Just saw a news report on an accident on the train ride at the Louisville Ky Zoo. Apparently the train overturned injuring 22 people, at least one seriously.

Further reports say the railroad was inspected this spring by regulators from
Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

This will likely result in calls for more regulation for those of us who are not under traditional railroad regulators. Here in California our state OSHA has been looking at railroad rides, and has extended their oversight to some, trying to use rules written for roller coasters and such. The regulations exempt museums, but the inspectors try to ignore the exemptions until pushed.

I suspect its time to review your inspection system and documentation.

"Kentucky Department of Agriculture"? Maybe it hit a cow and derailed...

Don C.

Don,

Even in your vaunted state of Illinois, the Department of Agriculture inspects amusement rides. Most states that I can think of have the Department of Agriculture inspect amusement rides, gas pumps, etc.

Listening to the video, one person made a comment about the brakes failing. Obviously this is at least second hand information, "somebody said that somebody said", but it does seem quite consistent with what I'm seeing in the photos.

The train, which looks to be a Chance CP Huntington and the usual coaches, is entirely on its side. The trucks are laying close to the tracks, while the cars are on their side nearby in line with one another. Given a normal speed of 10 mph, give or take, you would not expect the entire train to roll over like that in a derailment.

On the other hand, excessive speed, due to brake failure and/or operater error, would probabably result in the type of derailment seen in the photos.

Either cause, or a combination of both causes will probably result in questions that could lead to more regulations. (Was the ride operator running too fast? How were they trained? Do they do a terminal brake test? If so, would that have caught the problem? Great, let's pass a law...)

Barring some totally unexpected cause, such as an escaped Rhino charging and tipping over the train, there's just about no possible answer for what caused this event that won't have possible repercussions on the industry. Equipment failure, lack of training, lack of routine inspections, bad track, etc. None of those answers would be good news...

The very fact that it is neigh impossible to find prior photos of one of these trains on its side is a very good argument that there is not a need for further regulation.

Accidents do happen, regulated or not!

Why the Department of Agriculture has oversight for railways at amusement parks and zoos could be explained by the connection between amusement rides and county fairs.

A few years ago I was manager of a Kentucky Tourist Railroad, and the Ky Agriculture Inspectors came to inspect. I politely told them that the RR was under FRA regulation, and they didn't need to be there. To make a long story short, I had to get a letter from FRA Regional Adminstrator to the Ky folks to get them to leave, and they weren't happy when they did. A real, full size train is not a roller coaster, and they really didn't know enough to inspect a roller coaster in my opinion.

That said, I'll bring on another issue. Recently a wealthy businessman in Kentucky has built a 2 foot gauge RR on his business property. As the RR is on a business property and has employees (general public) on the property engaged in the business, I must inspect the steam locomotive for boiler compliance. The boiler passed inspection according to the related ASME rules. However, I wish I had more authority to address other mechanical and operating issues. The proud new owners have no train operating experience, and no steam operating experience. The train is OK, but has some minor issues that I find objectionable (no try cocks, no fusible plug, etc). The bottom line is that there is no entity within the state government that is really able to conduct a reasonable inspection of such a train due to no pertinant codes/laws. I wish the new owners the best, and hope they have a safe operation.

As for the Zoo train incident, I live nearby, but am not aware of the circumsances of this incident and am not involved in any investigation.

Mark Jordan
State of Kentucky Boiler Inspector

Here is a link obtained from cnn.com

Witness: Train's Brakes Went Out from TV station WLKY

The KY Dep. of Agriculture does indeed issue permits for amusement rides, and in fact there is information on their website, and a form. When I lived in Kentucky, I came close to obtaining a permit and insurance for a small live steam (public) operation we were considering.

For that purpose, it is entirely appropriate. The most important requirement for the permit was proof of insurance, and that is a perfectly reasonable demand.

The linkage, historically, is agricultural fairs equals carnival rides equals amusement rides of all sorts.

That is very unfortunate for that miniature amusement ride.

When I first saw this I thought it was a pretty simple case of excess speed. But, looking again at the pictures, notice how the trucks are off the tracks and next to them, and the train next to the trucks. Did this train completely come off the tracks, drag in the dirt for a while, and then flip over?

Chris.

Additional info posted here:
http://www.wral.com/news/national_world ... y/5261166/



They also state:

The whole train is a really bad design in every way. The worst aspect is that they have really narrow wheels and thin & tall flanges with no tread taper (!) and it only takes 1/4" of over gauge to have them not operable by Chances's own guidelines. If I remember correctly the gauge is set to 24" and they use no more then 3/16" widening on curves or they will derail.

When those Chance C.P. H's go round any curve, you can hear the flanges grind away. The locos in Ft. Worth Texas and SanAntonio Texas both always have paper thin flanges,

The truck frames are too narrow to fit wider wheels with larger flanges on, as I and Chance's engineer department looked into this in 1995. The trucks are still being made to the same design as they were back in about 1967, ductile iron is the material.

