The Colorado Springs Runaway 30 years later

when the alarm goes off and supervisors rush out the door each one is hoping an incident was not caused by his department oh how the Roadmaster cries is to causes determined to be a broken rail the mechanical Foreman laments if a broken wheel or failed roller bearing as a culprit and the train master denies that any of his men can be to blame each time a hearing is held with railroading Union officials to endeavour to find the cause and hopefully prevent it from happening again that record is the basis of this tale unfortunately for that train master a 67 car Burlington Northern coal train derailed near Colorado Springs Colorado 30 years ago today and it was 100% human caused this is the story of the 1989 Colorado Springs runaway On February 5th 1989 in Denver Colorado it was 12:30 a.m. and negative 24 degrees a three man Santa Fe crew was called for duty that night on a Burlington Northern run through a coal train bound for Houston during the cold weather and the challenge of getting air through the brake cylinders of more than a hundred and twenty cars the BN had cut the training half of Edgemont South Dakota earlier in the journey half the size of normal unit coal train the Train consisted of 66 cars all of them being the so called bathtub coal cars do their shape all of them were loaded with coal none being empty and a caboose at the end of the Train three Burlington Northland locomotives were at the head at the lead unit was SD 40 - 270 - 43 followed by to see 30 - sevens which were very well known for having many problems especially on the BN the c3 our sevens that trail 72 43 were 5500 the first example of this type ever built for the BN and behind that was 55 47 the engineer in charge of this train was not named have been working on the BN for 12 years he had snapped a knuckle trying to leave Denver after the intentionally skipping the initial brake test a big no-no in operating rules just a mile off from the yard a two-man crew attached to helper locomotives numbers unknown behind the caboose for the climb up to the town of Palmer Lake the summit on the Colorado joint line between Denver and Pueblo they had also agreed to skip a required break test the helper engineer had 25 years of service including time out east while the conductor had more than 20 years of railroading down far out of town the pusher crew and conductor could smell brake shoe smoke so at the first spot they could the crew decided to stop the train to inspect for sticking brakes hot boxes or any other issues the engineer believing the train was pulling hard made a full service mode application of the brakes hoping to correct any sticking ones however the pusher engineer completely ignored air brake rule number nine 22 which states that he must not cut his brake valve but however he did he reduced his power to 70 psi to assist the lead crew in the recharge the conductor up at the head end assumed at a slightly open brake valve on the caboose was a problem he had closed it off they won in less than three minutes time but not before both engineer decide reducing the brake pipe pressure from 90 psi release to 80 psi have fewer sticking brakes under these circumstances nothing could have been more treacherous more air pressure is better and it equates to more brake cylinder pressure we all know how train brakes work but for those of you who don't train brakes work the opposite way of how most people think they work the standard pressure for release or brakes on is 90 psi less pressure in the brake cylinders will apply the brakes and zero psi hence is a full emergency brake application five minutes later the train stopped again and the engineer had again put it into full service 20 pounds of air down to 70 psi to stop for a red signal but yet again they had stopped for only three to five minutes in less than two miles the next signal was dark so the engineer also had made a giant reduction to stop because if an engineer notices a dark signal he has to treat it like it's a red one so he has to stop however only a few minutes the signal adjourn green danger kicked the ear off and they're moving again simple as that not quite in another three miles to train had tripped a hot box detector of course the entire crew assumed the problem sticking brakes so they figured they would simply ignore us that is a bad thing to do on the railroad they had decided to sold the train instead by reducing throttle the engineer in the seventy two forty three had chose to power down and dump no air the head brakeman then swung off reset the detector and reported the train keep in mind everything was done manually in the eighties however he did not take the time to see what it read a three mile an hour speed lasted less than a minute until the throttle was increased again however a conductor decided to dodge the safety people in Denver and decided to switch to another radio frequency to talk out the problem put the head and crew the Train proceeded upgrade for 27 more miles until the next stop with the approach signal at the palmer lake at milepost 51 the highest point on the joint line this was known to be and crew as the SAG where coal trains would wait until a favorable signal appears to enter centralized traffic control limits at the summit the engineer again had to used an exorbitant amount of air reducing the brakes 22 psi putting the wells at 68 he held the train there for 27 minutes after which because of the cold weather the dispatcher said he couldn't line the switch up Homer Lake so the train would have to stop there again it took eight minutes declined a mile and a half for the control point and signal where the train was stopped with nearly another full service reduction they held their train there for 22 more minutes while the brakeman with 12 years of service talked with the dispatcher and lined the switch manually the Sun was rising and it was 722 a.m. when they started over the top 52 miles from Denver and with a 2004 altitude difference operating circular to 73 a rule book update required loaded trains with helpers behind the caboose to straddle the crest of a grade when stopping to remove the helpers that enabled the brake pipe pressure to be recharged when the Train is held with the locomotive brakes instead the lead engineer decided to take his smaller train entirely over the crest so the helper crew wouldn't have to flag through the CTC control signal and grant them a faster start home to Denver perhaps