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Chronicles of Incidents and Response
Published in Robert A. Burke, Chronicles of Incidents and Response, 2020
Sixty-six persons were injured by the explosions and 11 required hospitalization, but there were no fatalities. Twenty-five homes and 16 businesses were destroyed by fire and three destroyed by “flying” tank cars; numerous other homes received damage. There was over 2 million dollars in property damage as a result of the derailment, fires and explosions. Six fire trucks were damaged by the explosions and fires along with 3,050 feet of 2 ½ inch fire hose, 500 feet of 1 ½ inch fire hose, several ladders, nine firefighter coats and seven firefighter helmets.
Roller Rigs
Published in Simon Iwnicki, Maksym Spiryagin, Colin Cole, Tim McSweeney, Handbook of Railway Vehicle Dynamics, 2019
Paul D. Allen, Weihua Zhang, Yaru Liang, Jing Zeng, Henning Jung, Enrico Meli, Alessandro Ridolfi, Andrea Rindi, Martin Heller, Joerg Koch
Derailment leads to a loss of vehicle guidance, and hence, the avoidance of derailment is vital to the safe operation of railways. Reasons behind derailment include component failure or high lateral forces developed at large angles of attack between the wheel and rail, which are typically present in smaller-radius curves. Such forces can lead to the wheel flange climbing out of the rail, gauge widening, rail rollover and track panel shift. In addition to the measurement of contact forces, the roller rig must be able to adjust the wheel-rail angle of attack to study the effects of derailment and curving behaviour.
Derailment Mechanics and Safety Criteria for Complete Rail Vehicle Trucks
Published in A.H. Wickens, The Dynamics of Vehicles on roads and on tracks, 2018
L. M. Sweet, A. Karmel, S. R. Fairley
Derailment may occur as a result of several distinct modes, including wheelclimb, wheel lift, rail rollover, gage spreading, and component failure. This paper concerns the first of these processes, which is directly related to the dynamics of the vehicle on curved and tangent track, and to track misalignments that excite the vehicle. Wheelclimb is a process in which large lateral forces acting on the wheelset cause one wheel to climb up and over the rail. Three distinct wheelclimb processes may be identified, which become the basis for detailed analysis: Quasisteady wheelclimb, in which lateral velocity is negligible and the yaw angle remains essentially constant (Process A).Single degree of freedom wheelclimb, in which lateral velocity effects are important, but the yaw angle remains essentially constant (Process B).Two degree of freedom wheelclimb, which includes lateral velocity and changing yaw angle effects (Process C).
Combining wavelet analysis of track irregularities and vehicle dynamics simulations to assess derailment risks
Published in Vehicle System Dynamics, 2023
Mariana A. Costa, João N. Costa, António R. Andrade, Jorge Ambrósio
Derailment occurs when a vehicle runs off the rails, and its consequences are temporary disruptions of service and safety hazards (minor and major injuries, or even fatalities). Mohammadzadeh et al. [44] categorise derailments into two types: (i) sudden derailment, caused by the wheelset jumping the rails, and (ii) flange climb derailment, caused by a wheel gradually climbing to the top of the railhead and then running over the rail. Specifically, this study focuses on flange climb derailment, which occurs when the lateral force on the wheel–rail contact is high in comparison to the vertical force. If the track is considered in terms of a horizontal plane (straight lines, curves and transition segments) and a vertical plane (vertical curvature, slope of track and cant), it is intuitive to see how the track geometry irregularities (and the corresponding deterioration in both planes) can affect the lateral and vertical forces acting on the wheel–rail (or vehicle–track) interaction. Any deviations from the design coordinates caused by displacements in the vertical or horizontal planes (deviations that can be measured in terms of the track irregularities) will affect the position of the contact point between the running surface and the upper surface of the railhead, thus affecting the lateral and vertical forces in the contact.
Analysis of human-factor-caused freight train accidents in the United States
Published in Journal of Transportation Safety & Security, 2021
Zhipeng Zhang, Tejashree Turla, Xiang Liu
There are four types of tracks included in the FRA REA database, which are main track, siding track, yard track, and industry track, respectively. These track types are used for different operational functions and consequently have different associated accident types, causes, and consequences. Train accidents are categorized into derailment, collision, highway-rail grade crossing accident, and other less frequent types in the FRA REA database. The type of accident recorded in the database is determined by the first reportable event in the accident sequence. Derailment, by definition in FRA guide (FRA, 2011), is the accident that occurs when on-track equipment leaves the rail. A collision is defined as the impact between on-track equipment consists while both are on rails and where one of the consists is operating under train movement rules. An accident at a highway-rail grade crossing with impact between on-track railroad equipment and a highway user is referred to as highway-rail grade crossing accident. Some instances where a derailment is induced due to the occurrence of a collision, is still considered as a collision based on the primary accident type. Similarly, if one grade-crossing collision accident leads to a train derailment, the accident is still identified as a grade crossing accident, instead of a derailment. In other words, the type of accident is identified per the first event in the accident (FRA, 2011). This study involves only derailments and collisions since the grade crossing accidents require separate analysis due to different accident characteristics. FRA train accident cause-codes are hierarchically organized and categorized into major cause groups—track, equipment, human factors, signal, and miscellaneous causes. Within each of these major cause groups, FRA has organized individual cause codes into subgroups of related causes, which were refined by Arthur D. Little (ADL, 1996). The accident data used in this study involves human-factor-caused freight derailments and collisions occurred on mainlines. The different cause codes in this cause-group are elaborated in Appendix 1.