Just HOW HARD is it to DERAIL a TRAIN?!? - Hyce Reacts - US Army Tests
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- Watch the original clip: ttps:// • Army Experiments In Tr...
Visit the channel shop: hycetrains.com...
Join my discord: / discord
Become an ES&D Train Crew Member and get extra perks!
/ @hyce777
![[SFS] The time I told someone to BREAK a train, instead of FIX it... | Stories from the Shop](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XUa0GHqHgyU/mqdefault.jpg)
![HOW DRUNK was the engineer? Citation Needed! [3/4 Idiot Show 2x01]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YVoLtHMJVy0/mqdefault.jpg)
There are a few more videos from the same US Army Transportation Corps base about the training done by US Army railroaders to repair and run railroads in Africa and Europe. ruclips.net/video/TBNYu35BCHY/видео.html
Some of the other experiments involved sabotage charges to destroy trains. ruclips.net/video/3PaVc5VDA7s/видео.html
Oh rad! I will need to check these out. Thank you!
i remember having a movie that was about ww2 train and it had this same video in it
@@Hyce777 The US Army really should have consulted Lawrence, Thomas Edward Lawrence, otherwise known as Lawrence of Arabia. I'm sure if he wasn't already dead from crashing his Brough Superior SS100 Motorcycle back in 35 he would have shown them how to flip a train on it's side. As he did a "real bang up good job" on the Ottoman Empire's Railway back during "The Great War", "The War To End All Wars"...
The Consolidation could be the standard US Army design of WWII. There were at least 42 railway-associated battalions in the Transportation Corps in WWII (I have a book that tells me this), 39 of which were railway operating battalions. Each battalion was associated with a particular railroad, presumably built around a cadre of experienced personnel from that line.
If there's one thing I learned from this, it's that trains don't actually need rails to run. Track was just invented by rail manufacturers to sell more rails.
It’s a conspiracy by Big Rail.
"We don't need rails where we're going!!"
There's actually a case where the Canadian National railway offered one of their diesels to be used as a generator for a Quebec town during an ice storm. They picked the locomotive up, rotated 90 degrees and ran it on the asphalt down main Street where they plugged it into the hospital.
@@andrewwillms8043 See? It's like I said. We don't need rails where we're going... Because we're going to the hospital!
@@PowerTrain611exactly, look at the Aussies
‘The OSS intends to continue experimental operations.’ Translation: ‘We all had fun using explosives and playing with trains and will continue until there is no possible excuse for further work. We’ll film it for science.’
Alternatively, "We came here to wreck a locomotive and come hell or high water we aren't leaving till we do!"
The difference between fucking around and science is that you write down that you see happens 🤷
@@TheLtVoss dammit I was gonna say that!
@@TheLtVoss Not just that, in science you also speculate what might happen first, so basically like a betting pool before you fuck around.
The difference between having fun and scientific experimentation is whether or not you record the results.
Meanwhile, if there's the smallest little bump in my HO track, the whole consist falls off like the economy in 1929
If the coupler doesn't fail first
I have a nice consist of southern pacific heavyweights & they instantly derail if they go over any kind of zig-zag in the track really limits what I can do layout wise.
@@CelestialCaboose2472 Are they just too light?
Same on my n gauge track
Don't forget the slightest gap in between the track that likes to short your train out
Us army: it's essentially impossible to derail a train
Norfolk southern: hold my beer
A cool thing about the engine used is that is we have two of her sisters, as she’s former N&W No.4 and we still have 6 & 7. Which is a pretty cool bit of trivia imp.
Three actually, we have #11 too, She is in Saltville Virginia.
Amazing what momentum can do and how much effort it takes to actually stop that momentum (or change trajectory)
Yes it is... Recall folks that momentum is just mass times velocity. So, trains do quite well in the mass department compared to a lot of things...
@@Hyce777there's ships, but Archimedes takes care of them.
something something objects in motion, something something one direction something something equal and opposite force...
@@PowerTrain611 smells like Newton...
