Eddie Blanco posted four photos with the comment: "I was the engineer on this train that the wind blew off the bridge in Logan NM!"
[Eddie commented on the fourth photo that 4500' [including the locomotives] made it across.]
March 13, 2019.
Blew off the rear 26 double stacks! All loads.
We were about 6000 feet long that day! The head end was about 4500 feet over the bridge when we came off! We felt 2 huge jerks and 2 huge lunges didn’t have a clue what happened! Once we stopped after a minute or two I started seeing dust rising I knew we were on the ground but didn’t know it was that bad!
We were good for 70 mph but that’s a 50 mph bridge! 49 mph when it happened. We went from 49 mph to stopped in about 900 ft! Very abrupt stop!
They said the straight line wind that hit us was 83 mph.
They say that bridge is 300 feet tall is what I was told!
Never even had to give a statement! They knew they screwed up and we should have been stopped!
David Epling: it was upgraded to 100mph gust. I was the Hallcon Regional Manager at the time for your area. At the moment you guys got blown over, I was transporting a driver returning to Belen from out of area duty in Trinidad via I-25.
That same winds that got you, blew over 9 trucks between Raton and Las Vegas NM
Tom Mason: can a crew stop the train if they think high winds are coming?
Thaddeus Emmanuel: yes, if dispatch has not notified the crew of high winds, the crew may stop the train if local conditions appear unsafe to proceed. Case in point, i was on a Z train in the desert near Kingman AZ that had nothing but lightweight UPS containers and trailers, going 70mph. Just ahead of us a thunderstorm had formed a microburst over the tracks. I decided to slow the train down to 20mph even though dispatch hadn't warned us. When we went through the storm, the winds were so violent that they rocked the ENGINES. We decided to completely stop until the storm passed. In the mirror i could see a bunch of the cars listing as though they were about to blow over, but none did. As soon as i toned the dispatcher, they called us with the high wind warning. So, yes, a crew may always empower themselves to take the safe course without being told to.
Eddie Blanco: That’s not how the UP works. You only stop for signals or unless they tell you. If you want to stop for anything other than that you have to ask. I’ve worked to Childress and outta Amarillo on the BNSF and they have it in their rules to use your judgment the UP does not.
Trent Anderson shared
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| 1, cropped |
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| 4, cropped |
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| DeChevea Branch commented on Eddie's post And I was the grapple operator when no one wanted to go on this sketchy stuff lol |
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| Jason Anderson commented on Eddie's post I did the welding on that bridge after that. Glad to hear nobody got hurt during this derailment! |
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| Jason Anderson commented on Eddie's post |
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| Photo by Ron Brown, Dec 2006, via Bridge Hunter [Note the high-water marks near the top of the piers. This is a reminder that it doesn't rain very often in the desert, but when it does, it can be heavy. Especially since the water does not soak in very well.] |
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