As a past member of the Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society and a long time Monon aficionado, I am just heartbroken over the damage done to this historic diesel.

Les

my late Uncle drove truck for 30+ years, hauling oversized loads. Equipment, beams. He went into downtown NYC, and there were times it was at night. BUT...permits, police escort. There are clearly marked routes, bridge weight, over passes. This was not that kind of move.

That's why we pay a premium to hire Mike Venezia to set up all of our oversize moves. In well over twenty years, nothing has been so much as scratched, including a move of nine of our cars all the way to New Mexico and back for a movie.

I recall several years ago an incident where a 44 tonner being trucked had the trailer come apart (IIRC) and take out a freeway overpass support resulting in millions of dollars of damage. Mike said that he had bid on that job but didn't get it because "he was too expensive".

Unforgivable. Period.

I’ll play devil’s advocate here for the moment. We have two photos and some reported FB postings that have been removed. Where else has this been reported? I checked all kinds of Indiana and Kentucky news and highway sites and did not find one word on this incident which you have to admit must have been spectacular to see and hear so you would think the media would have picked up on it. Has it appeared on the local news? It would have made a heck of a mess, so certainly newsworthy.

Judging by the equipment, this does not look like a fly by night outfit. There is no question that the locomotive even without the cab is probably over height. We don’t know if the stack was removed prior to loading. As far as darkness, it gets dark early this time of year.

I’d just like to see a more definitive source of information than FB and some poor photos before pasing judgement here. What other sources of information are out there? And FB does not count.

J.R. May

I have no connection to the move and are looking at the same photos as you guys & gals.

For those suggesting it was a night move, look at everything in the photos, not just the damaged load. There are no police in the photo, so the photo was taken after the scene was cleaned up and she was moved to a rest stop or nearby parking lot. Based on that it would have most likely been a daytime move. If it was a night move then you would have seen much more uniformed activity around the locomotive.

Here is hoping they can find a spare cab and nothing structural or rare was damaged

Rich C.

More details:

It happened at night in Logansport:

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/20 ... g-accident

How the hell fast was the truck going? That cab isn't exactly aluminum foil. What a cluster.

Unfortunate that it had to happen to an SW1.

Unfortunate that it had to happen to the Monon's first diesel locomotive.
(let alone just a Monon locomotive... how many still exist?)

What's probably the worst bridge to damage en route to your museum's new home? Probably the class 1 railroad that serves the town.

As others have said, that truck does not look like it was slowing down for the bridge. I've yet to see a photo of the forcibly removed cab, but I can imagine it's not pretty.

Hopefully this is the last unfortunate incident to arise from the ITM disaster, but somehow I doubt it.

hope they have good insurance

Rather than jumping on the "I'm outraged" or the armchair trucking expert bandwagon, I figured I'd share more useful information. OMR seems to have a SW1200 for sale that could be used as a donor for a new cab/control stand. Cabs seem to be similar in proportion. May require some modification to work but hell, its better than nothing.

https://ozarkmountainrailcar.com/railEq ... ocomotives

Jeff

.

Based off the top of my head, there is a 2-8-2 (in Soo Line paint as it was later sold to them,) a BL2, and the unlucky SW1. There's probably only a few others around besides those.

Attached is a screen grab of a street view of the only railroad overpass I see on third street in Logansport. It is located where the road and tracks traverse Biddle Island. Posting because I know nothing about moving motive power. Is this the correct location? With the rig shown in the pictures that have been made available, should the posted 14' - 5" clearance have been an issue? Could any rig have gotten that load under a 14' - 5" clearance? If so, how would it be done?

This must be a terrible day for the owner of that artifact. Very glad that it does not appear that anyone was injured by flying debris.

The TRAINS article really does not provide much information. Does not answer the specific time of day for me, nor any specifics on how this occurred, although in looking on line it looks like the road dips down under the bridge. That dip can essentially raise the center height of the load on a long trailer.