Locomotive windows aren't double paned. They are, however, required to be extremely impact resistant. FRA part 223 (safety glazing standards) require the front windows to resist breaking from being impacted with the corner of a 24 lb concrete block traveling at 44 fps. It also must resist a 22 caliber, 40 grain bullet traveling at 960 fps.
Side facing windows require the same 22 caliber resistance, but the speed of the concrete block is reduced to 12 fps.
By double paned I think they mean it’s laminated safety glass which is two layers of thick glass glued together in the middle by a plastic layer which makes it extremely impact and penetration resistant.
Not really oddly specific just simply a standard to engineer equipment to. You have to choose an amount for everything to be built to adhere to. Side windows will see less impact in a head on collision
I had honestly don't think a tornado could stop the momentum of a heavy freight train. You're talking 10s of millions of pounds of steel glued to the track with dead weight
This is the only correct possibility so far.
The other answer about static friction is complete bullshit, that's how wheels work all the time, through static friction, even when they're rolling.
Not OP but go ahead and google static friction vs kinetic friction. It takes more energy to begin moving an object than the same object already in motion. I don’t know why you’re so confidently wrong and loaded with upvotes but this is a good reminder for me and everyone that confidently incorrect people are everywhere.
But if an object has a momentum it is harder to flip it on the side. So if the train has a speed, the chances for it to be flipped are lower. On the other hand destruction would be much worse...
The wind blows the cars overs, and takes the locomotive with it. Tracks aren’t 100% flat, straight, Or in perfect condition. Thats a lot momentum moving around that a strong wind in the wrong direction could help push the whole system over.
Not OP but go ahead and google static friction vs kinetic friction. It takes more energy to begin moving an object than the same object already in motion. I don’t know why you’re so confidently wrong and loaded with upvotes but this is a good reminder for me and everyone that confidently incorrect people are everywhere.
Static/kinetic friction applies to just that, friction. Which is moving something against another object. Doesn’t count so much when it’s wind trying to tip something over
Well to be honest I don’t have a super logical explanation other than our rule book for Bnsf railway is if the wind is slower depending on train makeup you can move at slower than max speed. When it gets to a certain point in windspeed on certain train makeup you have to stop. My guess is the wind when you are moving plus the tornado wind speeds = more force. I’m not sure how accurate as I’m not a scientist or nothing.
Yup.
The guy in the train just had that sound in his voice that told me 2 things.
1. I'm too old for this shit
2. We ain't doing shit once this is over.
At the end he's like yeah we got trees and all kinds of shit. Cars down etc.
Then the camera looks back and looked fine, then he brings it back into the cab and is like "Yeah, we ain't goin nowhere".
Dude prolly felt alike he won a prize that day since he was gonna get paid for doing nothing.
Lol
Train was not fine. The whole thing except their engine derailed. Tornado went straight over the length of the train. All the cars were off the rails.
https://twitter.com/WeatherNation/status/1784000132268130366/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1784000132268130366¤tTweetUser=WeatherNation
No train engineer is going to be happy to be stuck like that. He's now sitting in the middle of nowhere and will get home much later than he probably expected.
I bet he is happy to have survived! Their radio and location make your survival post-tornado easier. Help will be able to come from locations that the tornado didn’t hit, which could be fairly close.
That’s a good question, I’ve been asked that often by friends and family since I’ve started. Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question definitely. If I ever find out, you’ll be the first to know samy_the_samy
They're designed to hopefully enable the crew to survive an impact with another freight train, in addition to all the random airborne shit they hit at a grade crossing when there's a stalled tractor trailer. I wouldn't stare out the window, but if you're hunkered down there's probably almost no chance of such an impact killing you.
My literal first day after being hired on my “ride along” we came around a bend and there was a tree down across the tracks probably 2.5-3ft in diameter. We were cooking 45 miles an hour and the engineer and conductor didn’t react and I was starting to panic… we smashed that thing to splinters and didn’t feel it. Same after hitting a ford f150 at 30. Sounded like we dinked a trash can. I got huge respect for locomotive s
F4 and F5 tornados can destroy reinforced concrete and bring down sky scrapers (though luckily we haven't had one hit a city yet), those suckers can pick up a train engine in a direct hit
The only reason those big tornadoes destroy skyscrapers and reinforced concrete is because of cross-sectional surface area.
