MONON BOARD

Non - Monon But Of Interest => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: Joe Land on March 09, 2012, 01:41:06 pm

Title: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Joe Land on March 09, 2012, 01:41:06 pm

Mitchell, IN.

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Sharon Eberhard on March 09, 2012, 01:46:36 pm

WHEN ??

HOW???

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Joe Land on March 09, 2012, 03:07:05 pm

August 14, 1995  One of the trains ran a stop signal.

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Geof Burns on March 09, 2012, 04:00:49 pm

Joe,
A minor correction. One of the train engineers ran a stop signal! Don't blame the train!
Geof

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Ron Marquardt on March 09, 2012, 04:57:10 pm

Geof, that is only an opinion not necessarily supported by any firm evidence you have at your disposal at this time.   ::)  / Ron

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Justin Asbery on March 09, 2012, 09:54:06 pm

I remember that day. Spent most of it watching the cleanup. ;D Thanks for posting it Joe.

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Tim T Swan on March 10, 2012, 12:41:45 am

Justin, explain what happened please.

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Justin Asbery on March 10, 2012, 09:57:33 am

The Northbound (Union Pacific) failed to stop and ran into the third unit of the eastbound (CSX). The locomotives of the northbound and the third unit and first car of the eastbound were the only ones that derailed. It took several hours for the cleanup crews to get everything back the to the way it was before the accident. Luckily the accident happened the way it did, there was a business on the northwest side of the diamond and an appartment building on the southwest side. If either train was going the other direction it could have been worse.

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Joe Land on March 10, 2012, 11:42:57 am

Thanks Justin. I could not report the details, but I knew you could. ;)
Here is another photo of the wreck from the Bedford Times Mail.

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Tim T Swan on March 10, 2012, 03:56:18 pm

Thanks, Justin.  Perhaps Deputy Stafford can fill us in with some more details.  Is Steve aboard the Board?

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Pete Pedigo on March 10, 2012, 07:27:23 pm

Yes, he has been signed up for awhile and has been reading.  I don't know if he has posted or not.     I spoke with him yesterday.   He is busy with his hovercraft a lot right now. 

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Victor Sauerheber on March 12, 2012, 08:04:07 am

Seems I remember talking to a CSX trainmaster back when this happened, and he told me that there was a problem with the signaling system. Something about that if a train on the B&O came in on the siding track the system would not set up the signals for the Monon tracks correctly and that is what happened here.Don't know if this is true or not, just passing on what I heard. Vic

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Justin Asbery on March 12, 2012, 09:29:21 pm

Wouldn't that make the station agent responsible for letting the crews of both trains know where the other train was and who had the right of way? ???

Title: Re: Bad day at the diamond
Post by: Mark Johnson on March 24, 2012, 09:25:40 am

The old interlocking machine for the Mitchell crossing is down at French Lick. I suppose if we were really into it, it would be possible to reverse engineer the thing to figure out how things could go wrong.

[As best I remember, this accident happened before the original interlocking was changed out. Indeed, the wreck may have precipitated the replacement of the equipment.]

Mark J