Bad day at Union Station, Chicago
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@Jolly said in Bad day at Union Station, Chicago:
Switch malfunction?
That would be my guess. I'll check out some of the forums and see what I learn.
When you have a disaster like this, it ripples throughout the system. Several "Hiawatha" trains (Chicago-Milwaukee) were cancelled because of obstruction of the tracks.
Also, Amtrak is so short of equipment that trains leaving Seattle and Portland for Chicagoare cancelled. I believe Amtrak has only 5 transets running the Empire Builder route, so if one of them goes bad, they're pretty screwed. Remember there are always 4 RB trains en route. Daily departures each way for a 50 hour journey.
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Michigan Mom said:
What is a picked switch?The response:
The leading cause of this type of accident.
The switch has several different parts and designs to cause the train to travel onto a different track. The movable points that are control by a switch stand. Manual or electronic. The point change position by a bar attached to the point and the switch stand. Something could have broken there. The switch frog is where the wheels actually cross over to a different track. The fog (sic) could have been worn enough not to work. There are enforcing bars that will push the wheel over the frog into the desired direction. These could have been broken.
In short the train did not go in the desired direction and try to travel down two different tracks at the same time. Either something failed or the switch was thrown under the train.(Unlikely) Once you remove the equipment it’s pretty easy to see what has happens.
