Bridge Collapses Under Train!
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- Corvallis, Oregon:
On Saturday, January 4, 2025, a southbound Portland and Western train of hoppers containing fertilizer was crossing a bridge over the Mary's River when the bridge collapsed. Two of the train's 19 covered hoppers of urea, a nitrogen fertilizer, fell into the river.
Fortunately, the train's two locomotives (GP38-2's) made it safely across the bridge before it failed. There were no reported injuries.
This video footage was shot on Sunday, January 5 as the cleanup was beginning.
That looks a difficult site to access for the recovery process.
Thankful that the GP38’s didn’t fall in to the river and the crew are safe.
Greetings from the UK.
No reported injuries, but lots of brown shorts, Thank you so much for keeping us up to snuff.
Thank you for providing more details and insights than any of the local news coverage, including the info on locomotives and state of the line in both directions! Your drone footage is clearer, sharper and more stable, and you didn’t add ridiculous stock “rock” music over the top of it. Much appreciated from FG.
Thank you!
This is what happens when all a business thinks of is short term profits. I can be certain that the ASCE. (American Society of Civil Engineers) would have recommended replacement of the bridge.
Love to see these short lines get rebuilt. Many are way overdue for upgrades. Good thing the crew survived.
This railroad is in bankruptcy. No rebuild. No upgrades. End of the line. Rail to trail conversion.
@rogerlaurel2363 there is no info that the portland and Western are in bankruptcy.
@@rogerlaurel2363 Portland & Western is not in bankruptcy. Neither is Rick Franklin/Albany & Eastern. The line will be rebuilt since there is still vital traffic 5 miles outside of Corvallis to farms.
@@skylarw6670I have serious doubts on the bridge being rebuilt. The cost of environmental studies and procedures would probably make it economically unfeasible to rebuild he bridge and do the upgrades to the line. Most of these small regional lines are trying to make a go of marginal rail lines that the larger railroads deemed unprofitable.It is the same story over and over again. one major disaster closes the whole rail line.Oregon used to have 6 or 7 rail lines from the Willamette Valley to the coast. My mother as a young girl in the 1930's would take the train from Portland to Garibaldi to visit her grandmother. It is a shame how you can't do that today.
I can't see it getting rebuilt. All the track south of Corvallis is abandoned except for this 5 mile stretch to the fertilizer plant. The fertilizer plant appears to be the only customer on the line. Unless the fertilizer plant wants to pay for it, it's not going to get rebuilt. And if they were going to do that, they would have probably done it when the fire damaged the bridge.
Thanks for the video, Aaron! Most of my trips south across that were from 1996 to 2003. Even then, crossing that bridge was a little concerning. Back then, we ran at a blazing 10 mph but now (and since about 2004) the line has a 5 mph speed restriction.
I’m glad everyone is safe
Better fertilizer than oil in the river.
The crew was EXTREMELY lucky to get across with the locomotive.
From what I can see is that the trestle looks to have been partially burned (an eyewitness said it did last year)
Combine that with a log or other large debris striking a support member, it was only a matter of time until it would collapse.
That's true. A lot worse things than nitrogen could have ended up in the river. The high volume of water will help flush it out. Maybe some extra green and tall weeds along its banks this spring!
It took a very long time clear the mess
I'm not familiar with construction standards for covered hoppers and prevention of spills, but regulation on tank cars is very strict. If it was tank cars full of oil I doubt it would have leaked from a minor fall like this.
@@ianchromebook7262 probably a long crane. (i was not there)
Maintenance goes a long way
Thats what I was s thinking myself
Or lack of..............
replacement goes even longer.
@@HoboEATEXACTLY 💯
Thanks for the update! Hopefully the recovery/rebuild goes well.
Thanks for posting this video, I had just finished watching your Yaquina-Toledo Branch videos just before seeing this story.
As a rail car repairman, it’s crazy to see the whole draft sill ripped clean off.
Whoa glad they are safe from that
Excellent vid/job 7idea!! Those timbers looked badly compromised from the fire.
I knew there had been a fire on the trestle a couple of years ago but I was really surprised by how it looked when I filmed those scenes yesterday.
I’m glad the crew members are safe!
What a great report. All the facts without excess verbiage and scenes long enough to have a good look at what happened.