@@kornaros96 🍎🍏
WW2 train: I can cross entire gaps of missing track and still be fine 👈😎👈
Modern train: axle bearing too hot 😢
Thing that hold frame to wheel being liquid does seem to not want to hold wheel to frame anymore, to be fair.
@@Hyce777 Should I call an ambulance? You seem to be having a stroke.
@@wta1518steel too hot, glows red. Jet fuel can't shrink fit steel wheels.
To be fair, there were a lot more hot axles in those days
@@andrewreynolds4949 it's much worse when you add a puddle of oil and a piece of absorbent cloth to the mix
"WHY WON'T YOU DERAIL!?"
"Several Dozen Tons of Steel Son, it enables me to maintain traction with the Ground and Carry my weight through your pitiful gaps...you Can't Derail me Jack!"
You just get Norfolk Southern to buy out the railroad concerned and bingo, derailment should happen pretty soon.
War is a terrible thing.
Ugh. Too real.
pfft. what's a little anhydrous ammonia amongst friends?
@@rodchallis8031 it's the trace amounts of phosgene that really say "I care about you" in a friendship 🥺
@@rodchallis8031mmm anhydrous ammonia my favorite snack
@@Hyce777 You can bet in any business, when a fund buys a business to strip all the equity out of it and refuses to reinvest in it, shit will go south in a hurry. It is all the worse in a business as capital intensive as railroading that has so much infrastructure that has to be maintained. Vulture capitalism has been the death of many a business.
Ive watches too many Mythbusters episodes in my life so i fully expected the narrator to go “well, the old iron horse just wouldnt wreck” (massive explosion from an artillery shell fired at the locomotive) “ahhhh much better”
Yeah. He definitely had Mythbusters narrator vibes!
IMHO it's the narration (tone particularly) that's a Chef's kiss in terms of communicating the message.
Well ill be damned, the Locomotive in that video is a N&W G class.
They are easily identifiable by their Specific Stacks, and the Bellpaire fireboxes, and VERY tall steam domes.
3 of the class even survives.
This was likely filmed at the Aberdeen Proving grounds in Maryland, Which was the main testing site for ALOT of things like this during WW2.
The full film states at the beginning that it was tested on the Claiborne-Polk Miliary Railroad. Look that up, and you get Camp Claiborne in Louisiana.
Damn, I thought it was something British. They definitely have that sort of look to them between the domes and fireboxes
@@mpf1947 This is Fort Polk close to Leesville, LA. The Army wanted to buy a lumber company railroad at the beginning of WWII to blow up the tracks and trains and the company said NOPE. So the Army built its own railroad for the purpose. The base is still in operation and has rail service.
@@royreynolds108Ft. Polk was where I spent my summer vacation in 1968. Basic training. Now it has been renamed by the woke world to Ft. Johnson or something. Great place for heat, humidity and mosquitos. Tiger Land!.
@@sambrown6426 No, it doesn't look British at all. I guess there are some similarities with a small tank locomotive like the LB&SCR E2 class (on which Thomas the Tank Engine was based) but British mainline steam locomotives never looked like this. In particular, we didn't have any 2-8-0s until 1903.
Remember, the British loading gauge is much smaller than the US. We don't have room for those tall chimneys and steam domes, except on early or branch line designs, as it was a challenge to fit stuff within the loading gauge. If you think about something like the Big Boys, which were also trying to fit as much steam locomotive within the loading gauge as possible, you get the top of the boiler at about the same level as the top of the cab, and a very squat chimney and steam dome. Same in the UK, just on a smaller scale -- something like an LMS Stanier Class 5 ("Black Five") is very typical of 20th century British design and is a very compact locomotive that uses most of the available volume.
I remember watching this for the first time at around seven years old and I just remember being so dumbfounded at how a gap that big couldn’t throw the engine off, I was also thoroughly disappointed because tiny me wanted to see an earth shattering kaboom lol
8 year old me building jumps for my lego trains be like.
It depends. Give the Seabees some booze and it would be done within three feet.
They'd find a way. Lmao!
