Re: Atomic Train

["David Bennetts" <davibenn@pcug.org.au>]

michael pascoe wrote in message <934850878.953902@diddley.primus.com.au>...
>Did anyone consider bringing in another engine or two from ahead to pull
>them up? , and a couple of times  the camera showed the engines in the
>background, they were powering along spewing black smoke!!!  What a shocker
>of a show.
>
One wonders why the three brakemen lounging around in the caboose didn't
bother even to wind the handbrake on, the chain was clearly slack.  With the
acrobatics performed by the crew jumping from wagon to another, they could
have wound on the obvious brakewheels on the cars as well!

It was a bit hard to believe about all downhill, except for a slight upgrade
all the way from Utah to Denver - the line has to cross the continental
divide, where it enters Colorado it would be around probably 2000 feet above
sea level, rising to over 10,000 feet through the Moffatt tunnel.

Also a  bit hard to believe they couldn't have sent locos from Denver toward
the train, stopped them and run ahead till the train caught up with them.
Then if the coupler broke you wouldn't have to worry much about it with the
runaway pushing from behind.

Also interesting to see during the crash, you could see right through the
loco when the inspection doors flew open, I thought there should have been a
bit of machinery in there rather than empty space.

Wonder where it was filmed, possibly BC Rail in Canada which I think still
uses the caboose, they're virtually extinct now in the US.

regards

David Bennetts
Canberra