[USA]: Let’s Crash Two Trains Together!

[Adlington]

A publicity stunt, highly unlikely to be repeated nowadays....

In September 1896, [William George] Crush, a passenger agent for the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company, cooked up the ultimate crowd-pleaser: a gladiatorial battle. Two 35-ton locomotives would ram into each other in “Crush,” a pop-up town erected for the occasion and named after the architect himself.

Crush found two 35-ton steam engines that were being retired for new 60-ton engines and commissioned them for the spectacle.

On September 15, the day of the event, spectators poured into the temporary town of Crush, paying $2 to travel there by train from anywhere in Texas. The event turned out to be so popular that the collision had to be delayed, since trains were still arriving at the scheduled 4 p.m. showtime. Some 40,000 people came in total, briefly making Crush the second-largest city in Texas.

At 5:10, Crush himself came riding in on a white horse and waved his hat, giving the signal for the trains to start.

The trains did collide, at speeds of 50 mph (80 km/h) each, but things turned out more spectacular (and deadly) than envisaged.

Read more (Smithsonian)

 

[Iskra]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

 

[edwin_m]

The Old Dalby flask crash was ostensibly to prove something about the strength of the flasks, but could be seen as a modern version of this spectacle.

 

[NSEFAN]

The Old Dalby flask crash was ostensibly to prove something about the strength of the flasks, but could be seen as a modern version of this spectacle.

Albeit done in considerably better controlled conditions, and without the risk of boiler explosion!

 

[randyrippley]

Some photos of the event on youtube

 

[edwin_m]

Contrary to what that link seems to be implying, other search results suggest that this was not how the word "crush" entered the language.

 

[alistairlees]

The Old Dalby flask crash was ostensibly to prove something about the strength of the flasks, but could be seen as a modern version of this spectacle.

Here is a video:

It was a funny year (1984) for peaks, with two events going worldwide: the aftermath of the collision of 45147 with an oil tanker train in December was also broadcast globally, given the fireball that ensued and that it was right next to the M62. Not quite so much global coverage since...

 

[Flying Phil]

The Old Dalby flask crash was ostensibly to prove something about the strength of the flasks, but could be seen as a modern version of this spectacle.

I think "ostensibly" is a bit harsh as many people were - and still are, worried about radioactivity and the safe movement of nuclear waste. Despite lots of reassurances about the safety of those nuclear flask containers people still said..what if.... it was hit by a train, ...on its vulnerable opening top..... So the only way left to prove the safety was to do it! If it was as a "spectacular" they would have sold tickets to watch!

 

[edwin_m]

The structural engineers would have calculated the strength of the flasks to the nth degree and would have been absolutely confident that they would withstand any credible impact. Had there been any doubt about that then the test would have been carried out (in secret) before the flasks were approved to carry nuclear material. Also the test can only replicate one set of parameters, not all the possible combinations of impact speed, direction etc that might occur in a "real" collision. And being cynical I would argue that an impact with a Peak, lacking the heavy end reinforcement of later designs, at a speed of about 60mph isn't remotely comparable to being hit by (say) an HST at 125. So the test really proved nothing and was essentially a PR exercise, and we just have to trust that the designers of the flasks got their calculations right.

 

[A0]

There's an article about this in one of Railway World's annuals from the early 1980s - '82 I think.

 

[randyrippley]

The structural engineers would have calculated the strength of the flasks to the nth degree and would have been absolutely confident that they would withstand any credible impact. Had there been any doubt about that then the test would have been carried out (in secret) before the flasks were approved to carry nuclear material. Also the test can only replicate one set of parameters, not all the possible combinations of impact speed, direction etc that might occur in a "real" collision. And being cynical I would argue that an impact with a Peak, lacking the heavy end reinforcement of later designs, at a speed of about 60mph isn't remotely comparable to being hit by (say) an HST at 125. So the test really proved nothing and was essentially a PR exercise, and we just have to trust that the designers of the flasks got their calculations right.

According to http://www.old-dalby.com/Crash.htm 46009 was estimated to be travelling at 90mph when it collided with the flask.
So you have to compare a 130+ ton Peak plus three mk1 coaches @90 with an HST at 125 maximum. I'd guess the HST would have around twice the energy? Not so "remote" as you suggest

 

[edwin_m]

According to http://www.old-dalby.com/Crash.htm 46009 was estimated to be travelling at 90mph when it collided with the flask.
So you have to compare a 130+ ton Peak plus three mk1 coaches @90 with an HST at 125 maximum. I'd guess the HST would have around twice the energy? Not so "remote" as you suggest

Thanks for the correction on the speed.

Kinetic energy actually depends on the square of the speed so would almost exactly double from 90 to 125. It also depends on the mass, 440 tonnes would be a rough figure for an HST versus 220 tonnes for the formation used so another factor of two. So in fact the HST would have four times the energy. There are also collision types where the flask train would be moving with energy of its own.

 

[Lucan]

The structural engineers would have calculated the strength of the flasks to the nth degree and would have been absolutely confident that they would withstand any credible impact. Had there been any doubt about that then the test would have been carried out (in secret) before the flasks were approved to carry nuclear material.

They were absolutely confident. I was not in that project but I worked for the CEGB at that time as a structural engineer and I knew those guys. The flask was placed on the track at a position and angle such that the train hit it in the worse possible way - on the edge of the lid tending to shear off the holding bolts.

There was in fact another test consisting of dropping the same flask from a height onto a large steel button embedded in a mass of concrete, and this test was significantly worse than the train crash, although far less spectacular - just a big thud. Yes, the train crash was more the PR excercise, and I understand that the train speed was more to do with the arrangements for the train and was certainly not the worst that the flask could stand.

Having worked in the safety field with regard to structures (including railway vehicles), there is a limit of reasonableness to how much it is worth spending on safety in any field. You could spend the entire gross national product on safety improvements everywhere and our lives would still be at risk from accidents. I have dealt with the statistics of aircraft crash, earthquakes, industrial accidents, transport accidents; and the transport of nuclear flasks is one of the last things you should be worrying about. It is rather like the way the public over-react to railway accidents when there is constant carnage on the roads, but with nuclear engineering it is even more so.