They'll just drag one end of the split rain a few inches one way, and the other end a few inches the other. That's what you really want, the rails to not line up anymore.
@@Hyce777 i love being related to a Seabee. If you want i can get you some stories about what the navy's testing for trains.
@@bow-tiedengineer4453This. Ideally bend them inwards so the wheel flanges end up on the wrong side of the rail
No doubt!
Just send the crew of the submarine that sunk a train during WW2
@@cwyvern4861 ah yes the time a steam engine took flight then learned the gravity exists.
The USS Barb can sink any train.
Oh right that happened.
I forgor
USS Barb
The locomotive: Hey look I made it through!
The cars: 9:13
I was hoping you'd get around to this video! One of my favorite "Messing around, for science we swear!" things the US military has done.
This was actually filmed at a location called Camp Claiborne, it was a military camp in Central Louisiana, near the village of Forest Hill. The camp had its own railroad, the Claiborne and Polk. Which was also assisted by the local railroad, the Red River and Gulf, which is still slightly preserved in the near by Southern Forest Heritage Museum in Long Leaf Louisiana. Most of the artifacts found in Camp Claiborne is found here at the SFHM. There is essentially nothing left from Camp Claiborne, aside from a few concrete roads, and foundation. And the vast emptiness in the video is all but tall trees now. The Army stripped everything out upon the end of the war.
Army: we need to derail a train? Remove some track well that didn't work
YT community: Tell Hyce it's a video game he will get it done.
This is one of my favorite videos. I have watched it multiple times.
Thermite and a wood mold to cast a derail into the track out of the produced iron seems a much better bet than explosives.
Or some easily transported method to BEND the rails into a derail profile, and then spiking it so that the train doesn't simply unbend it.
The thing is, that all takes specialized knowledge and tools and resources.
Some random GIs or local insurgent group are already going to have access to explosives and the training to use it for all kinds of purposes
@@88porpoise Exactly. They were looking for techniques where one guy could jump out of a bush, blow up the track and run away within a couple of minutes, using stuff that could be carried in a backpack. Carrying a bunch of explosives lets them sabotage whatever target of opportunity they come across. Using thermite and moulds and stuff means they can only sabotage railways. Plus thermite requires a large, heavy container to hold the reaction as it progresses.
Shreveport, LA. summer of 87' bored with pennies and RR gravel we decided to try a dozen or so orphaned RR spikes lined up in a row. The traction wheels squeezed. fragmented and exploded into and off the gravel. I can still remember the ringing sound as one of those spikes went flying flying over our heads as we foolishly watched from the woods nearby.
It didn't phase that train one bit but I learned a valuable lesson.
Get away...
This is how the ES&D will save on track construction cost.
Reminds me of Englewood Railway accident, where a string of log cars broke loose on an incline, got knocked off a track by a derail, then managed to rerail itself at the switch after the derail and rolled downhill unrestrained, eventually slamming into a parked speeder.
Well that's fascinating, I'll have to look into that.
T.S. Lawrence: "You could have just asked me, you know." U.S. Military: "You were a little bit dead by 1945".
You mentioned TE Lawrence, I shall mention the lyrics:
_As the darkness falls and Arabia calls one man spreads his wings and the battle begins_
_May the land lay claim on to Lawrence's name seven pillars of wisdom light the flame_
2:06 one of the big lessons we learned from WW2 was the need to practice in minute detail any and every little bit of tactics and warfare. in the last big war games before the conflict began one of the changes was going from simulating things on paper (company 5 stopped and check their transmission oil) to doing it IRL where they found it took much longer and then could be done differently to improve many processes.
I remember you talking about this a while ago with kan. It's very interesting how much a train can take and stay on the rails.
Back at BNSF when you worked there (Before ES&D bought them out) you did complain about the bad trackage outside the shop...
The reason it wasn't prioritized were probably this video...
Bad ties? "No problem" "Slightly missing track? "They just get to test the suspension! Bonus feature!"
