How do we know the car was not properly secured? Does this railroads rule book require single cars to be chocked or skated?
Most places I have worked state that if the car is on a hill it should be chocked, but they don't necessarily require more than a handbrake if not on a hill. I was taught to at least put a stick or two under the downgrade wheels when spotting or leaving one by itself....
I can already see the new safety rules that will come from this......all cars must be chocked or skated when left standing alone anywhere for any length of time....all cuts of cars must be chocked or skated and stretched to ensure couplers can't be released.....all handbrake must be equipped with padlocks to prevent unauthorized release....etc.
The safety people will keep trying to nitpick every little thing....trying to make a inherently dangerous job completely safe is not possible, that's why training is so important....being trained to know if a car will roll away from a given place, so that you know to do something above and beyond the rule to prevent possible movement....

Unless there was a bulletin sometime in the past taking the derail out of service, that derail should have been set and locked. That would have ended the problem of the car rolling with no drama. If the derail had not been out of service, wasn't on the rail, and wasn't locked the crew is at fault. If there was no lock, the railroad is at fault. Plain and simple.

There is another possibility, Dennis: the derail may not have been capable of stopping a contemporary 286,000 pound freight car.

I would conclude that the company had a responsibility to secure the car against runaway, considering that the car would run downhill fast and crash into a complex occupied with people. If the derail they chose was not capable of derailing the car, then they should have chosen a derail that was capable. You can’t just rely on the fact that releasing the handbrake is illegal, and that should be enough to protect the public at the bottom of the hill.

One of the photos earlier in this thread showed a bunch of guys with hard hats and vests looking at an open derail. Don't know who they were or exactly when the photo was taken, but it seems odd that if the derail had been applied and locked, that they should open it, thereby losing much of the evidence that the car had somehow gone over it.

Only recounted to exhibit the fallibility of derails:

The famous 1959 incident where CNJ RS3 1706 ran away from a yard in Jersey City and south through Elizabethport and South Amboy--later recounted in a lengthy article in one of the Popular Science/Mechanics issues and then later in a condensed form in Reader's Digest--began with the speeding 1706 hitting a derail and then bouncing right over it, as witnessed by a tower operator (with the wheels flying up several inches, according to the articles).

True, and I am familiar with the incident of which you speak. Two major differences;

1) The RS-3 had already gathered some speed, whereas I believe the derail was close to the location where the car was spotted (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

2) The RS-3 was equipped with equalized locomotive trucks with multi-stage springing.

Brings to mind the story Brill used to use in their ads for their design interurban trucks; that a car equipped with Brill trucks hit a tie placed across the rails at speed and galloped over it without derailing. It's possible, but not likely.

Is the NTSB investigating this, and will the report eventually be made public?

A couple more things to consider.....
1 what's the condition of the derail and its ties? In the picture it kind of looks like the ground throw switch stand used to operate it is loose or perhaps bent.... rotten ties would probably allow the derail to be pushed back down, instead of forcing the wheels off....
2 is it a bi-directional derailer? My experiences on the railroad include seeing cars "skipping" over a derail....reverse from its working direction. It makes a heck of a racket, the cars bounce alot, but typically they don't derail. Some derails are ineffective at speeds over 5 or 10 mph.....

Here is a video showing the removal of the covered hopper today from the crash scene at Utica's Union Station:

https://youtu.be/s7tHcES7aFI

The covered hopper does not appear to have received significant damage. I wonder if the center sill is bent at all. All of the force of the impact was absorbed by the locomotive.

There's another video of the car being removed at:

http://wibx950.com/runaway-train-car-re ... ion-video/

caveat: I don't know how long this will be 'up'

Bob H

This short video shows frontal views of 6721 the day after the covered hopper was removed from the scene:

https://youtu.be/vCpO8s4paeI

It'll definitely need a smokebox door and a new pilot. And it at least looks like the cylinders are intact...

I think the smokebox door can be repaired, but the plate is a goner, for sure. The group owning the locomotive might consider finding a place to assess and consider restoration work for her. The insurance settlement should be significant, and an operational NYC steamer would be unique, to say the least. Where to send her for any restoration?

Plates got broken all the time in the steam area, and they were often repaired. Tweetsie RR (former ET&WNC) # 12's number plate was shattered from a yard incident right after WW1 and the pieces were put back together. It served the locomotive well for the rest of its service life. The only reason the plate got replaced about a decade ago was fear that it might be stolen. So a copy was cast directly from the original (and still showing the repair) plate. Even on the replica, you can see clearly where it was put back together.