Oops. Wonder where he's working now.

This incident happened in the Oshawa CP Rail yard which ships out the GM vehicles. One of the railcar men who attaches and detaches the car haulers, accidentally unhooked a set of train cars without having the brakes applied.

The Oshawa rail yard has a slight incline to it, so when the set of cars was unhooked from the engine it started to roll down the hill, it smashed through the stop block and then through the fence and continued into the parking lot where GM stores the new vehicles that come off the line. Over 300 vehicles were damaged.

Can't see images linked from Gmail. host to imageshack/photobucket/etc

Rats. I can't access mt photobucket from here, I'll do it again later.

Sorry.

Google "oshawa cp rail yard accident". Happened in '09. Lots of vehicular carnage. Ouch.

You think he got fired for a few little red x's?
Sorry, I had to pile on.

Here is a slideshow on youtube, no sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTa1hiB5X_U

While checking teh Googles, I found one for Wally:

In the mid '90's my Buick rep said that if we got a 3800 Series II with random misfires, replace the heads.

???

Turns out that a forklift operator at an engine plant was making a turn with a pallet of assembled heads, they came off the pallet and went every which way. He was afraid he'd lose his job so he restacked them and took them to final assembly anyway. Of course, some of them had bent valve stems etc and they had no way of knowing exactly which engines got the damaged ones.

too bad theres not video...Im sure it wouldve been epic...its awesome that the train cars are still upright.

I wonder why the cars' air brakes didn't stop them when they were unhooked? Don't railroad brakes normally lock up unless you apply pressure to them?

In reply to 4cylndrfury:

Probably happened in slow motion too. The grade didn't look too extreme. Probably hit the cars at less the 25 mph and just didn't stop.

MadScientistMatt wrote: I wonder why the cars' air brakes didn't stop them when they were unhooked? Don't railroad brakes normally lock up unless you apply pressure to them?

Not sure about the brakes, but the slight grade is there by design so they sort cars without an engine (called Hump yards). They stop a train at the top the start releasing cars in groups by destination. As the cars slowly roll down, they switch the tracks to get them into the right line so the cars do need to be able to roll on their own. The speed of the cars is normally controlled by various mechanisms (older yards would have riders on the cars or would through stuff on the tracks to slow the cars).

A rather elegant solution really.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_yard

Toyman01 wrote: In reply to 4cylndrfury: Probably happened in slow motion too. The grade didn't look too extreme. Probably hit the cars at less the 25 mph and just didn't stop.

Wonder how many of those were repaired and sold as new without any disclosure

Is this the second time this happened?

Found this (look at the date 2009)

http://forums.generationdub.com/showthread.php?t=31045&page=1

Paul B

I assume that the damaged vehicles were crushed, but how many brand new LSx's were wasted?

The same thing happened to my Cherokee at a steel plant in Pennsylvania. A train car got away and ran through the parking lot and wiped out my Jeep.

Did it buff out?

I wonder how many of those GM trucks are sitting in peoples driveways right now?

Curmudgeon wrote: While checking teh Googles, I found one for Wally:

Huh. So that's what a hotdog in a hallway looks like.

bluesideup wrote: Did it buff out?

No, but the entire driver's side sheetmetal was replaced.

My wife was working for Chrysler when three train cars smashed into a bay. She was called in to shut down the fire system. Said the front train car was demolished. They were full of unused parts.

DuctTape&Bondo wrote: Wonder how many of those were repaired and sold as new without any disclosure

i bet none were, but i'd hope that the GM engineers looked at them to learn what happens to their vehicles when a train car plows thru a parking lot- because you never know when something like that might happen.