Pretty much. Lol
Another film you might consider a reaction video for was called ‘The Mole,’ also OSS from the same period (and is on the Charlie Dean Archives YT channel). It’s about a nifty photoelectric sensor attached to an explosive with the intent of causing derailments in tunnels. I’d love to know if they ever made it into service before the war ended.
I remember seeing War Trains at my local navy museum, with the director and narrator there. I have a signed VHS set somewhere at home. This was always one of my favourite segments of Subvert and Destroy.
As an edit: War Trains was a 3 part series, and you can still get it on DVD, I can't recommend it more, so many interesting videos like this one are in it.
It's a surprisingly big gap between "guaranteed safe" and "guaranteed wreck". All your work is to insure safety, but their work is to insure failure.
This was a really interesting video to watch honestly. Really interesting to see the forces those bogies can take, especially just bouncing directly on the ties, and even the engine not coming off, like goddamn
I love how I watched that video on its own the night before because you mentioned it and now I see this pop up. It was fate.
From my understanding of basic physics, the best time to blow up a section of rail to guarantee a derailment is when the heaviest part of the train is bearing down on the section of rail that has the explosives on it. That way you damage the most highly stressed part of the train AND the rail at the same time.
The idea is that any damaged train prevents passage of any undamaged train, even if that undamaged train could have maybe made it over the damaged rail.
Target the locomotive, AND the rail, at the same time. Or you know, just wait for a train to go by and poke a hole in the boiler with a Bazooka. Instantly disabled, even if it DOES stay on the tracks it ain't movin.
Wrecking the track means it’s a lot harder to just push the wrecked train aside to get the line open. For best results, do it in a tunnel!
@@andrewreynolds4949 Absolutely, but my whole point was "get the best bang for your buck by timing the rail demolition to the time when a train is passing over those rails", that way the enemy has to deal with a train that is more damaged than what would happen with just derailing it, due to the explosion that separated the rails.
I do realize that at the end of my comment I kinda wandered off target, I tend to do that frequently because I have ADHD.
The problem is that you need to wait for the train and you may not know when it is coming. Oh, and you are behind enemy lines, so you may get discovered before you did any damage.
So, blow the track up and get out. You may be able to cause a derailment or at least the enemy will have to repair the track.
This also applies to resistance members in occupied territory - you probably do not want to spend too much time near the track.
@@Pentium100MHz
Right, I get that, I suppose that means you rig the charge so that it has a pressure sensor attached to the rails. These days it's pretty easy, just put an AT mine under the sleeper, but back in WWII you'd rig up the track so that the train passing sets off the charge. Automation solves the need to be present!
@@44R0Ndin Of course! Battlefield or other conditions might not always permit that though, much like 'do it on a curve'. But blowing up a passing train as it enters a tunnel on a curve would be the dream
Surprisingly, not a lot of Kenosha in this one!
If they played the right music maybe the train would have crashed sooner.
This video simulates the best maintained RGS trackage
I guess you need to blow a hole in the track, and then hammer one of the rails towards the centre of the track, so it catches the flange on the wrong side.
My thought exactly, that should work, might be hard to do. but it should make sure it derails.
Right but that requires carrying heavy tools. If you could do it just by blowing out some track, you just need a few handfulls of plastic explosive. Also, you can't just hammer a rail to one side: they're effectively a big spring and will just straighten up again. You'd need to lever it to one side and fix it in position, which is going to require a gang of at least half a dozen men with long crowbars and hammers.
I remember Hyce talking about this years ago, exited to finally see it!
That was amazing to see that ol' iron stay on.
Hi Mark this was an absolutely hilarious eye opener! If I saw that in a Hollywood movie I’d have not believed it! I’d think typical movie making fiction! But like you said Mark momentum and weight all make for just a bumpy glide over the rail abyss for choo choo! OMG! Professor so enjoy your commentary; thanks for this latest learning video and, as always, cheers to you!
If you saw it in a Hollywood movie, any gap in the rail would cause the train to leap 50ft in the air and produce an explosion big enough to take out a small town.
