Just HOW HARD is it to DERAIL a TRAIN?!? - Hyce Reacts - US Army Tests
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
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There are a few more videos from the same US Army Transportation Corps base about the training done by US Army railroaders to repair and run railroads in Africa and Europe. th-cam.com/video/TBNYu35BCHY/w-d-xo.html
Some of the other experiments involved sabotage charges to destroy trains. th-cam.com/video/3PaVc5VDA7s/w-d-xo.html
Oh rad! I will need to check these out. Thank you!
i remember having a movie that was about ww2 train and it had this same video in it
@@Hyce777 The US Army really should have consulted Lawrence, Thomas Edward Lawrence, otherwise known as Lawrence of Arabia. I'm sure if he wasn't already dead from crashing his Brough Superior SS100 Motorcycle back in 35 he would have shown them how to flip a train on it's side. As he did a "real bang up good job" on the Ottoman Empire's Railway back during "The Great War", "The War To End All Wars"...
The Consolidation could be the standard US Army design of WWII. There were at least 42 railway-associated battalions in the Transportation Corps in WWII (I have a book that tells me this), 39 of which were railway operating battalions. Each battalion was associated with a particular railroad, presumably built around a cadre of experienced personnel from that line.
If there's one thing I learned from this, it's that trains don't actually need rails to run. Track was just invented by rail manufacturers to sell more rails.
It’s a conspiracy by Big Rail.
"We don't need rails where we're going!!"
There's actually a case where the Canadian National railway offered one of their diesels to be used as a generator for a Quebec town during an ice storm. They picked the locomotive up, rotated 90 degrees and ran it on the asphalt down main Street where they plugged it into the hospital.
@@andrewwillms8043 See? It's like I said. We don't need rails where we're going... Because we're going to the hospital!
@@PowerTrain611exactly, look at the Aussies
‘The OSS intends to continue experimental operations.’ Translation: ‘We all had fun using explosives and playing with trains and will continue until there is no possible excuse for further work. We’ll film it for science.’
Alternatively, "We came here to wreck a locomotive and come hell or high water we aren't leaving till we do!"
The difference between fucking around and science is that you write down that you see happens 🤷
@@TheLtVoss dammit I was gonna say that!
@@TheLtVoss Not just that, in science you also speculate what might happen first, so basically like a betting pool before you fuck around.
Meanwhile, if there's the smallest little bump in my HO track, the whole consist falls off like the economy in 1929
If the coupler doesn't fail first
I have a nice consist of southern pacific heavyweights & they instantly derail if they go over any kind of zig-zag in the track really limits what I can do layout wise.
@@CelestialCaboose2472 Are they just too light?
Same on my n gauge track
Don't forget the slightest gap in between the track that likes to short your train out
Us army: it's essentially impossible to derail a train
Norfolk southern: hold my beer
WW2 train: I can cross entire gaps of missing track and still be fine 👈😎👈
Modern train: axle bearing too hot 😢
Thing that hold frame to wheel being liquid does seem to not want to hold wheel to frame anymore, to be fair.
@@Hyce777 Should I call an ambulance? You seem to be having a stroke.
@@wta1518steel too hot, glows red. Jet fuel can't shrink fit steel wheels.
To be fair, there were a lot more hot axles in those days
@@andrewreynolds4949 it's much worse when you add a puddle of oil and a piece of absorbent cloth to the mix
"WHY WON'T YOU DERAIL!?"
"Several Dozen Tons of Steel Son, it enables me to maintain traction with the Ground and Carry my weight through your pitiful gaps...you Can't Derail me Jack!"
A cool thing about the engine used is that is we have two of her sisters, as she’s former N&W No.4 and we still have 6 & 7. Which is a pretty cool bit of trivia imp.
Three actually, we have #11 too, She is in Saltville Virginia.
Amazing what momentum can do and how much effort it takes to actually stop that momentum (or change trajectory)
Yes it is... Recall folks that momentum is just mass times velocity. So, trains do quite well in the mass department compared to a lot of things...
@@Hyce777there's ships, but Archimedes takes care of them.
something something objects in motion, something something one direction something something equal and opposite force...
@@PowerTrain611 smells like Newton...
@@kornaros96 🍎🍏
Ive watches too many Mythbusters episodes in my life so i fully expected the narrator to go “well, the old iron horse just wouldnt wreck” (massive explosion from an artillery shell fired at the locomotive) “ahhhh much better”
You just get Norfolk Southern to buy out the railroad concerned and bingo, derailment should happen pretty soon.
