Southwest Chief derailment (June 2022)

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
They are certainly more top heavy but in an accident like this there are so many forces at play itā€™s complicated. This train went from 90 to 0 with no telescoping and no structural issues.... thatā€™s pretty amazing.
Indeed! The tightlock couplers worked and kept the train together inline.
 
With the SWC derailment, if the train goes to five-days-a-week what days will it probably depart? Can't remember where it was said previously on here.
It is all speculative. I am sure no one has any idea.

Incidentally the previous 5 day thing was not designed to reduce the number of consists needed. It was designed to reduce the number of crew needed. A reduced operation to reduce the number of consists needed will look very very different. But for now let us wait until we get to that river before figuring out which bridge to cross.
 
The only thing I could find was days of operation after the Chief went daily.
As I pointed out in the other thread, the previous 5 day operation did not save any consists. It reduced the number of staff needed. So those days of operation will provide you no guidance in figuring out how they will operate a train with one fewer consist, if it comes to that.
 
If they werent like that could only one or two cars have toppled instead? Or does having more go down limit the number of potential rolls?
No they would have more likely jacknifed and the cars would have been hit from the side causing much more damage. If there is no track left they would have deraiedl and flown every which way.

There is a century of research that support the idea that tightlock couplers save lives.
 
Last edited:
Maybe a bit insensitive at the moment? But the cars that toppled, will they just get a crane and put them back on the tracks to see if they still roll?
Wait a day and you'll know for sure. Why pointlessly speculate?
 
No, it doesnā€™t.

Derailment is literally correct. That is what happened. The train is not on the rails. It derailed. It in no way, other than your own attempt at interpretation, implies cause.

Derailment (alone) is literally incomplete and out of context, like one of my two posts said. Maybe you didn't read that one. The train didn't randomly derail (most likely) nor did it derail because of excessive speed on a curve like the Philadelphia derailment. So what I said was, people who only see "Derailment" might get the impression that trains randomly derail or engineers drive too fast, and trains are a dangerous way to travel. All you're gonna hear for weeks now are news reports saying "passengers killed/injured in derailment in Missouri" and the like. My only point is that if this truck (driver) caused the accident, another description would be better.
 
Back
Top