I’d LOVE a test like that. I can even think of some ‘in service’ engines I could bring for it….
These tests have had me excited since you first mentioned them. Thanks for covering this!
Engineer see's 60" Gap... "Aaaah shit! We're in the dirt... oope, never mind."
This was an interesting thing to watch; I thought much the same. Of course, the 4005 accident in 1953 shows that curves (even in a smaller setting of a switch in this particular reference) do tend to be 'good' spots for such things to occur.
Remember this OSS type stuff is limited in long term impact unless it is on a bridge and the crash destroys the bridge. An on tanker told me what the third army did. They had a big hook on the back of a tank. They would drive down the track with the hook ripping out the ties. A few miles of this and the railroad would be out of commission until some major work was done.
Right, but this is aimed at one guy being able to cause significant disruption very cheaply with stuff he can carry in a backpack. Railroad ploughs can only be used on a railroad that you already control -- they're for scorched-earth-ing your retreat.
It won't take out a railroad, but it will require resources to be devoted to recovering the locomotive and fixing the tracks. And if it keeps happening, it will require even more resources to be devoted to patrolling the tracks.
Saboteurs were never expected to cripple a war effort on their own, just to make things that much harder on the enemy.
Hoh, good memes
It's always a good day when Hyce uploads.
I was talking with a BNSF employee about 10 years ago along the transcon line near Needles CA. He mentioned that years ago one of the 1% biker clubs had either unbolted or cut out a section of the track causing a derailment out in the desert. I should probably look it up to see exactly what happened.
The narrator gives me Mythbusters narrator vibes. Dry, but clearly speaking with a smile & a wink. haha
I've told many people that it is equally impressive how well this stuff stays on the rail, and how easy it is to make something hit the ground.
Hell im pretty sure during the "Crazy Eights" runaway, a portable derail was used and whole consist just jumped right over it.
Meanwhile, a quarter inch gap on a switch point is great at putting things in the dirt.
wasn't crazy 8 going like very fast over the derail?
probably ended up breaking it.
@@davidty2006 Bingo. Idk how fast it was going when it hit the derail, but it likely either broke the derail or just jumped right over it.
Derails are only really effective at low speeds for the same reason the trains in the video stayed on the track. Momentum is a heck of a thing.
How the explosives are applied can also make a large difference on the damage they do. I saw an old video from the Swiss army where they used hand grenades against rails. In the first test they just placed the grenade next to it, and barely anything happened. In the next test they tied it to the rail (it was a stick-shaped HG 43 for those wondering) with a bit of wire. This time they managed to blow the rail apart (although after seeing this video I doubt a train would've noticed)
Interesting (for me) trivia: That was done on the Army railroad between Camp Claiborne and Camp Polk in Louisiana. (Not far from the Southern Forest Heritage Museum, which is currently restoring a Heisler.)
And trains in the U.S. every week derailing on straight track for no reason...
Yeah, broken rail my foot. Couple years ago, a broken rail on tangent track got containers in the streetcar station.
Two words: poor maintenance.
(repost because RUclips was showing double posts on my end, but deleting one deleted both.)
Often it’s actually in-train slack forces. Those are a lot more troublesome with mile-long trains
I saw this video a few years ago, and my main reaction was "I wish my model trains were that resilient"
I can imagine a French resistance fighter blowing a big chunk of rail out and watching as it continues on just fine
:Gallic shrug: Bof.
This should be interestimg for any type of train enjoyer !!!
Thats such a cool video / tests
There was simply not enough whisky involved
Probably done on the "Crime and Punishment" - the Claiborne and Polk Military Railroad early in in World War Twice
I'm sure I mentioned one of my derailments at Lakeside with the #18, about 3 decades ago on the 4th of July, the busiest day of the year.
On the curve to come along Harlan, the rails spread. Since it was busy, we were running a little faster than we usually did (12 minutes per trip compared to the 15 normally.) The locomotive cleared but the front truck of the tender derailed. Luckily the coaches remained on the tracks. Water and coal bounced everywhere. All I could do is keep the train stretched as I rolled to a stop to prevent the A/V forces popping a coach truck off.