War is a terrible thing.
Ugh. Too real.
pfft. what's a little anhydrous ammonia amongst friends?
@@rodchallis8031 it's the trace amounts of phosgene that really say "I care about you" in a friendship 🥺
@@rodchallis8031mmm anhydrous ammonia my favorite snack
@@Hyce777 You can bet in any business, when a fund buys a business to strip all the equity out of it and refuses to reinvest in it, shit will go south in a hurry. It is all the worse in a business as capital intensive as railroading that has so much infrastructure that has to be maintained. Vulture capitalism has been the death of many a business.
Just send the crew of the submarine that sunk a train during WW2
@@cwyvern4861 ah yes the time a steam engine took flight then learned the gravity exists.
The USS Barb can sink any train.
Oh right that happened.
I forgor
USS Barb
Well ill be damned, the Locomotive in that video is a N&W G class.
They are easily identifiable by their Specific Stacks, and the Bellpaire fireboxes, and VERY tall steam domes.
3 of the class even survives.
This was likely filmed at the Aberdeen Proving grounds in Maryland, Which was the main testing site for ALOT of things like this during WW2.
The full film states at the beginning that it was tested on the Claiborne-Polk Miliary Railroad. Look that up, and you get Camp Claiborne in Louisiana.
Damn, I thought it was something British. They definitely have that sort of look to them between the domes and fireboxes
@@mpf1947 This is Fort Polk close to Leesville, LA. The Army wanted to buy a lumber company railroad at the beginning of WWII to blow up the tracks and trains and the company said NOPE. So the Army built its own railroad for the purpose. The base is still in operation and has rail service.
@@royreynolds108Ft. Polk was where I spent my summer vacation in 1968. Basic training. Now it has been renamed by the woke world to Ft. Johnson or something. Great place for heat, humidity and mosquitos. Tiger Land!.
@@sambrown6426 No, it doesn't look British at all. I guess there are some similarities with a small tank locomotive like the LB&SCR E2 class (on which Thomas the Tank Engine was based) but British mainline steam locomotives never looked like this. In particular, we didn't have any 2-8-0s until 1903.
Remember, the British loading gauge is much smaller than the US. We don't have room for those tall chimneys and steam domes, except on early or branch line designs, as it was a challenge to fit stuff within the loading gauge. If you think about something like the Big Boys, which were also trying to fit as much steam locomotive within the loading gauge as possible, you get the top of the boiler at about the same level as the top of the cab, and a very squat chimney and steam dome. Same in the UK, just on a smaller scale -- something like an LMS Stanier Class 5 ("Black Five") is very typical of 20th century British design and is a very compact locomotive that uses most of the available volume.
T.S. Lawrence: "You could have just asked me, you know." U.S. Military: "You were a little bit dead by 1945".
You mentioned TE Lawrence, I shall mention the lyrics:
_As the darkness falls and Arabia calls one man spreads his wings and the battle begins_
_May the land lay claim on to Lawrence's name seven pillars of wisdom light the flame_
It depends. Give the Seabees some booze and it would be done within three feet.
They'd find a way. Lmao!
They'll just drag one end of the split rain a few inches one way, and the other end a few inches the other. That's what you really want, the rails to not line up anymore.
@@Hyce777 i love being related to a Seabee. If you want i can get you some stories about what the navy's testing for trains.
@@bow-tiedengineer4453This. Ideally bend them inwards so the wheel flanges end up on the wrong side of the rail
No doubt!
I remember watching this for the first time at around seven years old and I just remember being so dumbfounded at how a gap that big couldn’t throw the engine off, I was also thoroughly disappointed because tiny me wanted to see an earth shattering kaboom lol
8 year old me building jumps for my lego trains be like.
This is how the ES&D will save on track construction cost.
The locomotive: Hey look I made it through!
The cars: 9:13
This was actually filmed at a location called Camp Claiborne, it was a military camp in Central Louisiana, near the village of Forest Hill. The camp had its own railroad, the Claiborne and Polk. Which was also assisted by the local railroad, the Red River and Gulf, which is still slightly preserved in the near by Southern Forest Heritage Museum in Long Leaf Louisiana. Most of the artifacts found in Camp Claiborne is found here at the SFHM. There is essentially nothing left from Camp Claiborne, aside from a few concrete roads, and foundation. And the vast emptiness in the video is all but tall trees now. The Army stripped everything out upon the end of the war.