That was wild, just thankful it the cars that fell into the water and not the locomotives where the crew could’ve gotten killed
My understanding is that P&W has had a series of “short-term” leases of this line: 20 years each. When you don’t have a long-term lease or outright ownership it’s hard to justify expending big bucks on a long-term asset you can’t take with you.
@@maestromecanico597 or risk this clean up bill. 🤨🤯🤣🤣🤣
@ The potential cost of a cleanup enters the equation. Considering the benign nature of the dumped load (as opposed a breached tankcar of anhydrous ammonia) the cleanup will still be cheaper than bridge replacement.
Typical railroad and bridges
For example, in Cleveland, Ohio here Norfolk Southern has some disturbingly sad bridges, and they don’t hire contractors to fix them. They fix them in house usually with like a crew of five people and they take freaking forever and when the community tries to get them to do anything on these bridges they just sit on their thumbs , terrible community partners
My God.. That was terrible! 😱😱 Well I'm glad the the engines and the crew made it safe!
I'm glad they made it safely too, but I hope they'll get that mess cleaned up and get that old bridge replaced.
@andrewcrumb8027 I hope for that too!
I'm glad that the train crew are okay thank you.🚂🚃🚃🇺🇲
P&W might be a 'regional RR' but it's owned by Genessee and Western, which owns over 100 RRs in North America, Europe and Australia.
i'd say the fire didn't really harm it as the wood inside looks fine but maybe started slowly failing.. the fire was in 22 and the trains go across that a lot. the high water might have been the cause.
Probably the Swiss-cheese model of accidents kicking in. Bridge is good with the fire damage, or high water, or heavy load. Kick in all three at the same time though, and you have hoppers pretending to be boats.
Fire didn’t harm wood? Okay🤦🏼
Wow
Thank god no one was hurt 🙏🏻
Great video...I actually learned something as opposed to superficial tv news coverage.
HOLY SMOKES! Those guys are LUCKY to have made it across before it collapsed.
Yep, sure are and the locos were no doubt the heaviest things to cross first!
@BegudMaximan-zp2tc Maybe they were, and maybe they weren't. The only way to know is a certified scale.
I talked to a GW crew down in Alabama two years ago, the bridge failed there and the crew said the felt a jerk backwards and then it let go as the train cars separated and the last two went into the water
@DEATH7712 Wow.
@BegudMaximan-zp2tc You'd be surprised to know how heavy those covered hoppers can be. They're almost the same as some of the smaller locomotives.
We will definitely be praying for you people for wisdom thank you for sharing thank you for posting God bless you
Excellent Presentation 🌹 Hearty Greetings from Hyderabad, India 🇮🇳
The breaks on those timbers look like they still are okay under the charred exterior. I'd bet it was the river that brought it down, possibly one of the pilings was undercut by the extra flow.
Just under built, a 5 mph speed limit shows you they knew it was sketchy.
Under built? Nothing the railroads build is under built. I'm going with under maintained. Nothing lasts forever.
Looking at the track in other parts of the video would lead me to speculate that the speed restriction was because of overall maintenance issues.
@@ianmckinley5613 From what I understand, the 5 MPH speed restriction was on the bridge, not the track. Also, if you know anything about track speeds, you'll know that 5 MPH is a unusual speed. 10 MPH is the most common speed restriction on track issues or yard track.
10mph is by default the slowest speed you should go if you were to encounter a potential defect/flag. It is condemnable. 5mph is beyond condemnable.
@@coldblue9mmright, you can't just build something and it be in perfect condition forever and not need maintenance.
Crew was very lucky. Locomotives are a lot heavier than the loaded freight cars.
Thanks for documenting this. That's quite the footage!
This reminds me of a wooden trestle collapse in the summer of 1977 involving the Milwaukee Road over the Nisqually River at McKenna, WA. There had been a fire on that structure a few days previous, but the trains continued to cross until it collapsed, creating a mess, including, as I recall, copper ore into the river that was likely on its way to the Asarco smelter in Ruston. I couldn't find any information online in regards to that incident, so I am writing strictly on my memory alone. Maybe someone else has more knowledge of this incident.
I don't recall any copper mines up there. Just lumber.
nice to see you branching out into short story breaking news!!
