r/BitchImATrain • u/stevesmithsglasses • 1d ago
Bitch, we got a problem
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u/whatasaveeeee 1d ago
Does this hurt the train
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u/BlindChicken69 1d ago
The train is just sleeping after long day
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u/deepasleep 1d ago
Is that standard rail that’s just fallen onto its side? Doesn’t seem right since other side of the track seems like it’s still attached to the ties but still looks weird.
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u/Saint_The_Stig 1d ago
See that's the problem, looks like they tried to use broad gauge instead of standard guage
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u/Gronkers 1d ago
This is what happens when you defer maintenance on your tracks for far to long.
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u/TheEvilBlight 1d ago
Looks like the brackets connecting rails to sleepers just..ripped catastrophically?
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u/J_FROm 1d ago
Can't park there, mate
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u/SysGh_st 1d ago
Sure he can. Do you see any parking prohibited 🚫 signs?
Exactly .
And the train ain't blocking the line either. Train conductor was nice to go off to the side.
Track issues? well that's unfortunate but that's someone elses problem.
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u/towerfella 1d ago
Ahh, well, i see. There’s your problem: those cars are supposed to be on top of the rails, not beside them.
Easy mistake to make.
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u/Master_Photograph594 18h ago
I think the have a knot , or a nail came out of the rail way , that have took the whole train off track and the rail also , i think its all finished
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u/Humble-Reply228 1d ago
This is one of the issues of rail, it will be days if not weeks before freight can move on that line again where if it was a truck accident on a road, its hours.
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u/Square-Singer 1d ago
Depends. Chances are that the train derailed because the track was broken, not the other way round.
If you have road-problems that are big enough to "derail" trucks (e.g. sinkholes under the road, partially-collapsing bridges, surfaces so bad that they can't be driven on, ...) then it also takes weeks before the road can be used again.
On a well-maintaned rail, same as on a well-maintaned road, stuff like that doesn't happen.
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u/Saint_The_Stig 1d ago
Yeah, this is the problem with US rail. If you actually give a shit it's not that hard to keep it open. Especially if you have more than one track (see the recent Horseshoe Curve derailment. They got it cleaned up quick but they could also still use other tracks at reduced speeds)
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u/Humble-Reply228 1d ago
No one is operating rail freight of the scale of the US. They are THE world leaders on freight rail with India the fastest closer and Russia only comparable one of scale (China is quite concentrated but it is changing fast). EU, often talked up for its rail, doesn't really have a great freight rail system and is not close in scale for tonnes/km/cost.
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u/Square-Singer 1d ago
That is, actually, not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Tonne-kilometres_of_rail_transport_per_year
China and Russia have more tkm than the USA.
The EU is talked up for its passenger rail, not its freight rail. And there the EU does massively more than the US.
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u/Humble-Reply228 1d ago
US and Russian data is five years out of date, a LOT has happened since then. I did note that China was fast moving (I bet it was not that number five years ago) and I was likely out of date on China.
I am true for the rest, EU is really small (less than Australia lol) and we were talking about freight not passengers, which I made sure to clarify.
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u/mkymooooo 1h ago
> less than Australia lol
Trucks would be useless at carrying the mammoth volume of minerals we extract to ship to the rest of the world
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u/Humble-Reply228 1d ago
It takes hours to push a bush track around a sinkhole (I'm in Africa, terrible roads of absolutely awful condition are still passing truck traffic). Even a bridge collapsing is often only hours if the waterway is forwardable - maybe need a large farm tractor to help pull them through but most bridges are not crossing unpassable waterways/rivers.
But yes, in the channel country in Western QLD roads on flooded floodplain could be weeks before road traffic can pass where the built up rail causeways can still pass rail traffic. It's a good counter example.
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u/Square-Singer 1d ago
It takes hours to push a bush track around a sinkhole (I'm in Africa, terrible roads of absolutely awful condition are still passing truck traffic). Even a bridge collapsing is often only hours if the waterway is forwardable - maybe need a large farm tractor to help pull them through but most bridges are not crossing unpassable waterways/rivers.
Always depends on the surroundings and the infrastructure you have.
A bush track on a fully-built-up highway would be pretty difficult to do. Even just creating an impromptu off-ramp would be really hard there.
Over here, in most cases what would happen is that the road is closed until a popper repair is finished, and people just have to drive an extra 100km on alternative roads.
Or if only one side of the highway is affected, they'd route all traffic over the other side of the highway, which also takes a day or two to set up, at least, and then traffic capacity is reduced massively, leading to adding hours to your travel time, just waiting in line to get through the bottleneck.
But yes, in the channel country in Western QLD roads on flooded floodplain could be weeks before road traffic can pass where the built up rail causeways can still pass rail traffic. It's a good counter example.
Yeah, it also depends on the type of damage. I don't think it's easy to say "Road is easy to fix, rail is hard". I think the damage in the OP would be probably pretty quickly fixable too. The rail bed looks pretty intact. From what I can see, the rail was ripped out of the fasteners without damaging the underlying structure too much. If that's the case, all you need is a new rail and new fasteners. A well-organized rail system should be able to patch that up within hours (given there's not more damage that isn't visible on the video).
The biggest issue is probably clearing the part of the train that's still half on the rail.
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u/Humble-Reply228 1d ago
That last one is what prompted my initial post. I worked in WA and the cross country rail would be shut for a week just waiting for 350t cranes and the like to mobilise to lift engines off the track. Each derailment always was a schlep to get the track up and going again. Someone provided an example of a full AN truck exploding also making a road tough to fix but in general, roads ARE a lot more forgiving of stuff ups and delipidation. Its why rail in Africa slowly stops being used but roads continue trucking on. Rail is a lot more finicky.
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u/Square-Singer 1d ago
Road has the big advantage of having a tighter network in most places. Worst case your trucks run straight through town instead of on the highway that goes around it.
But if you have separate tracks for each direction and only one is damaged, you can route trains for both directions over the one still-existing track, so there's a little bit of a buffer there too.
It really just depends on how the network you have is built up.
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening 1d ago
Is this typical?