IMHO it's the narration (tone particularly) that's a Chef's kiss in terms of communicating the message.
I was hoping you'd get around to this video! One of my favorite "Messing around, for science we swear!" things the US military has done.
Army: we need to derail a train? Remove some track well that didn't work
YT community: Tell Hyce it's a video game he will get it done.
This is one of my favorite videos. I have watched it multiple times.
Thermite and a wood mold to cast a derail into the track out of the produced iron seems a much better bet than explosives.
Or some easily transported method to BEND the rails into a derail profile, and then spiking it so that the train doesn't simply unbend it.
The thing is, that all takes specialized knowledge and tools and resources.
Some random GIs or local insurgent group are already going to have access to explosives and the training to use it for all kinds of purposes
@@88porpoise Exactly. They were looking for techniques where one guy could jump out of a bush, blow up the track and run away within a couple of minutes, using stuff that could be carried in a backpack. Carrying a bunch of explosives lets them sabotage whatever target of opportunity they come across. Using thermite and moulds and stuff means they can only sabotage railways. Plus thermite requires a large, heavy container to hold the reaction as it progresses.
Back at BNSF when you worked there (Before ES&D bought them out) you did complain about the bad trackage outside the shop...
The reason it wasn't prioritized were probably this video...
Bad ties? "No problem" "Slightly missing track? "They just get to test the suspension! Bonus feature!"
Pretty much. Lol
Reminds me of Englewood Railway accident, where a string of log cars broke loose on an incline, got knocked off a track by a derail, then managed to rerail itself at the switch after the derail and rolled downhill unrestrained, eventually slamming into a parked speeder.
Well that's fascinating, I'll have to look into that.
Engineer see's 60" Gap... "Aaaah shit! We're in the dirt... oope, never mind."
This video simulates the best maintained RGS trackage
I guess you need to blow a hole in the track, and then hammer one of the rails towards the centre of the track, so it catches the flange on the wrong side.
My thought exactly, that should work, might be hard to do. but it should make sure it derails.
Right but that requires carrying heavy tools. If you could do it just by blowing out some track, you just need a few handfulls of plastic explosive. Also, you can't just hammer a rail to one side: they're effectively a big spring and will just straighten up again. You'd need to lever it to one side and fix it in position, which is going to require a gang of at least half a dozen men with long crowbars and hammers.
Surprisingly, not a lot of Kenosha in this one!
If they played the right music maybe the train would have crashed sooner.
Shreveport, LA. summer of 87' bored with pennies and RR gravel we decided to try a dozen or so orphaned RR spikes lined up in a row. The traction wheels squeezed. fragmented and exploded into and off the gravel. I can still remember the ringing sound as one of those spikes went flying flying over our heads as we foolishly watched from the woods nearby.
It didn't phase that train one bit but I learned a valuable lesson.
Get away...
2:06 one of the big lessons we learned from WW2 was the need to practice in minute detail any and every little bit of tactics and warfare. in the last big war games before the conflict began one of the changes was going from simulating things on paper (company 5 stopped and check their transmission oil) to doing it IRL where they found it took much longer and then could be done differently to improve many processes.
Another film you might consider a reaction video for was called ‘The Mole,’ also OSS from the same period (and is on the Charlie Dean Archives YT channel). It’s about a nifty photoelectric sensor attached to an explosive with the intent of causing derailments in tunnels. I’d love to know if they ever made it into service before the war ended.
I remember you talking about this a while ago with kan. It's very interesting how much a train can take and stay on the rails.
Maybe this is why the saboteurs of the kwai river line in WW II blew up the bridge?
turns out turning bridge into canyon for the train is alot easier than trying to throw it into the dirt...
Note that the film _Bridge on the River Kwai_ is fictional. But, yes, if there's a lightly built that you can take down, that's going to be much more effective, because it takes much longer to rebuild a bridge than to re-lay some track. On the down side, it will take a lot more explosive to bring down a bridge than to blow out a section of rail and most European rail bridges would be built of stone or heavy steel, so would be a difficult target for a sabotage crew.
I remember seeing War Trains at my local navy museum, with the director and narrator there. I have a signed VHS set somewhere at home. This was always one of my favourite segments of Subvert and Destroy.