When we brought the #17 up to hook on to my train to pull it back, she slowly walked across the bad track and as the rails spread, she slowly sunk down between the rails. The Master Mechanic was panicked and thought we would have to rerail her too. But I just had John horse her over and he backed her back up on the tracks. I mean it was the perfect rerailer there...
So it's the momentum more than anything which overcomes the forces of bad track.
The diesel arrived shortly after backing all the way around to where I was. And after walking the passengers back to the other train (#17's) they backed to the depot and we used lining bars and blocks and popped the #18's lead tender truck back on. The mechanics then drove additional spikes into the non-existent ties and they shut down steam for the rest of the day. I pointed out the diesel's trucks were gauged differently (1/4" wide) and would spread the rail more than the steam train's. So I spent the rest of the day sitting on my #18 keeping her warm and eventually, I watched fireworks off in the distance while sitting on the cab roof.
The next day after working my paying job I stopped by to see that they dug out 30 feet of track and replaced the ties (poorly of course.) They also decided to swap out the rails. Not going with NEW rails but they swapped them around - by turning the individual rails around. These are rails which have been in that curve for half a century at least. They are curved. What happens when you turn a curved rail around? All the curve is at the joints (at the fish plates.) So they had an extremely superelevated outer rail (1" with 22" gauge) with all the curve bend at the joints. I would have to brace myself on the fireman's side with my feet on the engineer side to keep from sliding off. BAM. BAM. BAM. 3 hard lurches to the right at each fish plate.
After this, I got away from doing much with the railroad (my friend John and I were actually working on the big tower there getting it repaired where 2 men with no budget, old ropes, and sheer bravery could.) The following year I was done, never returned to work there on the railroad again. They broke both steam locomotive frames and I think the diesel took damage too.
A few years later I visited with my wife, my friend John and his wife and we rode the railroad and yep, that track was STILL trash. And to this day, steam is dead there. All because they had a moron master mechanic who didn't move the outer rail to the inside and the insider rail to the outside so they would remain curved the right direction and the other, unworn, side of the ball of the rail could be used. This is the same moron master mechanic who made a special track measuring device (took a day to make it) welded up nicely and all. It was a l-shaped device with rollers on the left side and a measuring "rod" across to the other rail. A long handle allows you to push it. He did this to spite me telling him the track is wide. You can see the tender truck hunt side to side so you KNOW it's wide. He said only a couple places were wide. I asked him where he measured to make his mark on his measuring stick that went across. He showed me where he put it on the tracks at the water tower and made a chalk mark. I pulled out my tape measure and measured. 23" OOPS. He just looked at it. Picked up his rod and left. Didn't say a word. Didn't fix the track either.
Oh yowza. Yeah steam is still dead there. Too bad, really, it'd be so neat. They have more track than we do. Sounds like a real special basket case of a "master mechanic". Jeez.
Love these sorts of old films.
I love how weirdly normal the narrator sounds
Maybe this is why the saboteurs of the kwai river line in WW II blew up the bridge?
turns out turning bridge into canyon for the train is alot easier than trying to throw it into the dirt...
Note that the film _Bridge on the River Kwai_ is fictional. But, yes, if there's a lightly built that you can take down, that's going to be much more effective, because it takes much longer to rebuild a bridge than to re-lay some track. On the down side, it will take a lot more explosive to bring down a bridge than to blow out a section of rail and most European rail bridges would be built of stone or heavy steel, so would be a difficult target for a sabotage crew.
I work on the UK railway and I would just need a Hammer to knock out the Pandrol Clips or if the Fast clips I would use a heel bar. take enough clips out and nothing is holding the Rail to the Sleeper train comes along the Rail gauge is forced to widen and the wheel drops into the 4 foot. You could mess around with the points and the signals.
This footage was going around in war game communities for a little while. Impressively difficult to derail simply by moving the tracking was something.