They should get a discount on that lease agreement with UP!
UP== UTTERLY
PATHETIC.
Glad they guys on "point" made it across, and Id bet on that fire was a factor.
Those times look pretty well cooked which would lead to lose of strength!
Keep up the good work. 👍🏿
I'm glad the train crew was safe, 7idea, but I do hope they'll get that mess cleaned up and that bridge replaced in order to get the Portland & Western Railroad running again.
Keep up us updated, thank you.
@ 1:21 Crazy to see the draft gear just hanging there!
Homeless campers living under the bridge set the fire that damaged the structure. Inspectors concluded back then that the bridge could continue to handle traffic, which it has done for the last several years. The investigation's outcome will be interesting.
my prediction: a combination of fire singe plus high water weakened the supports. the singe allowed water in as the high water got up to where the singe allowed the water into the interior of the wood and allowed it to weaken more than it already was from singe and rain over the years since the fire.
I hope those cars aren't leaking! Tons of urea in the water can't be good.
Those timbers were brittle just waiting to snap . But the construction of that bridge looks like it was metal in the middle and wood on the ends. That middle part was expanding and contracting more than the sides.
I hope you will do more timely content like this in the future!
Glad the engine's didn't go into the drink😺
This is going to be an interesting situation.
I seriously doubt the traffic on this line warrents rebuilding this bridge, but stranded locomotives presents a problem of how get them back to live rail. I guess we'll see.
great footage, very informative and fun to watch. Man that old siding has some bad track lol
I used to live next to the switchyard on Western Ave. when I was going to college down there 15 years ago and would often hike across this bridge to get to Avery Park. It was in pretty rough shape even then, before the fire damage.
oof! That bridge's build date gotta be ancient, especially if the track speed over it was 5 mph. Surprised the mainstream media aint on a rant about all railroads are evil.
I bet the heat from the fire made the normally tight bolts and nuts loosen and the years of engines traversing them further loosened them causing the whole bridge to move underwater and the eddy currents developed eroding all stability underwater until it finally gave out
OMG. I was just watching your videos on this area and now!!!!
Oh my God, the bridge collapse under the train that’s horrible. Luckily no one was hurt.
@ 3:18 That electric eel is having the time of it's life doing some railfanning.
This reminds me of the POTB hope they will rebuild
I miss the POTB so much.
That river is going to be GREEN come summer!
Thank you for the video. I'm surprised that the railway line in general is in such poor condition. The track situation is really very bad and something like that would not be permitted here in Germany. Greetings from Germany.
Big difference between the private corporation railroads here, and your State owned DB over there. Things are done differently over here, and not always well.
Generally most of our infrastructure in the USA is from the 60’s-70’s and just barely held together. We don’t take pride in having good infrastructure in this country, instead we try to get by with the lowest standards possible for as long as deemed safe. Odds are when skirting that close to the margin of safety on a regular basis mistakes will be made. This bridge was pushed past its safe usefulness, the bare minimum wasn’t enough here. I walked this bridge a few times when I was in college and the same thought always came to mind, I can’t believe this bridge can hold up a freight train.
Your government actually takes care of its track, our private railroad companies avoid spending money like the plague because profit is priority one above all.
This is what is called a "light density branch line". The track is kept in good enough condition for the revenue it generates. Lines like this get regular spot maintenance with occasional upgrades about every 10 years. As bad as it looks most seldom used branches like this have few problems. This type of branch line is economically viable as long as the costs are kept under control. Most of this line was removed several years ago because traffic was not sufficient to maintain the many miles for the last single shipper at the end. This portion remains open to supply local farming.
Thank you very much for this very important and informative presentation which is very much appreciated. It is a problem with sparsely used freight lines, is that maintenance is not the number one priority, although the lack thereof always catches up with an organisation eventually. Hopefully it will be replaced with a metal bridge. Although this is a large investment it will mean that the trains will be able to be longer and travel faster so will pay for itself in the long run. Certainly, the underwater vegetation will be flourishing after this lapse!
This bridge is not going to be replaced or rebuilt. The railroad is in bankruptcy. If you think you want it replaced, set up a GoFund My Replacement Railroad Bridge page. Now, it is about taking the insurance money, sell your stock in this old rattle trap railroad, collect your money & move to a foreign country to live the high life! Motor trucks can do what this out dated system does in the future!