As an edit: War Trains was a 3 part series, and you can still get it on DVD, I can't recommend it more, so many interesting videos like this one are in it.
Remember this OSS type stuff is limited in long term impact unless it is on a bridge and the crash destroys the bridge. An on tanker told me what the third army did. They had a big hook on the back of a tank. They would drive down the track with the hook ripping out the ties. A few miles of this and the railroad would be out of commission until some major work was done.
Right, but this is aimed at one guy being able to cause significant disruption very cheaply with stuff he can carry in a backpack. Railroad ploughs can only be used on a railroad that you already control -- they're for scorched-earth-ing your retreat.
I'm sure I mentioned one of my derailments at Lakeside with the #18, about 3 decades ago on the 4th of July, the busiest day of the year.
On the curve to come along Harlan, the rails spread. Since it was busy, we were running a little faster than we usually did (12 minutes per trip compared to the 15 normally.) The locomotive cleared but the front truck of the tender derailed. Luckily the coaches remained on the tracks. Water and coal bounced everywhere. All I could do is keep the train stretched as I rolled to a stop to prevent the A/V forces popping a coach truck off.
When we brought the #17 up to hook on to my train to pull it back, she slowly walked across the bad track and as the rails spread, she slowly sunk down between the rails. The Master Mechanic was panicked and thought we would have to rerail her too. But I just had John horse her over and he backed her back up on the tracks. I mean it was the perfect rerailer there...
So it's the momentum more than anything which overcomes the forces of bad track.
The diesel arrived shortly after backing all the way around to where I was. And after walking the passengers back to the other train (#17's) they backed to the depot and we used lining bars and blocks and popped the #18's lead tender truck back on. The mechanics then drove additional spikes into the non-existent ties and they shut down steam for the rest of the day. I pointed out the diesel's trucks were gauged differently (1/4" wide) and would spread the rail more than the steam train's. So I spent the rest of the day sitting on my #18 keeping her warm and eventually, I watched fireworks off in the distance while sitting on the cab roof.
The next day after working my paying job I stopped by to see that they dug out 30 feet of track and replaced the ties (poorly of course.) They also decided to swap out the rails. Not going with NEW rails but they swapped them around - by turning the individual rails around. These are rails which have been in that curve for half a century at least. They are curved. What happens when you turn a curved rail around? All the curve is at the joints (at the fish plates.) So they had an extremely superelevated outer rail (1" with 22" gauge) with all the curve bend at the joints. I would have to brace myself on the fireman's side with my feet on the engineer side to keep from sliding off. BAM. BAM. BAM. 3 hard lurches to the right at each fish plate.
After this, I got away from doing much with the railroad (my friend John and I were actually working on the big tower there getting it repaired where 2 men with no budget, old ropes, and sheer bravery could.) The following year I was done, never returned to work there on the railroad again. They broke both steam locomotive frames and I think the diesel took damage too.
A few years later I visited with my wife, my friend John and his wife and we rode the railroad and yep, that track was STILL trash. And to this day, steam is dead there. All because they had a moron master mechanic who didn't move the outer rail to the inside and the insider rail to the outside so they would remain curved the right direction and the other, unworn, side of the ball of the rail could be used. This is the same moron master mechanic who made a special track measuring device (took a day to make it) welded up nicely and all. It was a l-shaped device with rollers on the left side and a measuring "rod" across to the other rail. A long handle allows you to push it. He did this to spite me telling him the track is wide. You can see the tender truck hunt side to side so you KNOW it's wide. He said only a couple places were wide. I asked him where he measured to make his mark on his measuring stick that went across. He showed me where he put it on the tracks at the water tower and made a chalk mark. I pulled out my tape measure and measured. 23" OOPS. He just looked at it. Picked up his rod and left. Didn't say a word. Didn't fix the track either.
Oh yowza. Yeah steam is still dead there. Too bad, really, it'd be so neat. They have more track than we do. Sounds like a real special basket case of a "master mechanic". Jeez.
From my understanding of basic physics, the best time to blow up a section of rail to guarantee a derailment is when the heaviest part of the train is bearing down on the section of rail that has the explosives on it. That way you damage the most highly stressed part of the train AND the rail at the same time.
The idea is that any damaged train prevents passage of any undamaged train, even if that undamaged train could have maybe made it over the damaged rail.
Target the locomotive, AND the rail, at the same time. Or you know, just wait for a train to go by and poke a hole in the boiler with a Bazooka. Instantly disabled, even if it DOES stay on the tracks it ain't movin.