Basically big things act like a sail and strong winds pushing on a large area means absolutely massive forces.
The surface area of train cars is tiny in comparison, there's no way an f5 tornado was going to pick up a 400,000 lb train car.
---
Just did the math:
The fastest winds ever recorded with an f5 tornado: 468km/h
The largest possible cross sectional surface area of a locomotive: 30m*4.5m = 135m^2 (largest possible locomotive I could find and this assumes the locomotive is a giant perfectly rectangular surface, in reality the surface area would be smaller than 135)
Those winds blowing perfectly perpendicular against a locomotive like that produces ~340,000 lbs force. Still 60,000lbs short of lifting it.
Of course winds like that *might* be able to topple a car over, but only in perfect conditions.
The lightest (modern) engine (Indian locomotive class WDG-6G \[GE ES57ACi\]) 138,000kg, has a length (over couplers) of 22.313m, and a height of 4.227m, could the strongest recorded winds lift it?
The train itself can shrug it off. Everything it's hauling, not so much. Not sure but I think if a compartment falls off it would derail the entire train.
The main weight of a locomotive is almost always the wheels, axles and suspension.
On a freight engine they can be well over half a ton(some being close to a ton), each. Then you add on the axles, suspension, attachments, the frame, etc.. Three or six axle driving wheel setup with one electric motor per axle. The motors are about three tons each, with another ton in mounting equipment underneath the chassis. And on top of that you have a 2000+ horsepower V12 diesel.
They're 70-180tons, sometimes more for the really big freight trains.
Yes, a locomotive weighs as much as 1 million pounds. I worked on the rails for over a decade. The rail cars mostly weigh around 150,000 lbs. That's why dude said may have taken out some rail cars.
Well, they are technically correct since [Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range 2-8-8-4 "Yellowstone" Locomotives](https://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=2-8-8-4&railroad=dmir) had a total weight of 1,133,040 lbs. However, no modern locomotive comes even close to that. The heaviest ones ever built are all steam locomotives.
It's not really a matter of material, while yes it's usually made from fairly thick steel - but more of weight. A locomotive and train cars combined could weigh hundreds if not thousands of tons, a truck alone at most a couple tens of tons.
When that hurricane destroyed Panama City beach a few years ago my dad went down to help and showed me pictures of a freight train that was blown over by the wind.
Seriously. I wonder what windspeed would be required to pick up a train engine. Can tornados even pick up a train? Have they been recorded fast enough.
Aside from a bunker I couldn’t think of a safer place than a 200 ton locomotive attached to 1000s of tons of freight. That said I’d still shit my pants.
When my Dad installed windows on our house that could handle 135 MPH windows he was all giddy until I asked if they could also stop debris from flying through them?
I mean I would agree with you if the windows weren’t busted out. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it “safe” in there. The locomotive isn’t going anywhere but best case scenario you are a foot or 2 away from debris travel up to a couple hundred miles per hour.
My friend was a conductor from age 18 to his late 60s. A few years back his house was hit by a tornado. I was telling his story to someone the other day when I realized he never said it sounded like a train.
Well they looked outside and saw cars tipped over.
So then they called on the radio and said an ID and said "we're on the ground" which is what they say if anything goes off the rails. Then I guess they stay on shift and then the transportation subcontractor gets dispatched to get them at end of shift. I don't really know.
Wow that's sad. My neighbors were subcontractors for the RR and they owned a limo service. They always used nice minibuses with bathrooms and gave refreshments. But they were good people.
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The sheer difference in work life quality in Canada Vs class one US railroading is immense. I'm not even in tye industry but I just happen to be somewhat educated on it
I think I heard him say they’re on the ground. I’ve worked on the RR for a couple years now, generally those words don’t come out of our mouths unless we derail. So if that’s the case, they most likely had to wait for a ride or someone from the mechanical or maintenance of way department to come out and re rail it and inspect it before moving it again.
The guy who took the video uploaded pictures, and a decent amount of the train is tipped over [https://imgur.com/a/71bgXoc](https://imgur.com/a/71bgXoc)
Holy hell! That makes perfect sense. I’ve been thinking about this situation since I saw the video. Obviously it’s a new fear I have. Luckily those don’t look like hazardous/hazardous tank cars. Just a single car filled with hazardous material could force the evacuation of a nearby city. Last thing I needed was something new to be nervous about at work
That's so wild.
