Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 83: 1943 Frankford Junction Wreck

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

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Welcome to um Well, there's your problem It's podcast been engineering disasters. It has slides Two and a half hosts today Yeah, two and a half Your hosts have been compressed into a soup like homogenous from extreme sleep deprivation I was gonna make a two and a half men joke, but I wasn't sure if that would be transphobic I

Think it's like it's funny if I'm that kind of non-binary. So let me just transgender again real quick So you can make that joke and then I'll say trans gen the back Trans trans gen as in transcend. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a verb. I'm gonna trans gen The what why do you think it's transgender because I you know, I trans gen I'm trans gending. Yeah You guys should see the rays emitting from her right now Yeah, they upgraded me to unreal engine five. I got all kinds of fucking ray tracing shit. Look at the shadows on you Wow, subsurface scattering. Oh my god. Oh 22 frames per second

Listen, do you want to prettier Alice or do you want to put an Alice for the higher frame rate? You know Yeah, give me that 144 Alice So all of a sudden you start getting blockier The polygons start disappearing How does that feel for you? Oh, I mean, you know, it's it's quite compassing really knowing that you're on potato compression Againification is a thing if you uh go go into a black hole But the black hole doesn't reduce the number of polygons. It just changes the

That's how we're gonna do quantum computing is we're gonna do video compression with black holes. There you go. We solved it We solved it Hit us up. Yeah. All right. Uh, welcome to well, there's your problem. It's a podcast About engineering disasters. It has slides. It's that simply yes I'm Justin Rosniak. I'm the person who's talking right now. My pronouns are he and him I am Alice Koldwell Kelly. I am the person who is talking now. I am very tired and my pronouns are she and her I know baby. We'll get through this together Hi, my name is Liam Anderson. Uh, no longer no longer

My pronouns are he and him what you see on the screen in front of you Um, you can see A signal bridge for a railroad You may notice it's leaning Yeah, it's a little bit of an angle, but it's fine. It's still good. You can fit a train onto that It hasn't been sipping that perp There is there's also a um, there is also a train underneath it on its side Well, that that's more of a problem

Yes, I think I hit by a really strong wind or something only do that when they're extremely, uh Stressed. Mm-hmm. Just knock the signal bridge over knock the train over to It's not supposed to be like this um Today we're going to talk about the 1943 uh, Frankfurt Junction derailment Of the congressional limited Oh

And it was uh, it was one of the last derailments caused by a very very old piece of railroad technology but First we have to do The goddamn news The internet is down with god genie. You're free. Yeah, it's it's over. It's done Um, we don't actually like at time of recording We're not entirely clear on how this has happened

Other than that facebook has locked their keys inside their own car. Yes Something about they've wiped the the dns is also not reporting. Yes, so facebook doesn't even exist right now basically Yes, facebook facebook is now uh is lost knows that this is we're recording this the day it happened Yes, details change and something different. There's something different on wednesday Don't go in the comments. We like actually i don't fucking care Essentially that nexus of like ass with my cs minor leave me alone of facebook uh, whatsapp instagram all down um, and like

White girls everywhere What's desperately funny about this aside from like the hubris of facebook putting their entire shit on servers that only they control and only they can access is that um, they're having some problems fixing it because All of their shit runs on internet of things. So facebook employees. I'm now hearing can't get into their offices Can't get into the conference rooms because all of those are controlled through uh software that lives On the server that they now can't access And it is amazing because they're tech guys

They don't realize that a crowbar is not just a thing from half life. There's one in real life you can use They're literally having to do this They're having to send a team to a data center in california to physically turn the thing on and off again To see if that's gonna work and I maybe they're gonna have to like ax their way through some doors I don't know. Maybe it's like black mason there It's like that south park episode With the giant router with the giant router. Yeah Much like black mason. It'll take 10 years to come out and what it does. Oh, yeah

And I mean this this does have like very serious consequences, but it's also hilarious is the thing This is very funny. Well, right before we recorded My own router decided To to be unhappy and just stop providing me with internet. Yeah, it's so embarrassing Yeah, I thought I thought it was just the whole internet was gone. I was like, okay Well for a lot of a lot of a lot of people in what you might loosely call the global south, right the internet basically is WhatsApp, this is a lot of people like south america the middle east africa Like a lot of people use whatsapp as they're like pretty much only means of internet-based communication