Wrecking the track means it’s a lot harder to just push the wrecked train aside to get the line open. For best results, do it in a tunnel!
@@andrewreynolds4949 Absolutely, but my whole point was "get the best bang for your buck by timing the rail demolition to the time when a train is passing over those rails", that way the enemy has to deal with a train that is more damaged than what would happen with just derailing it, due to the explosion that separated the rails.
I do realize that at the end of my comment I kinda wandered off target, I tend to do that frequently because I have ADHD.
The problem is that you need to wait for the train and you may not know when it is coming. Oh, and you are behind enemy lines, so you may get discovered before you did any damage.
So, blow the track up and get out. You may be able to cause a derailment or at least the enemy will have to repair the track.
This also applies to resistance members in occupied territory - you probably do not want to spend too much time near the track.
@@Pentium100MHz
Right, I get that, I suppose that means you rig the charge so that it has a pressure sensor attached to the rails. These days it's pretty easy, just put an AT mine under the sleeper, but back in WWII you'd rig up the track so that the train passing sets off the charge. Automation solves the need to be present!
@@44R0Ndin Of course! Battlefield or other conditions might not always permit that though, much like 'do it on a curve'. But blowing up a passing train as it enters a tunnel on a curve would be the dream
I remember Hyce talking about this years ago, exited to finally see it!
That was amazing to see that ol' iron stay on.
Knowing the kind of shoddy track that trains even today can run on, I'm not the least bit surprised that a gap in straight track means nothing to them.
And nowadays locomotives have maximum 12 wheels. back then they could have 14 coupled
I’d LOVE a test like that. I can even think of some ‘in service’ engines I could bring for it….
And trains in the U.S. every week derailing on straight track for no reason...
Yeah, broken rail my foot. Couple years ago, a broken rail on tangent track got containers in the streetcar station.
Two words: poor maintenance.
(repost because TH-cam was showing double posts on my end, but deleting one deleted both.)
Often it’s actually in-train slack forces. Those are a lot more troublesome with mile-long trains
This was a really interesting video to watch honestly. Really interesting to see the forces those bogies can take, especially just bouncing directly on the ties, and even the engine not coming off, like goddamn
This was an interesting thing to watch; I thought much the same. Of course, the 4005 accident in 1953 shows that curves (even in a smaller setting of a switch in this particular reference) do tend to be 'good' spots for such things to occur.
It's a surprisingly big gap between "guaranteed safe" and "guaranteed wreck". All your work is to insure safety, but their work is to insure failure.
Hoh, good memes
It's always a good day when Hyce uploads.
I've told many people that it is equally impressive how well this stuff stays on the rail, and how easy it is to make something hit the ground.
Hell im pretty sure during the "Crazy Eights" runaway, a portable derail was used and whole consist just jumped right over it.
Meanwhile, a quarter inch gap on a switch point is great at putting things in the dirt.
wasn't crazy 8 going like very fast over the derail?
probably ended up breaking it.
@@davidty2006 Bingo. Idk how fast it was going when it hit the derail, but it likely either broke the derail or just jumped right over it.
Derails are only really effective at low speeds for the same reason the trains in the video stayed on the track. Momentum is a heck of a thing.
How the explosives are applied can also make a large difference on the damage they do. I saw an old video from the Swiss army where they used hand grenades against rails. In the first test they just placed the grenade next to it, and barely anything happened. In the next test they tied it to the rail (it was a stick-shaped HG 43 for those wondering) with a bit of wire. This time they managed to blow the rail apart (although after seeing this video I doubt a train would've noticed)
I love how I watched that video on its own the night before because you mentioned it and now I see this pop up. It was fate.
There was simply not enough whisky involved
I can imagine a French resistance fighter blowing a big chunk of rail out and watching as it continues on just fine
:Gallic shrug: Bof.
Love these sorts of old films.
Hi Mark this was an absolutely hilarious eye opener! If I saw that in a Hollywood movie I’d have not believed it! I’d think typical movie making fiction! But like you said Mark momentum and weight all make for just a bumpy glide over the rail abyss for choo choo! OMG! Professor so enjoy your commentary; thanks for this latest learning video and, as always, cheers to you!
If you saw it in a Hollywood movie, any gap in the rail would cause the train to leap 50ft in the air and produce an explosion big enough to take out a small town.