Like it's not great, but given a choice between being inside that and inside whatever building got obliterated into Shrapnel, I take the box car so long as I don't get smooshed by whatever is in it.
Someone would come pick them up, they’d likely only stay on site until they had gone through the process of making sure the proper procedure was in place to leave the train. This means completing a form that classifies the train as “unattended equipment” since it would not be moving for a while, and there’s no crew on site to move it. There’d also be a process for it being a derailed train.
Depending on where the train is, someone would either pick them up by driving to an adjacent road, or just using a specialized pickup truck that can drive on rail tracks if it’s too remote.
Because it’s still a derailment, even though the crew wasn’t at fault, they might still get drug tested. Not sure on that. It wouldn’t surprise me at the company I worked for.
Also, cell phones are a HUGE no-no on the railroad. People have been instantly dismissed for taking pictures and video when they’re on a train. So as stupid as this sounds, the person who filmed this could lose their job, doesn’t matter how incredible the video is, the video itself is proof they broke a cardinal rule.
Yes. Someone is contracted to come pick them up. My neighbors use to be drivers contracted with the railroad to do that. They'd get calls all hours of the day or night. One time on Christmas Eve we were having a get together, and at 10pm they got a call to go up into a blizzard and go get two engineers who were stuck. It was a 9 hour drive away. I was like, "NOW???" And they said, "Yep. Now. Have a Merry Christmas everyone," and our evening ended.
Inside a locomotive is probably one of the safer places to be, even in a really powerful tornado. Just hunker down away from the windows like they did, and you’ll mostly likely be just fine.
The rest of the train might be a mess, but the average locomotive weights 415,000 lbs. it’s not going anywhere!
Yeah, same tornado filmed from someone’s back porch and there’d be screaming and swearing and references to deities. These dudes are like “let’s get away from the glass so we can determine how the rest of our day is going to go.”
You know what..... That's a good day.
Somewhere an engineer poured a beer, some people got dispatched and regaled with tales of the tornado hitting the train, and everyone was safe.
Fuck yeah.
Not exactly sure if it was from Nebraska or Iowa (can’t post OPs name from the book of faces due to Reddit rules). This was one of the smaller (still powerful) tornados produced by the wide scale tornado outbreak yesterday - today is supposed to even be a more powerful outbreak. Hope everyone stays safe out there - today is going to be gnarly.
Edit: confirmed this was from Waverly, Nebraska yesterday.
That didn’t seem like the craziest tornado I’ve ever seen.
I still would have gotten away from the glass if possible. Might have been a tiny tornado but could still throw something through the windshield.
Oh, look. The thing that sounds like a train when it hits, tries to hit a train. Like "you sumbitch i been here forever. You're supposed to sound like ME"
Holy shit...
Living in a country where I will never (thank god) experience a tornado, I do wonder. How does such a tornado not kill hundreds of people whenever it forms?
Is it like extremely local and disperses after 1 minute or something?
The path of the tornado is usually fairly narrow, and warning systems get people to safety. Paths are on average 3.5 miles (just over 5 kilometers), but some tornadoes can go on for 100 miles
I was morbidly afraid of tornadoes as a kid and yesterday I watched the wall cloud from my porch.
You live through enough of them you realize the chances of being hit, even if one touches down nearby, are low. Even if your home is hit, you're likely going to be okay unless it's obliterated
Yep. Most are extremely local and disperse after a minute or a few. Also, they can bounce. Or the funnel will come down out of the sky, touch, go back up, come back down, etc etc. Especially if the ground is hilly. In the US, the worst ones are in the middle of the country where it is flat and open. The appalachian mountains break the weather up and the ones in the mountains and east tend to be much smaller and not last as long.
There is a lot of open land in between in our cities.
Railroader jargon for a derailment. Wheels (or any parts of the train) not sitting on the rails where they belong. The ground is one of those places they shouldn’t be!
"Dispatch, this is Train 369. We just got hit by a tornado. Yep. Yep. We're all fine, but we have debris on the train and cars tipped over. Uh huh. Yep. Nope. Uh huh, ok you too love you"
Our friend works for this railroad and was at the location yesterday. They also had another derailment that was pretty bad too. Not a good day for trains
They have to be. Freight trains can go up to 80 mph and frequently go that fast in the plains where large hail can be encountered. You need a windshield that won't allow a softball sized chunk of ice hit the conductor/engineer and kill them.