noticing the low brake pipe pressure on the rear of the Train the helper engineer felt a need to return the favor and asked the lead engineer if he wanted his help with his air as they inched over the summit the two agreed upon this and again the helper engineer cut in his automatic brake valve to pump air into the rear of the Train but the feed valve cautiously said at 70 psi once the train was past a control signal on the switch the 500 composé could hold the train with their engine brakes the train Stood Still two minutes while the pusher units were cut off and the conductor announcing at 76 pounds of air pressure on the caboose gauge which is a brake pipe not the air reservoir but the three lead units could not hold the train that little shot of air from the helpers setup a tragedy as it accomplished nothing except to create an unknown dangerous and unstable air brake pipe but the lead locomotives feed valve set a 78 psi it would have been impossible to have only the common two-pound gradient on the train the difference in air pressure from the locomotive to the rear and the pusher engineer must have noticed the air brake pressure wasn't above 70 if he was willing to quote assist with the air the depletion of the air system decreases pressure in both emergency and auxilary portions of the air reservoirs was too large drawdowns of air just before cresting Homer lake then departing when an unknown brake pipe because was not sufficiently recharged and extreme cold at 7,000 237 feet and train rolled off the top like a parachutist without a ripcord the crew soon found out the worst that they had no air however they did not know it was a runaway at the time they were rolling but they assumed they had out under control just a minute and a half after rolling away from the top where the dynamics fully engaged the engineer made a first air reduction at 10 miles an hour but there was no exhaust sound two and a half minutes later the engineer increased the reduction to 10 pounds at a speed of 22 miles an hour still there was no exhaust which meant the brakes were not applying and the car reservoirs were below those levels another two and a half minutes the reduction had been increased to 14 pounds the Train was doing 27 miles an hour and the Oz wash track speed was 25 after another minute and a half now traveling at 30 miles an hour down the 1.4% grade the engineer finally realized how dire of a situation they were really in and applied the emergency brakes the big hole was a snow however an emergency application had nullified the dynamics so the independent engine brakes were applied and the speed quickly shot up to 43 miles an hour for the next two miles they had forgotten about an old railroaders saying no blow no go which they should be able to hear the exhaust sound when applying brakes if they don't something's gotta be wrong the conductor instructed the head brakeman to tie locomotive hand brakes but he was tying to one on the caboose however a locomotive handbrake is only on one axle not to please to brake cylinder a pressure losing the braking force of the independent the next emergency step was to invoke air brake rule number nine 20 by switching the reverser into reverse which did not go well as did many other elements of this trip the 72 43 wheels seized up when the engineer moved the reverser which also broke the speedometer and even worse is that the two trailing c30 - 7 s do not respond to reversing until the throttle on each of them is open - at least not one the oversight on that part of the engineer meant those units were unable to assist in the lack in an effort to stop the runaway the train was doing 68 miles an hour until the third axle on the lead truck of the lead unit had begin to skid on the rail which caused the left wheel as a third axle on the lead truck of the lead unit to grind down leaving a 14 inch flat spot on the wheel try to switch to an industrial spur a mile post 71 point 1 on a Pikes Peak subdivision the wheel at raised off and over the Frog this spot on the train starts to derail and the locomotives begin to roll away by themselves similar to what happened at luck Megantic in 2013 63 year to the 66th coal cars derailed but luckily the last three cars and the caboose did not the conductor on the caboose had actually turned out to separate his caboose from the doomed train to stop it with the hand brake seconds from disaster the wheels on the jumbled mass of cars had evidence of overheat and burn brake shoes they were working but they couldn't overcome the speed that the train was going the sole cause of the crash was determined to be crew negligence after they had intentionally skipped many required brake tests from Denver to Palmer Lake they were also at fault for letting the helper engineer to twice cut in his engines air brakes apply to improperly recharge the coal trains air brakes they had disregarded the rules on a cold winter night to make railroading a little easier for them which probably saw them never working for the railroad company again exactly 30 years later few people remember this there was hardly information about it anywhere on the internet but some railroaders might be aware of this and know not to do what that crew did so their train doesn't end up like this one today the site of the derailment north of Fillmore Street in Colorado Springs is now home to goose Gossage youth sports complex owned by the city if you go down there today you can't even tell that the derailment happened there but if you're one of the few people like me who actually knows what happened there it's a grim reminder about that if you're a railroad crew member and you disobey the rules your trip will probably end in disaster all of the lead units in the Train survived the wreck unharmed and were returned to service seventy two forty three was sold to First Union rail in 2005 and now operates under the reporting mark Effie urx with the same number 5500 was later retired and fifty five forty seven was also vacated from the roster in 2002

Channel: Ryan’s Colorado Rail Productions

Views: 598,311

Keywords: ryan, colorado, springs, rail, bulington, northern, railroad, railway, derailment, accident, incident, wreck, crash, 1989, 30, years, later, annniversary, goose, gossage, park, thomas, runaway, theme, 3977, february, 2019, bnsf, atsf, santa, fe, bn, 7243, 5500, 5547, decades, crew, train, trains, superthomas, iMovie

Id: 9wuu0nv8Ja4

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 06 2019