The Navy had no problems derailing a train. The USS Barb sent a team ashore in Japan to plant one of the submarine’s scuttling charges under the track, and wired it up with a pressure switch. When the next train came by a few minutes later, it went sky high. The landing party were still rowing back to the submarine, they started to double time it.
I think the secret is to not use your explosives until the locomotive is over it.
That's fine if you're in a situation where you have direct military support and are essentially on the front line. If you're trying to do sabotage ops behind enemy lines, you want to be able to sabotage as much as possible, without needing different equipment for different targets.
Just knowing how much weight is there and watching steel on steel hit like that, it almost makes my soul leave my body knowing just how hard of a force that would have felt being on that locomotive
Reminds me of some of the behind the scenes footage of the 2nd Zorro movie with Antonio Banderas.
For the big climax of the movie with a runaway train full of nitroglycerin, the final scene was done with models as using the real deal they'd dressed up for the movie was a no-go for obvious reasons.
Anywho, the special effects team lead for the scene said it was actually very difficult to get the train to derail like they wanted it to, hitting the earthen mound at the end of the track and rolling over into a big pile-up and explosion, touched off by the nitro blowing up from the jolt followed shortly thereafter by the boiler letting go.
They specifically mentioned that steam locos are really good at keeping their center of gravity on the wheels, and they had to resort to using weights high up in the models to throw off their balance as well as a few other tricks, as for the first try or two the train just wanted to keep rolling straight in a line through the dirt upright after coming off the tracks instead of rolling over and accordioning together.
I saw this video a few years ago, and my main reaction was "I wish my model trains were that resilient"
That poor old 2-8-0 was like "Can I go home now! How many times do I gotta run this crap?"
This footage was going around in war game communities for a little while. Impressively difficult to derail simply by moving the tracking was something.
I suspect if you removed a shorter piece and removed ballast you could just topple it to its side. More than anything else, destroying the locomotives would really harm an enemy, even if the cargo remains intact.
Considering the diameter of the wheels, I wasn't surprised that a 12in gap had minimal effect at these speeds. As for the third test, the 36in gap, it goes to show just how little suspension a steam locomotive has built in to it and just how much the trackbed does to give a smooth ride.
Should have asked us French. 60cm gauge trench railways were massively used in WWI, carrying ammo and troops on temporary badly laid tracks, and these things are close to impossible to derail.
Some of the same kind of railways are still use in harsh condition in sugar cane plantations in indo pacific islands. The amount of abuse these systems can take is tremendous .They actually runs trains on straights with no rails at all.
Fun fact, the first ever train to fly flew in WWII, and was promptly sunk. USS Barb submarine is still the only submarine to ever be credited for sinking a train
Just a switch derailed a big boy,
A bunch of explosives took out the tender of a little 2-8-0
Yeah makes sense.
The big boy was also going a lot faster off of a curve if I remember correctly
@@SamSammy-cb8nr I know, it was a joke. Satire doesn't always translate digitally very well.
Even then the engine would be back in service in no time.
This should be interestimg for any type of train enjoyer !!!
Thats such a cool video / tests
This is a perfect example of how suspension truely acts.
Most people tend to think its about ride comfort. When it reality the job of suspension is to mantain a contact with whats below it as an equal and opposite reaction. When the wheels fall off the rails the suspension is forcing that wheel to contact the ground so the wheel doest wobble as much.
Im probably not explaining it very well
also shows the advantages of a rigid frame.
The wheels just hover over the gap in the rails.
Me and the boys borrowing a SD70MAC from Union Pacific blasting free bird
This video is like The Fat Electrician and a train had a baby. It's brilliant!
Probably done on the "Crime and Punishment" - the Claiborne and Polk Military Railroad early in in World War Twice
USS Barb called. They sunk a train (technically)
If you havent read Thunder Below, it one of the best books writen on WW2 by the Barbs skipper.
The WWII OSS also had exploding coal. A partisan resistance operative would get exploding lump coal and a paint kit so they could make the exploding coal match the coal in the bunker(s) at the railroad. They would grab some sample coal, paint up the exploding to match and chuck it all back in a bunker to be loaded into a tender, or a furnace or a ??.
As a former Army Combat Engineer of the 21st Century, I gotta go dig out my Demolitions Handbook and see just what the modern schema is for rail demolition.
Crew of the USS Barb: "Got it, use the scuttling charge."