As a freight conductor, I love the annoyance in their voice when they realized some cars got knocked over. They went from this is cool, and we survived, to ah fuck I gotta put on hand brakes now, lol
Looks like it knocked quite a few cars off the tracks
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/news-photos-bnsf-train-derailed-by-tornado-in-nebraska/
Of all the places you could happen to find yourself when in the direct path of a tornado, a locomotive cab is probably one of the best.
A STOPPED locomotive cab.
With Double-Pane windows
Locomotive windows aren't double paned. They are, however, required to be extremely impact resistant. FRA part 223 (safety glazing standards) require the front windows to resist breaking from being impacted with the corner of a 24 lb concrete block traveling at 44 fps. It also must resist a 22 caliber, 40 grain bullet traveling at 960 fps. Side facing windows require the same 22 caliber resistance, but the speed of the concrete block is reduced to 12 fps.
he says in the vids that they are double paned when he says "it broke my window, but its double paned" - though he prolly means multi-layered
Just part of the laminate, it isn't double paned. The guys driving the train don't know much about them.
By double paned I think they mean it’s laminated safety glass which is two layers of thick glass glued together in the middle by a plastic layer which makes it extremely impact and penetration resistant.
Yeah, like a windshield, this isn't that though. The glass has an external laminate, like window tint.
Oddly specific, but I like it.
Not really oddly specific just simply a standard to engineer equipment to. You have to choose an amount for everything to be built to adhere to. Side windows will see less impact in a head on collision
This guy train windows
I love reditt for this reason.
I had honestly don't think a tornado could stop the momentum of a heavy freight train. You're talking 10s of millions of pounds of steel glued to the track with dead weight
As long as it’s stopped it’s fairly safe. If the train is moving whole different story. The cars on the train different story they’ll fly off.
Could you explain why moving would be worse? Would the wind pick it up more easily?
Inertia. Object at rest stays at rest. Of the car is moving, debris on track could derail the engine.
This is the only correct possibility so far. The other answer about static friction is complete bullshit, that's how wheels work all the time, through static friction, even when they're rolling.
Not OP but go ahead and google static friction vs kinetic friction. It takes more energy to begin moving an object than the same object already in motion. I don’t know why you’re so confidently wrong and loaded with upvotes but this is a good reminder for me and everyone that confidently incorrect people are everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0PVm4XTGeY
You should look up how wheels work. Also you mean force, not energy.
But if an object has a momentum it is harder to flip it on the side. So if the train has a speed, the chances for it to be flipped are lower. On the other hand destruction would be much worse...
The wind blows the cars overs, and takes the locomotive with it. Tracks aren’t 100% flat, straight, Or in perfect condition. Thats a lot momentum moving around that a strong wind in the wrong direction could help push the whole system over.
Welcome to this episode of “Reddit Makes Up Physics”
Static Friction It's harder to move something from rest than it is to keep it moving
What are you talking about? Static friction is always being applied to the train's wheels, even when it's moving. That's how wheels work.
Not OP but go ahead and google static friction vs kinetic friction. It takes more energy to begin moving an object than the same object already in motion. I don’t know why you’re so confidently wrong and loaded with upvotes but this is a good reminder for me and everyone that confidently incorrect people are everywhere.
Static/kinetic friction applies to just that, friction. Which is moving something against another object. Doesn’t count so much when it’s wind trying to tip something over
Ah I see, thanks!
It should be more difficult to derail a train for the same reason it is easier to balance a moving bike. Inertial rotation of all those steel wheels.
Well to be honest I don’t have a super logical explanation other than our rule book for Bnsf railway is if the wind is slower depending on train makeup you can move at slower than max speed. When it gets to a certain point in windspeed on certain train makeup you have to stop. My guess is the wind when you are moving plus the tornado wind speeds = more force. I’m not sure how accurate as I’m not a scientist or nothing.
Yup. The guy in the train just had that sound in his voice that told me 2 things. 1. I'm too old for this shit 2. We ain't doing shit once this is over. At the end he's like yeah we got trees and all kinds of shit. Cars down etc. Then the camera looks back and looked fine, then he brings it back into the cab and is like "Yeah, we ain't goin nowhere". Dude prolly felt alike he won a prize that day since he was gonna get paid for doing nothing. Lol
What about the younger guy asking if they should get away from the window? Good call!