Wow lucky engineers
thanks for post would be nice to see the recovery those cars are heavy not going to be easy lift
Shifting pilings might be the culprit.
Thank you for the great video !
thanks for reporting!
Railroad: Let's leave a burnt up bridge.
Railroad Crew: That bridge looks sus
Railroad: Nah it's all good bro 👌
About this, someone will ACTUALLY say, “nobody could have seen that coming.” Probably in response to a question about why you would unnecessarily put lives at risk sending them over burnt bridge supports for two years.
2:02 "Still deemed safe for trains". Apparently not!
That bridge needed to be replaced!
Maybe the fire from 2022 may have been a contributing factor to its collapse. They’re going to need a big hook to fish out the freight cars.
Guess they’re gonna need a bigger bridge after the derailment’s cleaned up.
Sad thing is a bit of long-term investment like replacing the bridge after the fire would have prevented this. Voluntarily closing the line temporarily to replace a bridge is better than being forced to close the branch to replace a bridge after a collapse and spilling at least 2 cars of urea into the river. Now they have to clean the river, rebuild the track, replace the bridge, deal with the broken cars, and the bad PR of literal crumbling infrastructure under a unit train will do the railroad no favors. The fact it had a 5mph speed limit shows that the bridge was already compromised after the fire. You cannot tell me that just replacing the bridge would have been more expensive than what the bill is going to be for cleaning up this mess.
Since UP owns the track but is leasing it out to the Portland & Western, who is in charge of maintaining the track?
Probably UP
I want to see the recovery and rebuild
if that even happens. said above, that they are in bankruptcy.
Thank you for the content.
Now everything south of that track is screwed
There’s only one farm that they deliver to on that spur. The rest of the line was decommissioned several years ago.
I almost went to work for P&W as operating crew on that line in 2008.
The Japanese burn (Shou Sugi Ban) their wood, sand it and seal it to preserve it. The PNWR crosses some beautiful ‘old’ wooden bridges that need to be seen to be believed.
So they have a bridge made of damaged wood from the freaking 60's and never thought hey, maybe we should update it? lol.
Spending money on infrastructure improvement to ensure safety and reliablity? Nah, that would cut into the railroad company's profits! And nothing comes before profit to these companies!
Profit profit
It wasn't built with damaged wood. The wood was damaged by fire 2+ years ago. I would bet the steel was also compromised by the heat.
One would expect this from ns not up
(WHO) deemed it "safe" after the fire ???
Corvallis is the home of Winterail so in March there will probably a few of us who check this out in March 2025 😀
Very interesting. Thanks!
What is the anticipated environmental impact of that fertilizer?
Don't they have regular bridge inspection in U.S.? Here in Finland, this kind of bridge will have twice-a-year inspection by the State, no matter of property owner.
Deemed safe is corporate talk for "we don't want to spend the money it would cost to replace it"
Their going to have to replace the bridge now
I reported one that fell in the Wabash in high water in Indiana years ago, no train was on it that day.
Corvallis is in Benton County. Downstream, Albany is in Linn County. So far, the 4 governments have not posted any signs along the rivers warning people of the possible toxic water. Mary's River flows to the Willamette River, and the Willamette River flows about 10 miles to Albany.
Urea isn't toxic in the small concentrations that will be present.
No one in that area gets their drinking water from the Willamette, and the water levels are flowing so high end fast any leakage is already being diluted and flushed down. The river was between action stage and minor flood stage just a few days ago.
It is obvious that the bridge has been damaged by fire !
Glad everyone is safe and i hope the bridges demise doesnt mean an end to railroad service. Though i have a feeling all the dead wildlife from the fertilizer will not be a great sight downstream. Goes to show was poor right of way maintenance can do to these shortlines.
Profitability is what is needed before maintenance of way is considered. This line has been failing for many (28) years now. This railroad is now in bankruptcy & being turned over to the counties for a rail to trail conversion. All of it is being sold for scrap to pay its creditors in bankruptcy court. It served its purpose & fulfilled its service life. Now, it will have a new life as a bicycle/hiking trail!
qué bueno que la tripulación no sufrió daños, todavía está muy latente las pérdidas de Pecos Texas, saludos desde cuba
Excellent coverage of the incident! No doubt the fire compromised the structure. And someone in the engineering department will now be in trouble for delaying repairs following the fire because they determined it was safe for now, in the same manner that using gauge rods to supplement rotted wooden ties are also allowed.