It would cost a fortune every year to keep up with that degree of mntc. even with constant replacement and daily track work.

Climbing onto the soap box;

Those things are a public menace by design, always were. Anytime someone designs a train to be anything but to the AAR rules, or very close to it, they are ignorant of reality, and accidents will follow. (thats why I always get into the fight against random standards and I won't mess with tread and flange profiles. "One size fits all" standards is ignorant and dangerous in any public hauling scale train) I'd hate to be Chance and have to explain why my company thought that; narrow treads, no taper, thin tall flanges, over sprung brakes etc.. were a good or safe idea. There is nothing random or accidental about that junk coming off the rails no matter what the speed. That train meets the definition of negligent engineering, so if nothing was out of the ordinary, then its just another example of bad and stupid engineering and making money over safety. The settlement should hurt the defendant (s) and hurt bad!

Chance C.P. Huntingtons do have a proven (on hi-way trucks) design of fail safe brakes. They have to be pressurized to 80 PSI before they will release. They are tractor trailer truck brakes in every detail all the way down to the big spring in the brake cylinder, that the 80 psi has to over come. If anything they might have too much braking power for their weight and the curvature that they are approved to operate on, that and the height of the coupler could create a situation where the front or rear of the train might be able to pull over the other end of the train if the brake failed to apply simultaneously, then either end could pull over the light weight engine, or visa versa.

There is a identical train here in Fort Worth and it wrecked about 20 years ago and cut an infant girls arm off, that went to court and a settlement was reached. It also derailed a few years ago and hit a tree in the park, the city reacted quickly and paid everyone off and covered it up quickly. Unless there is a really bad injury, then its also usually settled out of court but, these trains detail and injur people often.

Both Ft. Worth and San Antonio TX. also run those trains way too fast to try to get in one or two additional revenue runs in a day, all for the $100 that a train full of parents and kids would pay them to make that run.

There is a carnival and amusement park attorney that is watching and waiting for the Ft. Worth train to kill a bunch of people. When they do, and it will happen one day, (you should see that horrible track work) its going to be a huge lawsuit, as I've told that city in writing many times about the condition of the track and the way that the trains are run too fast. The next time someone gets hurt bad it will be the end of that train and probably any train in Ft. Worth.

If anyone knows any of the victims or the attorneys in the St. Louis Accident, please have them contact me, I'd like to provide them with what I have on that equipment. That baby and all he other children that were injured are going to need lots of money to get through life after having breaks and other serious injuries just starting out as a baby. I'd like to help.

Not familiar with the Chance specifications so can't comment about that - but there's also ignorance in assuming AAR is the only safe profile, given that several industrial and transit systems had non-AAR standards and performed at least as safely as heavy rail for decades. Let's not paint all non-AAR standards with the same brush. Besides, if one size fits all is unsafe, wouldn't making AAR the only standard be another form of one size fits all? Looks like something doesn't make sense in this argument......

dave

Sorry, Dave, that specific sentence about using AAR standards was ment to suggest specifically the tread and flange profiles used on miniatures. It was meant for a miniature engineering site, (Chaski "livesteam board") when the comment was first posted. I should have cleaned that up a bit but, I stand by it 100%, it applies to this context also.

Dave said;

OK I'll bite, if you can, name one RR that has a flange and tread profile just slightly close to being as "off in left field" as Chance uses.

I'll restate it for everyone; if you go and put no taper on your wheel tread, use a narrower than normal tread width (for the height of your CG, overhang etc.), use a super small radius on an over tall flange then in my book you are; an idiot, your dangerous, and if you don't have some super-good engineering facts and results to back that move up (and there are none), I'd probably say you were guilty of; stupidity first, arrogance second, criminal negligence third, and probably anything else you were being accused of forth.

Flat treads over-work the flanges and would make any speed on a curve very dangerous and derailments imminent, yes "imminent". With the flanges grinding, its just a matter of the friction rising from the speed of the curve to eventually have that flange climb the rail and derail the train, and that is what happened. It was not an accident, the accident was the design, its was accidentally designed to kill people and should have been changed to something that resembled an AAR flange and tread profile, not exactly but, it should use some of the proven principles, the only one it used was that it had a flange, a bad flange but, it is a flange.

The AAR has tested every aspect of the flange and tread interaction of metal wheels and metals rails all the way back to iron on iron, and no single individual can improve upon it much if at all, so drastic changes mean drastic mistakes. The AAR tests have proven that a big radius between the flange & tread has more to do with keeping the tires on the rails than any other single aspect of the wheel-rail interface, and that tread taper protects the flange from wear and from having an opportunity to climb the outside rail and derail the train.

Its no matter, this is all just us talking, now its time for the defendants (Chance and their customers) to defend their actions and their use of that design. They will loose.