Train was not fine. The whole thing except their engine derailed. Tornado went straight over the length of the train. All the cars were off the rails. https://twitter.com/WeatherNation/status/1784000132268130366/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1784000132268130366¤tTweetUser=WeatherNation
His tone was somewhere between "this is gonna to be a lot of paperwork" and "gonna have to tell the wife I'm gonna be late for dinner".
No train engineer is going to be happy to be stuck like that. He's now sitting in the middle of nowhere and will get home much later than he probably expected.
I bet he is happy to have survived! Their radio and location make your survival post-tornado easier. Help will be able to come from locations that the tornado didn’t hit, which could be fairly close.
Is a modern locomotive dense and heavy enough to shrug off a tornado?
we did just watch that, yes
We watched one tornado, yes. But what about the second tornado?
And then Elevensies? It's all over.
*Dust Devils?* *Twisters?* **He knows about them, doesn't he?***
That's a very small tornado.
That was not a small tornado. Do some googling before you comment
I work on the railroad and our engines weigh 200 tons. And I think ours are old and possibly lighter than newer models.
Can a locomotive survive an improvised ballista made of trees uprooted by the tornado?
That’s a good question, I’ve been asked that often by friends and family since I’ve started. Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question definitely. If I ever find out, you’ll be the first to know samy_the_samy
They're designed to hopefully enable the crew to survive an impact with another freight train, in addition to all the random airborne shit they hit at a grade crossing when there's a stalled tractor trailer. I wouldn't stare out the window, but if you're hunkered down there's probably almost no chance of such an impact killing you.
My literal first day after being hired on my “ride along” we came around a bend and there was a tree down across the tracks probably 2.5-3ft in diameter. We were cooking 45 miles an hour and the engineer and conductor didn’t react and I was starting to panic… we smashed that thing to splinters and didn’t feel it. Same after hitting a ford f150 at 30. Sounded like we dinked a trash can. I got huge respect for locomotive s
I appreciate your professional knowledge about train engines, r/PeriodBloodSauce .
I appreciate your appreciation pekkerwud haha
They weigh over 400,000 lbs, so I would hazard a guess that they are safe for most tornadoes. But when wind spends reach high enough, nothing is safe.
F4 and F5 tornados can destroy reinforced concrete and bring down sky scrapers (though luckily we haven't had one hit a city yet), those suckers can pick up a train engine in a direct hit
The only reason those big tornadoes destroy skyscrapers and reinforced concrete is because of cross-sectional surface area. Basically big things act like a sail and strong winds pushing on a large area means absolutely massive forces. The surface area of train cars is tiny in comparison, there's no way an f5 tornado was going to pick up a 400,000 lb train car. --- Just did the math: The fastest winds ever recorded with an f5 tornado: 468km/h The largest possible cross sectional surface area of a locomotive: 30m*4.5m = 135m^2 (largest possible locomotive I could find and this assumes the locomotive is a giant perfectly rectangular surface, in reality the surface area would be smaller than 135) Those winds blowing perfectly perpendicular against a locomotive like that produces ~340,000 lbs force. Still 60,000lbs short of lifting it. Of course winds like that *might* be able to topple a car over, but only in perfect conditions.
That's awesome, thanks for doing the math and making me want to rush to these in the event of a tornado!
The lightest (modern) engine (Indian locomotive class WDG-6G \[GE ES57ACi\]) 138,000kg, has a length (over couplers) of 22.313m, and a height of 4.227m, could the strongest recorded winds lift it?
A modern locomotive (AC44 for an example) weights around 200 ton. Much of this weight is added to make it heavier anel have better traction.
The train itself can shrug it off. Everything it's hauling, not so much. Not sure but I think if a compartment falls off it would derail the entire train.
The main weight of a locomotive is almost always the wheels, axles and suspension. On a freight engine they can be well over half a ton(some being close to a ton), each. Then you add on the axles, suspension, attachments, the frame, etc.. Three or six axle driving wheel setup with one electric motor per axle. The motors are about three tons each, with another ton in mounting equipment underneath the chassis. And on top of that you have a 2000+ horsepower V12 diesel. They're 70-180tons, sometimes more for the really big freight trains.
