Train Versus Tornado

[T-Mo]

Train versus tornado:
Trains nowadays mount cameras in their cabs, facing forward and backward, the same way police cars do. This is a train that ran through a tornado.
First there is the normal rearward view from the last of three engines, with the trees looking normal. Then you begin to see rain, then halfway through the video, the trees begin to sway violently, then things start to happen. Fascinating.

http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa145/treed_63628/?action=view&current=T ornado.flv

 

[bbrigham]

WOW

 

[aschumacher]

I bet that gave some safety experts the chills, especially if you have a load of propane or chlorine!

 

[wcompton]

Propane or cholrine . . . if only. We went through BNSF's class for emergency responders. Some of the things shipped over rail would scare anyone, especially some of the chemicals that are reactive to ambient air.

Good thing is, having at one time been very well-versed in CFR as it relates to rail, as well as all twenty-something standards for rail safety appliances, the DOT has a pretty good grasp over the design of rail cars, making it the safest way to move product.

 

[sstanton]

I believe I would have had to have a change of shorts if I were the engineer on that train!

 

[thoffman]

If I'm not mistaken that was about 10 miles from here about a year or two ago. It was in Woodstock, Illinois

 

[kmcconaughey]

That would be a wild train ride!

Back when I worked at Bay West (an environmental firm in St. Paul, MN, a photo of one of the clean up stations of the spill shows up on their home page) I was on an emergency response team (my real job was designing, building and installing control panels for water recovery and treatment systems) and had to respond to a rail car spill when a train derailed and some cars fell off of a bridge into the Nemadji River, which is near Superior, Wisconsin, the cars that fell in were carrying benzene.

Nothing like spending days wearing a full face respirator and a tyvek suit in the rain and pulling sticks and branches out of the river so they don't mess up the containment boom. The spill happened during a storm and it rained for days causing the river level to came way up and wash all sorts of sticks, tree trunks, trash and what not into the river. I'm glad I no longer am on a emergency response team.

Spill info

NY Times

 

[jbaker]

Tom i think your talking about the one that happend just outside of harvard, Ill. the tornado tossed a bunch of cars off the track it was spring of 08 and I moved out of Harvard in fall of 07 it took place exactly 1.5 miles from my house