ALTOONA, Pa. — A westbound Norfolk Southern intermodal train has derailed near Horseshoe curve, leading authorities to ask the public to stay away from the area. Photographer D. Collin Reinhart reports the derailment of westbound train 21G occurred Monday afternoon on Main 2 in the area of Allegrippus Curve, blocking all three tracks, and only involves empty FedEx trailers on spine cars. The Logan Township Police Department reports on its Facebook page that no emergency response was required and that the area is now under control of NS crews; the police request that the public stay away from the area to allow for staging of equipment and personnel.
The Pennsylvania Railroad built Horseshoe Curve and seemed to run without any problems, Penn Central, and to a degree Conrail, NS seems to have so many derailments.
The Allegrippus is an 8 degree curve on a Westward grade of 1.73% and is 2 1/2 miles East of the tunnels at the summit. The valley is Sugar Run and the 4-lane highway across the valley is the new US 22 on the grade of the New Portage Branch.
What they are saving on crews or DPU’s there spending on clean up. From looking at the top pictures upper left corner it looks like the pushers must have been working by the way the last three cars in the string on the ground are jack knifed. I don’t think the ones on the ground rolled back down hill.
This is the second string lining-like accident here in two years. Take the extra locomotives that have been idled and put them as DPU for every train over this mountain. Yes costs more, but service reliability and your reputation are more important. Bet FedEX will seek another way to ship. Cheers.
Weren’t there TWO string-lining wrecks on Horseshoe last year?
The unfortunate derailment and whatever caused it aside for a moment, I thought both images were striking, especially the lower one with the distant background. Taken from a drone?
Hey Mr. Hull, wouldn’t it feel good to get literally in the PSR-addicted James Squires’ face and tell him that? I thought so.
Likely PSR-inspired, at least two miles long. Not a lot of shareholder value added in this instance.
Sounds like another case of empty cars toward the front of the train, getting stringlined by loads on the rear. A westbound train would still be going uphill there …
The only access to the derailment site is by the access road where old number two track was. That’s not something you could drive even in normal times without being cited, so I’m kind of unsure how people could interfere with the cleanup crews. It’s a 400 foot climb up a probably snake infested mountainside from Sugar Run Road for anybody foolish enough to attempt that.