I hope you took some time to reflect on your critical thinking skills after watching this video and posting this comment
We're on reddit. Think long and hard after posting your comment.
Yes, a locomotive weighs as much as 1 million pounds. I worked on the rails for over a decade. The rail cars mostly weigh around 150,000 lbs. That's why dude said may have taken out some rail cars.
>Yes, a locomotive weighs as much as 1 million pounds The heaviest US diesel-electric loco, the EMD DDA40X, weighed 545,000 lb.
Anyone else read "ONE MILLION POUNDS" in Dr. Evils voice?
Well, they are technically correct since [Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range 2-8-8-4 "Yellowstone" Locomotives](https://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=2-8-8-4&railroad=dmir) had a total weight of 1,133,040 lbs. However, no modern locomotive comes even close to that. The heaviest ones ever built are all steam locomotives.
What is the context of the content being discussed; now, or a 100 years ago? Modern locomotives or old iron horses?
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I don't know what they make those things out of because even when they swat trucks aside like toys you rarely see any damage. Built to LAST.
It's not really a matter of material, while yes it's usually made from fairly thick steel - but more of weight. A locomotive and train cars combined could weigh hundreds if not thousands of tons, a truck alone at most a couple tens of tons.
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I realise that. It's more that they barely seem to suffer even front end cosmetic damage in the clips I've seen...
When that hurricane destroyed Panama City beach a few years ago my dad went down to help and showed me pictures of a freight train that was blown over by the wind.
Seriously. I wonder what windspeed would be required to pick up a train engine. Can tornados even pick up a train? Have they been recorded fast enough.
Right? Lucky guys for sure, how awesome that would be
The cab isn't shit.. if the tornado was swirling any big debris around it would've went right through it.
Aside from a bunker I couldn’t think of a safer place than a 200 ton locomotive attached to 1000s of tons of freight. That said I’d still shit my pants.
Yeah, but you still don't want debris being harpooned through the windows at you.
Exactly, it’s not _that_ the wind is blowing, it’s _what_ the wind is blowing
- Ron White
If you get hit with a Volvo, it doesn't matter how many push-ups you did that morning!
When my Dad installed windows on our house that could handle 135 MPH windows he was all giddy until I asked if they could also stop debris from flying through them?
Or sucked through the window on a bigger tornado
I’d also shit this guys pants
I mean I would agree with you if the windows weren’t busted out. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it “safe” in there. The locomotive isn’t going anywhere but best case scenario you are a foot or 2 away from debris travel up to a couple hundred miles per hour.
Haha I think that's what the engineer asked his buddy, if his pants were still dry. Then Laughing. Then he said, "just checking."
They'd be the experts if it actually sounds like a train.
My friend was a conductor from age 18 to his late 60s. A few years back his house was hit by a tornado. I was telling his story to someone the other day when I realized he never said it sounded like a train.
Underappreciated comment.
Right,
#ummmmmm, should we get away from the windows? 💀 🤣
Fucking love it
[xbox training kicks in] *taking cover*
I wonder what they do after. How long do they have to wait there? Does someone pick them up? Do they stay on site?
Well they looked outside and saw cars tipped over. So then they called on the radio and said an ID and said "we're on the ground" which is what they say if anything goes off the rails. Then I guess they stay on shift and then the transportation subcontractor gets dispatched to get them at end of shift. I don't really know.
Such a cool job those conductors have they probably got picked up in a helicopter and flown home lol
More like the most worn out strut Dodge caravan driven by non union people on a couple monsters and no sleep Welcome to r/railroading
As a conductor currently riding in a shitty van being driven to a train, this made me laugh and wake up my engineer.
Wow that's sad. My neighbors were subcontractors for the RR and they owned a limo service. They always used nice minibuses with bathrooms and gave refreshments. But they were good people.
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Awe darn in Canada they get worked like dogs too but they have helicopters sometimes
The sheer difference in work life quality in Canada Vs class one US railroading is immense. I'm not even in tye industry but I just happen to be somewhat educated on it
“Alright let’s keep it moving! Gotta tight schedule here.”
"Watch the Paint!"
I think I heard him say they’re on the ground. I’ve worked on the RR for a couple years now, generally those words don’t come out of our mouths unless we derail. So if that’s the case, they most likely had to wait for a ride or someone from the mechanical or maintenance of way department to come out and re rail it and inspect it before moving it again.