I suspect if you removed a shorter piece and removed ballast you could just topple it to its side. More than anything else, destroying the locomotives would really harm an enemy, even if the cargo remains intact.
The WWII OSS also had exploding coal. A partisan resistance operative would get exploding lump coal and a paint kit so they could make the exploding coal match the coal in the bunker(s) at the railroad. They would grab some sample coal, paint up the exploding to match and chuck it all back in a bunker to be loaded into a tender, or a furnace or a ??.
The Navy had no problems derailing a train. The USS Barb sent a team ashore in Japan to plant one of the submarine’s scuttling charges under the track, and wired it up with a pressure switch. When the next train came by a few minutes later, it went sky high. The landing party were still rowing back to the submarine, they started to double time it.
I think the secret is to not use your explosives until the locomotive is over it.
That's fine if you're in a situation where you have direct military support and are essentially on the front line. If you're trying to do sabotage ops behind enemy lines, you want to be able to sabotage as much as possible, without needing different equipment for different targets.
Gritted my teeth watching what those poor trucks went through every time they hit the edge. That's a rough ride!
I'm wondering how much of that equipment went back into service after being put into storage.
(and if any of it is still in use today on some excepted class) )
Considering the diameter of the wheels, I wasn't surprised that a 12in gap had minimal effect at these speeds. As for the third test, the 36in gap, it goes to show just how little suspension a steam locomotive has built in to it and just how much the trackbed does to give a smooth ride.
Just knowing how much weight is there and watching steel on steel hit like that, it almost makes my soul leave my body knowing just how hard of a force that would have felt being on that locomotive
Caught that old video at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum a few days ago. Weird coincidence. LOL
Thats incredibly cool! Helluva thing, momentum!
Oh, my crew trainer showed us this in our new hire orientation!
That poor old 2-8-0 was like "Can I go home now! How many times do I gotta run this crap?"
Ah! I love this film!
Me and the boys borrowing a SD70MAC from Union Pacific blasting free bird
In the rest of that video they showcase the European style trains of that time where most cars only had two rigid axles and were easily prone to derail. That explains why the rest of world eventually designed their train trucks similar to North American standard.
There's also another video from the time that demonstrates an explosive that has a photovoltaic fuse (essentially a light sensor) that was attached to a coupler. It would arm after entering a tunnel, due to lack of light, and would detonate when the train exited the tunnel as the light entering the sensor would trigger the fuse.
The need to fit the loco with a Kadee coupler on the front. That trip pin will catch and derail on ANYTHING.
I have to think that gyroscopic action helps keep the wheels going the same direction (conservation of angular momentum and all that). It would make the wheels resistant to turning suddenly. It's possible that the weight of the loco/cars overwhelms this but I would think it would help keep the train on the track in the event of missing rail.
You're over-thinking it. There's nothing pushing the train sideways, so it doesn't go sideways.
Tbh, I think the main takeaway a commando or someone else who’d sabotage a train would be to either do the rails on a curve, or if that’s not possible, rig the explosives to a pressure switch or the like.
I’ve seen this video myself, and I was blown away by how hard it was to derail it. IIRC, I decided you’d be best off rigging the explosives to deform the track, instead of just removing it.
Fun fact, the first ever train to fly flew in WWII, and was promptly sunk. USS Barb submarine is still the only submarine to ever be credited for sinking a train
As a former Army Combat Engineer of the 21st Century, I gotta go dig out my Demolitions Handbook and see just what the modern schema is for rail demolition.
Knowing the kind of shoddy track that trains even today can run on, I'm not the least bit surprised that a gap in straight track means nothing to them.
And nowadays locomotives have maximum 12 wheels. back then they could have 14 coupled
Sometimes back you had a video and discussion at the museum of how far a curve had drifted out of it original place. Even with that kink the locomotive stayed on the track.
Makes you wonder what's going on with the mainline that they have disastrous derailment. I guess for safety sake we need to bring back steam 😂
Speed and repetition generally, will it always derail no but 50 trains later it's less surprising when one does
I survived a cornfield meet- derailed right quick. But that army video is cool!