They're not going to all switch to fucking signal or whatever today, right? So for a Catastrophically large number of people The internet is just out and it's all because this guy decided to be a monopolist, which is great. Yes Man hell I was like I was thinking like oh boy. I should probably make some calls while the cell network is still up Oh my god, it's happening. Yeah, we all became preppers for about 10 minutes. Yes And I'm too lazy It's like, yeah, I'd probably just get eaten by wolves. Oh, whatever man. I'm fat I've spent most of my life auditioning for my role in post-apocalyptic hellscape as corpse

I'm like, I'm gonna try and die in an like environmental storytelling way like a Bethesda game Like I'm gonna fucking like paint like hope I don't get eaten by wolves on a wall and then immediately underneath it get eaten by wolves If it happens, it happens. I've you know You may have to horror of horrors talk to your neighbors Shut up. You don't talk to your neighbors now. You're fucking the weird. This is true I'm not denying besides besides besides pulling shit up the stairs for this venus You just like you might have to start a collective farm with your neighbors. My god

For those cafes, it's like talk to each other The people who write those signs are fucking creaming their jeggings at that Like we're just we are having to just talk to one another no wi-fi password and everyone hates it What's the difference between jeggings and skinny jeans? Um jeggings are stretchier Yeah, I guess I I think it's kind of a You know, I think the terminology is also a bit elastic is the thing. Oh, I see. I see. I mean, is it still denim if it's that elastic Yeah

Like listen Americans and britans have been getting faster and faster year on year And so like some of some of the world's finest material scientists Have made their careers on making stretchier denim to accommodate the girthier american You know, I think and this is uh development really of the chuck norris action jeans Yeah, gives you that room to move but like as a as a 42 inch waist holder myself Yeah, no, absolutely stretchy denim is uh Probably mankind's greatest invention can confirm. I have uh, I had a stitchfix

Uh subscription for a bit Uh, because I don't know if you know this but I'm not the world's most stylish man as many of you could probably guess We're also like we're kind of a big and tall podcast And I got a pair of uh, and I'm not a jeans wearer Uh, ross gonna test to this. I will show up anywhere and everywhere In basketball shorts. Yep. Yep. Yep. Liam is very anti-jeans They I don't like the way the fabric feels on my skin. Uh, I don't have autism that we know of I saw a denim like a buyer, right? You know the like full length rope

I saw one of those made of denim like a long denim jacket and I was like Yeah, great. That's fine until you get like rained on once and you die of blunt force trauma from all the fucking water hitting you I like shit to my girlfriend and all her friends love them some jean jackets I'm just like even the thumb like she's like you should get a jean jacket. No. Nope. Nope. No denim for Liam. Nope No, I own two pairs of jeans and that's two more than I want to own Yeah, I wear these jeans to go to canadian's funerals I like jean jackets, but only when girls wear them. I wouldn't wear them. I'd never do that That's weird. Yeah, I kind of got a thing for two jackets and we're all just going to talk about what we like

All right, all right Goes and goes and jean jackets fucking DM each of us. I guess oh and glasses if if you Thank you in other news other than jeans What we like M-Track's empire builder derailed last week Yeah, you got yelled at for being insensitive on the internet. I did get yelled at for being insensitive about it

I was also on an m-track long distance train at the time um You were praying for derailment, but god missed and hit the empire builder instead No, I would not like to derail on on the southern crescent because we would go straight into lake poncha train Uh, yeah, you could swim Yeah, but can you swim and kick out a window? You have to get out of the car before you can swim. Yeah, yeah, whatever dude logistics logistics Where did this derail this one was in montana? Um, this is the beautiful undulating landscape. Yes

um, and uh, no one's quite certain how this one happened yet either, um You know some switch so it may have been the switch. It may have not been the switch The switch seems like the most likely culprit here But um, you know the the idea that the you know m-track would pick a switch on territory that's good for 80 miles an hour is um very very uh damning of uh, burlington norther santa fe's uh maintenance of that switch That's fair On the other hand given some of the stories we've heard about railroad maintenance on this show

Uh, some of the stories we're about to hear about railroad maintenance on this show um Well, we can we also can't rule out, uh, my favorite cause of any accident sabotage Lothman, this is true Like what about that one train that like derailed they figured out it was sabotage and they never caught anybody I just have a couple times out west. Yeah Well, um, uh, I mean one of the interesting theories I saw put forward is that this switch is in montana Yeah, it's controlled from seattle