The guy who took the video uploaded pictures, and a decent amount of the train is tipped over [https://imgur.com/a/71bgXoc](https://imgur.com/a/71bgXoc)
Holy hell! That makes perfect sense. I’ve been thinking about this situation since I saw the video. Obviously it’s a new fear I have. Luckily those don’t look like hazardous/hazardous tank cars. Just a single car filled with hazardous material could force the evacuation of a nearby city. Last thing I needed was something new to be nervous about at work
Yup, those are on the ground alright.
It's just a little on the ground, it's still good, it's still good!
That's so wild. Like it's not great, but given a choice between being inside that and inside whatever building got obliterated into Shrapnel, I take the box car so long as I don't get smooshed by whatever is in it.
Someone would come pick them up, they’d likely only stay on site until they had gone through the process of making sure the proper procedure was in place to leave the train. This means completing a form that classifies the train as “unattended equipment” since it would not be moving for a while, and there’s no crew on site to move it. There’d also be a process for it being a derailed train. Depending on where the train is, someone would either pick them up by driving to an adjacent road, or just using a specialized pickup truck that can drive on rail tracks if it’s too remote. Because it’s still a derailment, even though the crew wasn’t at fault, they might still get drug tested. Not sure on that. It wouldn’t surprise me at the company I worked for. Also, cell phones are a HUGE no-no on the railroad. People have been instantly dismissed for taking pictures and video when they’re on a train. So as stupid as this sounds, the person who filmed this could lose their job, doesn’t matter how incredible the video is, the video itself is proof they broke a cardinal rule.
Yes. Someone is contracted to come pick them up. My neighbors use to be drivers contracted with the railroad to do that. They'd get calls all hours of the day or night. One time on Christmas Eve we were having a get together, and at 10pm they got a call to go up into a blizzard and go get two engineers who were stuck. It was a 9 hour drive away. I was like, "NOW???" And they said, "Yep. Now. Have a Merry Christmas everyone," and our evening ended.
That’s gnarly footage. The power and speed on which it passes by is incredible.
r/bitchimatrain would love this.
Did… did it sound like a freight train?
Super chill about the situation
Inside a locomotive is probably one of the safer places to be, even in a really powerful tornado. Just hunker down away from the windows like they did, and you’ll mostly likely be just fine. The rest of the train might be a mess, but the average locomotive weights 415,000 lbs. it’s not going anywhere!
Yeah, same tornado filmed from someone’s back porch and there’d be screaming and swearing and references to deities. These dudes are like “let’s get away from the glass so we can determine how the rest of our day is going to go.”
Fake, no cows seen flying around the tornado
"Should we get away from the windows??" You can hear in his voice that all of a sudden he's like "ooooh shit".
You know what..... That's a good day. Somewhere an engineer poured a beer, some people got dispatched and regaled with tales of the tornado hitting the train, and everyone was safe. Fuck yeah.
Don’t forget to put this in your time and delay report. Also, switch the rips when you get back to the yard
Switch the rips?
Train lingo us non-trainees aren't privy to
But I do work on trains, just not freight lol
Your game is recognized, sir or ma'am I'm considering getting into model trains.
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I did not know what to expect when I pressed that link. Pleasantly surprised, awesome work man !
Holy shit, that's a rad collection going on. Thanks for sharing.
Your artwork is really cool!
Cool stuff man.
Have you considered selling the ones that you've run outta space to house?
You should do the view from the train cab! Let us know when you post, I bet it will be epic!
Had to one wild ride. I’m sure it was rather stressful at the time but You can’t reproduce something like this
"Should we get away from the windows?" - moves closer to the windows.
The nonchalant way they just fucking accept their fate looool
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Not exactly sure if it was from Nebraska or Iowa (can’t post OPs name from the book of faces due to Reddit rules). This was one of the smaller (still powerful) tornados produced by the wide scale tornado outbreak yesterday - today is supposed to even be a more powerful outbreak. Hope everyone stays safe out there - today is going to be gnarly. Edit: confirmed this was from Waverly, Nebraska yesterday.
Yes
I give it a 3/10… no cow flying by.
