damaged for that far.

[Chip]

That crossover at Sibley was just redone last summer too.

[ns8401]

I wonder how it derailed though

Based on what I see every time I see a train roll through there I have my suspicions....

I was gonna guess that switch for the north end of the double track. There was also some pretty good rocking going on south of there lately.

[Chip]

I wonder how it derailed though

Based on what I see every time I see a train roll through there I have my suspicions....

I was gonna guess that switch for the north end of the double track. There was also some pretty good rocking going on south of there lately.

There's been a lot of, shall we call them, soft spots in the roadbed along there for years. There's a really bad one just passed Huron River in New Boston that I would have thought would have been fixed when they replaced that crossing last year but they didn't. Seems to be worse now than I remember pre-construction.

[Saturnalia]

Not saying it wasn’t track, but “ugly is not a defect” and trains can handle a good deal of bad surface before anything gets remotely close to happening.

Most often things are fixed well before they’re close to being a safety or speed issue because deterioration is much more of an exponential decay than a linear decline, so it’s usually far easier to just fix it up before it goes to heck in a hurry.

It’ll be interesting to find out - sounds like it may have been on the ground for awhile?

[ns8401]

Not saying it wasn’t track, but “ugly is not a defect” and trains can handle a good deal of bad surface before anything gets remotely close to happening.

Most often things are fixed well before they’re close to being a safety or speed issue because deterioration is much more of an exponential decay than a linear decline, so it’s usually far easier to just fix it up before it goes to heck in a hurry.

It’ll be interesting to find out - sounds like it may have been on the ground for awhile?

If it’s from the diamond area that’s nearly 2 miles.

[~Z~]

Audio from the derailment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xKQOgpdCN0

[Eric Berger]

Not saying it wasn’t track, but “ugly is not a defect” and trains can handle a good deal of bad surface before anything gets remotely close to happening.

Most often things are fixed well before they’re close to being a safety or speed issue because deterioration is much more of an exponential decay than a linear decline, so it’s usually far easier to just fix it up before it goes to heck in a hurry.

It’ll be interesting to find out - sounds like it may have been on the ground for awhile?

If it’s from the diamond area that’s nearly 2 miles.

I'm thinking from the Romulus diamond to Sibley Road is closer to four miles.

Though, if you're talking Eureka to either Sibley or the diamond, then that is about two miles.

[Chip]

Not saying it wasn’t track, but “ugly is not a defect” and trains can handle a good deal of bad surface before anything gets remotely close to happening.

Most often things are fixed well before they’re close to being a safety or speed issue because deterioration is much more of an exponential decay than a linear decline, so it’s usually far easier to just fix it up before it goes to heck in a hurry.

It’ll be interesting to find out - sounds like it may have been on the ground for awhile?

that's all through the Huron River watershed so it can get pretty swampy through there in places.

[Chip]

Audio from the derailment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xKQOgpdCN0

Sounds like it could have been a bad patch of rail, at least that's what the engineer suspects. I take it there was no power on the ground, just cars?