George, if you have a link to the report, I'd love to read it. It isn't on the site you specified. All I have been able to find is a short summary. Searching for the report number (RAR-94-01) has been equally fruitless.
The NTSB website has indeed relegated it to a summary rather than the whole cover to cover.
And for the record, I/me have a hard time understanding how the unused spinning/rotating/turning feature, which lowers the force threshold needed to pivot the span and thus the track out of alignment - is insignificant. The bridge's physical reaction to barge contact was not only a rail kink, but it put a large steel gerder in the gauge. while not the total cause, it was a significant contributor of the outcome.
I know that all of this falls under an "... it would've been nice if they had done..." thing. But that's the whole function of investigating, which is to find those nice things that would ensure as close to a faultless element as possible. Less funerals, less boxes of kleenex, band-aids, body bags, anti-anxiety pills, etc.
Try this:
http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net
then go down the list and click on I.C.C Historical Railroad investigation Reports (1911-1994)
When this window opens up, you will see a list of years. Go to near the bottom and click on 1993. Whe you see the subheads under here, click on AMTRAK.
The accident report will then appear in full. If you want it as it appears, click on "Link to PDF version" However, the quality of the PDF is not that great.
You get a better copy if you do "edit", then "Select all", then "copy" and past the whole thing into a word file. The quality of the pictures adn drawing is much better in this than in teh PDF file.
Look at Figure 7, on page 15 as numbered in the PDF file and the 19th page of the pdf. (I say this so you can locate how far down in the file to look in the non-pdf version, or your word file if you have copied it. It is not clear in the pdf version, but in the other you can clearly see the scuff on the pier end, the pads on which the knocked out span rested, and the bearings on which the adjacent through truss is mounted. Now go a little furthere down in the file and look at figure 8, which shows the dent in the end of the barge where it struck the pier end.
The lead port (WGN 285) and starboard (WGN 208) barges (see figure 8) were slightly dented where they struck the bridge's concrete piers, and the center lead barge (WGN 258) had six marks on its headlog where it struck the vertical stiffeners on the bridge span (see figure 4).
These represent the front three barges in tow. I believe the dent you see in Figure 8 is the barge that struck the pier, although the caption is not clear in that matter. If you look at the drawing in Figure 4, you will see that the front of the barge tow is wider than the span between end pier and center pivot pier. Hence, much of the momentum was dissapated by striking these two piers. Again, not really clear, but since the center barge, which is the one that hit the superstructure was essentially centered on the span, it probably took it off the center pivot pier as well as the end pier. It could be that the span was so mangled by the train that this could not be determined. It could also be that whether only the end moved or the span pivoted was not considered in the analysis. I am inclined to believe that if the barge tow was futher to the left when it struck the bridge such that the center pier was the one that struck the pier, it would have likely taken out the truss span as well, as the barge that hit the pier would have hit that span instead. Note that in the quoted sentence that the center barge had six marks where it had struck the superstructure of the span. Also note that, in Figure 5, the pivot pier appears to be gone, and least almost all of it above the water. The coach beyond it that is mostly out of the water but turned almost 90 degrees to the track appears to be resting on the remnants of this pier and the girders. Otherwise, it would be mostly submerged.
Barges are built TOUGH. Even though the series of barges lashed together is called a "tow", they are actually pushed by the towboad, not pulled.
There has also been an issue made that the signals did not drop to red becuase the rail, being welded did not break. Again, somewhere between debatable and nonsense. It is entirely likely that joint rail would have stayed together.
I do have more than the average amount of interest in this accident because my in-laws are in Pensacola and, although I did not know the people, a couple of the deaths were frieds of some of them.
Consider the absolute coming together of the random and unpredicitble. This was a three times a week train in a situation where all the factors had to come together ina matter of minutes.
. I was reminded of this in a Railroad.net forum post asking if anyone's models' prototypes had been involved in an accident/wreck.