Wow Facebook you bastard Controlled through whatsapp Yeah, exactly The switch changed underneath the train Oh my god It's like what people thought y2k was gonna be like planes falling out of the sky and shit. Yeah. Yeah Incredible

So, yeah, that's another piece of news and we don't know why it happened much like facebook. Maybe they're related Did anyone die? I think three people died Mark Zuckerberg has a lot to answer for I was about to say yeah Well, I was I'm not going to numbers of like drug deals going wrong in South America and Africa right now, which are So, you know What we're saying is that it's it's good to help drug dealers communicate more clearly because that helps avoid misunderstandings in a business where

Misunderstandings tend to lead to like gunfights. That is what we're saying. Yes. I see. Thank god. We're being uh, So direct and unequivocal about it Listen, it's a rough business on account of being illegal So if we can't legalize Drugs if we can't legalize selling dope then we we got to at least Ensure that they have good communication methods. I think generally speaking most of the cartels don't have huge problems with each other Except except when they can't communicate right communication is the foundation of any healthy relationship That is true

Justin rosniax solves the cartels You just have to get everyone in a room and they can talk it out. Yeah A guy tried that in mexico didn't didn't work out so well for him. Uh Yeah, well, he he probably wasn't as skilled as I am. I'm not saying I'm gonna do it But Yeah, you're gonna fucking be the like next uh, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, but you're gonna have fucking uh, like signal instead Yes Exactly

So with that in mind Let's talk about trains One second. I have one more piece of news. Oh, I was about to hit the drop but go ahead. Uh, so I at C The I forget what to say answer. It's the film union. It's the big film union 95 International lines of theatrical stage 95

Plus vote yes for strike authorization Dudes rock shout out specifically to new york local 600 Uh, my friend josh is a member of that union. Uh, he is giddy with anticipation about striking Uh, hopefully they do vote they authorize the strike Uh, my I know that it's not specifically josh's experience necessarily. I don't want to get him in trouble Uh, but uh, the film industry Uh, is is is a killer. Uh, you're talking 15 hours. Hollywood bun. Yeah We actually just got an email from unnamed reader

Uh, they specifically asked I not named them about the possibility of doing it. Uh, a film industry episode Which would be interesting. Oh, yeah. So yeah, uh, strike forever solidarity with iatsy solidarity with new york local 600 Uh burn motherfucker Yes Bunch of Cecil B. DeMille guys and riding jodpas getting really upset right now All right, so the first thing I think we need to do in this episode

About the 1943 frankford junction train wreck Is find out what is frankford junction? A place where nothing bad ever happened. It's it's it's this thing In between the one dollar store and ballroom dance lessons philadelphia Yes, also the garage mahal is right up here Pete's clown house Don't go there. I don't know Pete's clown Do not I need you to actually promise me you won't go there. What the fuck is a pete's clown house do not go there

I'm not sure I want to I'm not gonna go there. But I want to know what it is You don't want to know I think just off screen is um, just off screen is one pound cheese steaks Which is very good. That is actually I love I love that we have pete's clown house across the street From angelo's pizza house like two four so Okay frankford junction, right? um

So the earliest connection from philadelphia to like places north of philadelphia, right was the philadelphia and trenton railroad Which in trenton connected with the united railroads of new jersey for service to new york city or the united companies, excuse me um, so that was the philadelphia and trenton railroad It terminated in a station in a neighborhood called kensington, right? um kensington is where you get the drugs Yeah, no, not very much like kensington in london then. No, kensington is A hard neighborhood in philadelphia. Yes

Uh to put it very lightly um, so the original right-of-way runs sort of like this You know, and it continues going down To trend or excuse me to the kensington station, which no longer exists, of course, of course um So the pennsylvania railroad, right? Terminated at several stations in the early days in philadelphia. Most of them were on market street, right? They'd bring the train to the city limits

And then they would detach the locomotive They'd hook the cars up to horses and the horses would pull them into the station The last two or three miles Right Every everyone loved this. I assume. Oh, yeah. It was uh, fantastic Uh, it was great for you know throughput. It was great for passengers. Everyone loved it It was just a great great situation for all involved parties, right? If all of us are mule teams and none of us are mule teams

