Once again, I pass the dead end of the main railway track at the Kazansky railway station in Moscow. I look at this device and cannot understand - is it designed to compensate and absorb the blow of a diesel locomotive? Or is it a purely symbolic device to compensate for the smallest impulse during "docking"?
Although of course …
… you probably can't compensate for a decent blow. At long distances, you can use some kind of "shoes" braking. And in dead ends there are no structures to extinguish the blow?
But there were such cases more than once:
The Santa Fe diesel passenger train hangs over Aliso Street after it left the end of the tracks at Union Station. Los Angeles, USA. January 25, 1948.
I saw this photo on the Internet and immediately remembered another famous photo. Guess which one? And here it is …
Promotional video:
Let me remind you what this case is.
On October 22, 1895, at the Montparnasse train station, there was perhaps the most unique train accident in history.
The 12-car express from Granville, driven by a driver with nearly 20 years of experience, Guillaume-Marie Pelerin, was somewhat late. Relying on his experience, the driver “hammered” the instructions and did not apply the brakes on the slope. When the locomotive sped up in earnest, the head of the train, Albert Mariette, tried to apply emergency braking using the Westinghouse brake. But it did not work, because the same experienced steam locomotive driver, having received instructions not to use these brakes, simply turned them off.
As a result, the express, at a speed of 40 km / h, knocked down a dead-end stop, broke through the 60-centimeter wall of the station and flew out onto the street, which was located 10 meters below the tracks. The locomotive was only able to stop the pavement, into which it stuck with its bow, while all the passenger cars remained on the platform.
Surprisingly, this accident caused few casualties: several passengers and a locomotive crew were injured, but survived. The only bad luck was the newspaper saleswoman, who during the accident was standing on the street and did not suspect that a train would fall from the sky on her head.
The railway administration paid for the saleswoman's funeral in full and established a pension for her two children. The driver easily got off with two months in prison, as well as the payment of a fine of 50 francs to the victim's relatives.
Many years later, an original monument dedicated to this wreck was erected in Brazil.
So, Brazilian monumentalists decided to perpetuate the accident.
There is even a smoke going on there:-)
There are also contemporary examples. Here is 2011.
In Hamburg, a diesel locomotive derailed and crashed from a seven-meter height onto the street, which is located directly under the railway tracks. The incident took place on the night of Thursday, November 10, near the Mittlerer Landweg train station. Nobody was hurt as a result of the accident.
The locomotive rammed the track stop when changing lanes to adjacent tracks. As a result of an unsuccessful maneuver, the locomotive derailed and rolled down the railroad embankment right into the middle of the street. In addition, two of the six freight cars attached to the locomotive got off the rails.
The locomotive was driven by a 28-year-old apprentice driver, assisted by a 49-year-old instructor. Both managed to escape by jumping out of the locomotive in time.
Most recently, a fire broke out at a railway station in Cairo when a train collided with a platform at Ramses Central Station. Witnesses say that a passenger train derailed and flew into the platform at great speed.