Hey hyce i was part of the US Army 757th railway expeditionary center, what was once the Army's great railway operational battalions. Sadly a shadow of its former self. I highly recommend reading into the US Army's railroad history especially during WW2. If you ever get a chance to go to Fort Eustice, the training grounds for Army rail, they also have a great little museum full of the history of army railroading.
Cheers!
I'd be interested in knowing how different materials under the track would change the outcome. Would Something like concrete have a different outcome? Would tracks buried in concrete change the outcome?
This is a perfect example of how suspension truely acts.
Most people tend to think its about ride comfort. When it reality the job of suspension is to mantain a contact with whats below it as an equal and opposite reaction. When the wheels fall off the rails the suspension is forcing that wheel to contact the ground so the wheel doest wobble as much.
Im probably not explaining it very well
also shows the advantages of a rigid frame.
The wheels just hover over the gap in the rails.
All it takes is to cut a piece of rail and bend it in so the flanges on one side gets outside of the gauge. Same as a "runaway derail point". Once the engine gets outside the gauge the wheels will pull off the other rail and ride the ties until something really bad happens.
Another way is to defer maintenance for fifteen or twenty years. That will also derail a train.
Reminds me of some of the behind the scenes footage of the 2nd Zorro movie with Antonio Banderas.
For the big climax of the movie with a runaway train full of nitroglycerin, the final scene was done with models as using the real deal they'd dressed up for the movie was a no-go for obvious reasons.
Anywho, the special effects team lead for the scene said it was actually very difficult to get the train to derail like they wanted it to, hitting the earthen mound at the end of the track and rolling over into a big pile-up and explosion, touched off by the nitro blowing up from the jolt followed shortly thereafter by the boiler letting go.
They specifically mentioned that steam locos are really good at keeping their center of gravity on the wheels, and they had to resort to using weights high up in the models to throw off their balance as well as a few other tricks, as for the first try or two the train just wanted to keep rolling straight in a line through the dirt upright after coming off the tracks instead of rolling over and accordioning together.
8:45 "You'd be a lot better off spiking the rail back in as a derail"
Not sure that's an option. At the time, the UK was using mostly bullhead rail, rather than flat-bottomed rail, as is used in the US. Bullhead rail isn't mounted directly onto the ties but it sits on a cast iron "chair". Moving the rail laterally would require moving the chairs, too. I'm not sure what was being used in continental Europe during the 1940s -- the WIkipedia article on rail profiles is annoyingly UK-centric and I didn't take the time to look further.
Also, I think the point here is a quick in-and-out operation. One guy can run out of the bushes, plant some explosives on the rail, detonate them and scarper in probably less than a minute, while carrying everything he needs in a small backpack. Moving rails around requires multiple people, multiple minutes and heavy tools.
I like the cheeky tone they take in the original film, but the way they delivered voiceover back then was so dry it's hard to tell he's yanking your chain, because he knows that train isn't going to derail.
This video is like The Fat Electrician and a train had a baby. It's brilliant!
Should have asked us French. 60cm gauge trench railways were massively used in WWI, carrying ammo and troops on temporary badly laid tracks, and these things are close to impossible to derail.
Some of the same kind of railways are still use in harsh condition in sugar cane plantations in indo pacific islands. The amount of abuse these systems can take is tremendous .They actually runs trains on straights with no rails at all.
Crew of the USS Barb: "Got it, use the scuttling charge."
I always learn more things about trains from you
I've watched the film lots of times .It takes a big section of rail . great film
This is unashamed geekery which I’m completely here for! 🍺🍻
We need a bigger video of these... but considering the state of affairs worldwide, that would be like doing videos on the US army improv munitions guide.
The Germans durning WW2 had a device called the “ Schwellenpflug” it would unzip the rails.
they say no steam but as that loco passes by at 3:50 look at the tree as the funnel passes it does look like its steaming slightly, unless its just artifacts in the video
Where I work we play this video in our exhibit building so watching this is giving me PTSD