Roundhouse Accident Scene

My club is discussing building a roundhouse accident scene where the engine in the roundhouse has inadvertantly run through the back wall of the roundhouse. The idea is to show the back wall of the roundhouse all pushed out and bricks lying everywhere.

Is this prototypical? Did such a thing ever happen? Was it common?

 

YES!

I'm not sure if I can point you to the photograph since I have never seen it online but it's a great photograph of the engine hanging out the backend of the building; NYC I think...

 

I have seen many photos of tenders and locomotives hanging down into turntable pits, but never one of a loco or tender punching through a roundhouse rear wall.....

 

Can't get the site to load...

Might be an issue with their server right now. :computer: :computer: :computer: :computer:

 

Now the site and images will load...

Not the exact image that I've seen but it might be a different view of the same accident.

 

Flash, this is just a guess on my part but I suspect the far ends of the spurs in the roundhouses had bumpers of some sort. As others mentioned, putting one into the TT pit was not unusual, but out the back wall, I have not seen any photos of that. The ones above are out through a terminal if I remember right.

 

That's a good point. I will bring it up at the club. Maybe explains why there are no more pictures than there are.

 

If a loco is parked against or almost against bumpers, the bumpers will stop the loco. However, if the loco is being shoved or under its' own power, the stops are usually useless in holding back the loco. Many a stop or bumper have been sheared off by a rolling loco.

 

AMEN....remember the GG-1 that ended up in the basement of the Washington, DC terminal, or the Santa Fe F-unit hanging out over the street in LA? mg:

 

This reminds me of an incident in 1986 when a technician in Bang Sue Locomotive Depot started a loco in string of six and ran for something, by the time he got back, the locos had run away. All the crew could do at that time, is to alert all crossing guard's shack along the route to Hua Lamphong (Our answer to GCT) And the Bangkok stationmaster to clear people out of station. Finally the locos entered into concourse #4 and its bumper was no match for the wrath of 6 UM12C. The results:the ticketing office was totaled and 2 persons were dead and the technician in this case got some major time in the slammer. Ouchmg:

 

I think the accident you are thinking of was at Gare Montparnasse, Paris, in 1895. It's quite famous. The article I linked to tells the whole story. I have a poster of it hanging in my office :teeth:

 

Flash...anytime humans are involved it will happen. I worked in a roundhouse (Diesels only) and most accidents were overuns, grounding off the end into the dirt end of the table, or the hostler helper not locking the table and the second truck grounding as the table slightley turned. Perhaps once or twice a year.

Forklifts were fairley common falling into pits. account of tight quarters and operator error. We had one go compleatly into the pit from the end. Was a chore to jack and crib it back up to the floor, the fork lift operator was nicknamed "Base" for basement after that.

 

I recently stumbled across an old site devoted to train wreck pictures at http://www.trainweb.org/brettrw/derail/bnsf/bnsfderail.html .

If nothing else, these pix are a great source for accurate underbody detail for our models.

I also remember a photo in Model Railroader magazine many years ago in which a fellow modeled a train wreck scene on his layout. You couldn't really do it on your main line, though, because all the tracks would be torn up, but maybe you could model it as it would look after some site clean-up.

 

Found this little beauty,pity the poor bloke looking after it.
All I know is it was on the DRGW at Minturn.