That engineer sold his stock in this rattle trap years ago & retired in Laos. Smart move on his part!
That body of water really didn't need a shat ton of urea in it.....
Since this trestle is part of the Bailey branch line I don’t know if PnWR sees this area as important enough to justify building anew bridges. Might as well destroy and abandon everything south of there are no important customers to serve
They only serve one farm that’s just south of the airport, the rest of that line was abandoned several years ago when they stopped servicing Hull-Oakes Lumber.
PNWR has been considering closing the line south of Corvallis for a very long time due to how terrible the track is south of Corvallis however many people opposed it.
Rail line looks as if it hasn’t had maintenance in forever.
This is the end of that unprofitable line. The decision has been made to scrap the entire line & make it into a bicycle/hiking trail with a break at the river. This like is finished! Trucks will do what is necessary into the future! Long overdue ending!
@@rogerlaurel2363 where are you getting this information from lol 🤣🤣
Excellent coverage !! Local news was a few blurbs, no details, and poor video.
I'm guessing the bridge didn't "collapse", but instead got damaged from a derailed car (who DIDN'T notice the uneven tracks nearby...).
The rail road deamed it safe. The government allows the RR to self inspect their infrastructure. The city where I life hired engineers to inspect the 100 + year old RR bridges throughout the city. They all failed. They forced the RR to repair two badly decaying bridges that passed over streets. They were forced to replace a steel truss bridge that the bases were nearly completely rusted away.
How many cars made it over?
I'm thinking the fire was a MAJOR contributing factor. I've seen the bridge in person after the fire and couldn't believe they didn't rebuild it. I would've been nervous just driving a truck over it.
You say that Union Pacific owns the track to a point just south of this bridge. That's completely unhelpful -- does that include the bridge? Or, to put it another way, does UP own the track south of the point you mention, or the track north?
It says it was a southbound train, so presumably that part of the line would be UP's responsibility. I bet no one at UP had the faintest idea that they were supposed to be
The tracks end not to far south of the bridge (then it turns into a "rail to trail" project, so presumably Union Pacific owns all of the track until it ends to the south.
OMG!!😮
A lot of attention is given to roadway and interstate highway bridges in the US, and understandably so given the large number of cars and trucks that cross them daily. Several high profile roadway bridge collapses have occurred in recent years, some from accidents of some sort, others from structural failure due to age/neglect. Several others have had one or more critical load bearing component identified as failed that miraculously hadn’t caused a complete global collapse to occur and was able to be repaired. That’s just with roadway/highway bridges. Drive around and look at railroad bridge crossings sometime. Many of those bridges look to be in serious stages of decay. And the bridges that I am referring to are for major class 1 main line railroads. I fear that there may be more of these incidents to come, some of which could be much more devastating to the lives of railroad employees, neighboring homeowners/people in vehicles, and enormous environmental impacts from spilled chemical cars, oil tanker cars, etc. Let’s hope that the railroads invest more on the upkeep of their vital bridge infrastructure soon. Given that the mainline railroads in the USA are essentially a state unto themselves it’s hard to say if they will or not before something major somewhere breaks.
How far up was the head end power?
Pictures online show the locomotives are only 4 cars away from the first car dangling off the cliff. Head end power was VERY close.
Oh yeah!
It's totally safe for trains.
I guess those cars wanted to take a swim in the water
Even video of the track looks like an accident waiting to happen.
I live there and am .. near this bridge every day. The fire left it so damaged that the whole thing would move with a strong wind. Ties creaking/shifting underfoot, sever damage to supports (that were never even close to repaired). This was so obviously a criminal level of stupid negligence, and now the railroad is saying that that damage was "superficial" and had nothing to do with the crash. Like there weren't huge chunks missing from the edging of the rails 😂😂
I wonder if it wasn't a derailment, causing a car(s) to impact the steel girder(s), leading to the collapse.
Classic Portland and western behavior