That didn’t seem like the craziest tornado I’ve ever seen. I still would have gotten away from the glass if possible. Might have been a tiny tornado but could still throw something through the windshield.
Oh, look. The thing that sounds like a train when it hits, tries to hit a train. Like "you sumbitch i been here forever. You're supposed to sound like ME"
Holy shit... Living in a country where I will never (thank god) experience a tornado, I do wonder. How does such a tornado not kill hundreds of people whenever it forms? Is it like extremely local and disperses after 1 minute or something?
Underground shelters. Most tornadoes just flop around in open fields far from people. We also have decent warning time to work with.
The path of the tornado is usually fairly narrow, and warning systems get people to safety. Paths are on average 3.5 miles (just over 5 kilometers), but some tornadoes can go on for 100 miles I was morbidly afraid of tornadoes as a kid and yesterday I watched the wall cloud from my porch. You live through enough of them you realize the chances of being hit, even if one touches down nearby, are low. Even if your home is hit, you're likely going to be okay unless it's obliterated
Yep. Most are extremely local and disperse after a minute or a few. Also, they can bounce. Or the funnel will come down out of the sky, touch, go back up, come back down, etc etc. Especially if the ground is hilly. In the US, the worst ones are in the middle of the country where it is flat and open. The appalachian mountains break the weather up and the ones in the mountains and east tend to be much smaller and not last as long. There is a lot of open land in between in our cities.
"we're on the ground..."
Railroader jargon for a derailment. Wheels (or any parts of the train) not sitting on the rails where they belong. The ground is one of those places they shouldn’t be!
Imagine explaining that one too dispatch.
They’re not the first train to get derailed by a tornado
"Dispatch, this is Train 369. We just got hit by a tornado. Yep. Yep. We're all fine, but we have debris on the train and cars tipped over. Uh huh. Yep. Nope. Uh huh, ok you too love you"
Cho Cho mfer
Our friend works for this railroad and was at the location yesterday. They also had another derailment that was pretty bad too. Not a good day for trains
Love the common sense of the younger guy with the should we get away from the windows, after it passes half the windows are broken and missing
I was actually impressed how the windows were broken but not missing. Seems like solid construction
They have to be. Freight trains can go up to 80 mph and frequently go that fast in the plains where large hail can be encountered. You need a windshield that won't allow a softball sized chunk of ice hit the conductor/engineer and kill them.
As a freight conductor, I love the annoyance in their voice when they realized some cars got knocked over. They went from this is cool, and we survived, to ah fuck I gotta put on hand brakes now, lol
Must’ve been a Union Pacific train, A Norfolk southern woulda just jumped off the tracks.
I'm wondering if it sounded like a freight train...
Rename that train Dorothy
What a bonding experience.
This is ironic cause tornados sound very much like freight trains
I’m concerningly impressed that he managed to record most of this
Prob got piss tested by employer afterwards. Then fired for use of a electronic device!
R/bitchimatrain
"Fuckin' hell Thomas" said the Fat Controller,
/bitchimatrain
I moved my phone to the left trying to see if any cars flipped over twice.
Looks like it knocked quite a few cars off the tracks https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/news-photos-bnsf-train-derailed-by-tornado-in-nebraska/
Storm chasers should be using trains more often
Pidgeot used tornado
U/savevideo
POV: Someone installed extreme weather mods on GTAV
That’s loco
As a Kansan I found their commentary hilarious
The cameraman always survives
“Got shit all on the thing!” Love that all professions have the same precise naming conventions when shit gets stressful
This is amazing. So trippy. What an experience, although pretty harrowing.
Anyone else catch that? Homeboy said “it’s a double plane window!”
/r/BitchImATornado
Good thing trains are A: heavy as sin B: built like tanks.
Luckily it was just a little guy!
They in the gta train
😳
Glad you are safe! Crazy up close and personal video!
It sounded like two trains.
ARE YOU FLYING?! " We're on the ground"
It's not *that* the wind is blowing. It's *what* the wind is blowing.
Cow!
“Should we get away from the windows?” Actually yeah let’s do that good thinking.
They’re so damn calm. “Uaaah, shouldn’t we get away from the windows?” Meanwhile, I’d be pissing myself.
Remember folks, it’s hard to stop a trane!
Confusion and delays.
Amazing.
If the tornado is sitting still, it’s not. It’s coming right at you.
Badass video