Tbh, I think the main takeaway a commando or someone else who’d sabotage a train would be to either do the rails on a curve, or if that’s not possible, rig the explosives to a pressure switch or the like.
I’ve seen this video myself, and I was blown away by how hard it was to derail it. IIRC, I decided you’d be best off rigging the explosives to deform the track, instead of just removing it.
That engineers got a pair, thats for sure.
The need to fit the loco with a Kadee coupler on the front. That trip pin will catch and derail on ANYTHING.
I work on the UK railway and I would just need a Hammer to knock out the Pandrol Clips or if the Fast clips I would use a heel bar. take enough clips out and nothing is holding the Rail to the Sleeper train comes along the Rail gauge is forced to widen and the wheel drops into the 4 foot. You could mess around with the points and the signals.
I have to think that gyroscopic action helps keep the wheels going the same direction (conservation of angular momentum and all that). It would make the wheels resistant to turning suddenly. It's possible that the weight of the loco/cars overwhelms this but I would think it would help keep the train on the track in the event of missing rail.
You're over-thinking it. There's nothing pushing the train sideways, so it doesn't go sideways.
Gritted my teeth watching what those poor trucks went through every time they hit the edge. That's a rough ride!
I'm wondering how much of that equipment went back into service after being put into storage.
(and if any of it is still in use today on some excepted class) )
I've said it before and I'll say it again, momentum is a hell of a drug.
These tests have had me excited since you first mentioned them. Thanks for covering this!
Ah! I love this film!
It's like at that point it's easier to carry a steel derailer than to mess around with C4 and removing loose sections of rail.
Thats incredibly cool! Helluva thing, momentum!
Submarine USS Barb sunk a train in WW2. The only troops to set foot on mainland during war. They made a presure plate device. I cant remember how big the charge was or what they used. It is a great story.
It was the scuttling charge meant for destroying their sub should they ever potentially be captured. Those things are pretty heavy, enough to sink a ship is definitely enough to start a locomotive space program lol
We need a bigger video of these... but considering the state of affairs worldwide, that would be like doing videos on the US army improv munitions guide.
All it takes is to cut a piece of rail and bend it in so the flanges on one side gets outside of the gauge. Same as a "runaway derail point". Once the engine gets outside the gauge the wheels will pull off the other rail and ride the ties until something really bad happens.
Another way is to defer maintenance for fifteen or twenty years. That will also derail a train.
I've watched the film lots of times .It takes a big section of rail . great film
I like the cheeky tone they take in the original film, but the way they delivered voiceover back then was so dry it's hard to tell he's yanking your chain, because he knows that train isn't going to derail.
You could always do what the crew of the USS Barb did to sabotage a train, and bury a submarine scuttling charge under a narrow gauge track with a janky pressure fuse.
Just imagine being the grunt Army engineers that are having to go in and repair track and rerail cars after each attempt. I suspect by the 4th or 5th time replacing a track section they are probably thinking let this be artillery's problem.
Oh, my crew trainer showed us this in our new hire orientation!
Caught that old video at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum a few days ago. Weird coincidence. LOL
they say no steam but as that loco passes by at 3:50 look at the tree as the funnel passes it does look like its steaming slightly, unless its just artifacts in the video
Beeing a former class 1 mngr I'm blown away how complicated it was to derail that train yet, I've seen derails under much slower and less complicated conditions 🤣
The difference is that they were trying to derail the train here.
Hey hyce i was part of the US Army 757th railway expeditionary center, what was once the Army's great railway operational battalions. Sadly a shadow of its former self. I highly recommend reading into the US Army's railroad history especially during WW2. If you ever get a chance to go to Fort Eustice, the training grounds for Army rail, they also have a great little museum full of the history of army railroading.
Cheers!
I love watching these
Where I work we play this video in our exhibit building so watching this is giving me PTSD
9:09 probably had a LIGHT fire... just enough to run the air comp to keep the brakes off
Just drain the air and you don't need to keep the brakes off. That's why cars need handbrakes.
In the rest of that video they showcase the European style trains of that time where most cars only had two rigid axles and were easily prone to derail. That explains why the rest of world eventually designed their train trucks similar to North American standard.
There's also another video from the time that demonstrates an explosive that has a photovoltaic fuse (essentially a light sensor) that was attached to a coupler. It would arm after entering a tunnel, due to lack of light, and would detonate when the train exited the tunnel as the light entering the sensor would trigger the fuse.