So this was um, that was for trains coming uh going and coming from the west uh to and from pittsburgh, right? um And then to the south there was another railroad called the philadelphia wilmington and baltimore, right? And they terminated the station at broad in washington, which is actually still there. It's part. It's now a grocery store And a target Huh. Oh, yeah. Well, they put a they put a five over one next to it, which looks awful Um, it's sort of incorporated. I don't mind it that much. I don't like it. I think it's a really bad building Really? Oh, yeah, I'm not I'm

I'm all this shitty new development philly. That's one that doesn't really offend me. It's uh, You know the the randomly placed windows in the metal panel Sound like they pull that whole paradigm of building. I am very against It looked better before civic design review got to it. I will say that You know, I anything that goes through civic design review comes out the other side looking a hell of a lot worse Anyway, you had three railroads three stations. None of them connected with each other very effectively, right? Her face that that's efficiency. That's the market They would just take if you had to move a car from one railroad to the other

Um, and I think in the beginning they even had different gauges But if you had to take a car from one railroad to the other or in the early days You had a sectional canal boat that you brought from one railroad to the other um, you had to Hitch it behind a horse And drag it through the city on tracks in the streets, right? Um, and this is a time sink. It was bad for travelers bad for revenue bad for everyone, right even after through rocks at y'all Oh, yeah. Well, I still do that. Um

It's philly tradition Teams just praying on your insecurities. He's like, yeah, nice canal boat horse boy and you're just like Oh Dude 1840s teens must have been terrifying. Oh, yeah Following you down the street on fucking spring healed boots terrifying like doing doing wheelies on a horse somehow In front of the omnibus I love the idea of like walking past a stoof and there's a bunch of like intimidating 1840s teens playing like hoop and stick

I Don't like being called scrotum face So even after the pennsylvania railroad gained control of all of these railroads There were still this horse car situation for a long time and a solution was devised which was called the connecting railroad, right? so the connecting railroad traveled from The pennsylvania railroad mainline at manchewa junction, which is now called zoo interlocking It's called zoo because interlockings have a three letter code and this one is next to the philadelphia zoo

And this went through the relatively undeveloped northern parts of philadelphia And it connected with the philadelphia and trenton in a neighborhood neighborhood called frankford, right? Hence frankford junction. So this is the connecting railroad here on this nice broad curve, right? I see This railroad was completed in 1867 and quickly became the pennsylvania railroads Not the main line the northeast corridor from new york city to washington dc though. There were still some bottlenecks north and south especially south in baltimore where They almost managed to assassinate lincoln when he was being dragged through the city on a horse car

Oh, yeah, they had like bodyguards with knuckle dusters and shit Interesting times So over time frankford junction like expanded right the uh They opened something called the del air bridge. That's this line heading over here that goes to south jersey They opened that in 1895. So now there were trains from south jersey and the shore in the mix Um, by the 1940s it had come into what was essentially its modern form, right, which is a sort of complex junction

That you know sorted a whole bunch of trains from a four track main line and a two track main line and the uh, philadelphia and kensington branch, which by this time was significantly less important Right kind of kind of thing that you open up the like route map and train simulator and you're like, oh, this makes my head hurt Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's it's it's uh transport tycoon shit And it's like where you don't like realize that you're trying not to like demolish anything So you're just building lines around other lines Yes

Horrifyingly complex great. Perfect. Yes. It's known today for having an especially slow curve In a section of otherwise high speed track, but that's not actually our subject for today right Okay, um, because uh, both sides of this uh, both sides of this junction are good for like 110 I believe but the curve itself is good for 50 Um, yeah Yeah Luckily this has never been an issue as we know

Yes um All right Thank thank you to tom colletti for this uh meme that I used for this slide I I don't like a position light. Uh, I I don't like them. Thank you. I like position lights a lot I think they're cool. I think they're less clear Well, there's also color position lights, which is what m-track uses now Um, just just use the fucking like traffic light. Do you use a like

Red a double yellow like a flashing yellow Single yellow and a green just do that. Just do that. Just use just use fucking normal block signal Like a normal country. Have you seen the rule book? Yeah, there are a lot more aspects than that. You have to come We'll just fucking put a purple lens on there and shit this this stuff you can do like Uh, I don't know Whatever you do, it's better than german second line. This just says take the third rike So the pennsylvania railroad, right?

Had the optimum east coast mainline the northeast corridor, right as early as like 1870 something, right? And they were dealing with as a result increasing traffic like lots and lots of Railroad traffic. They didn't know what to do with right um So some of your traditional methods of increasing capacity Uh, especially in the 1800s for railroads, you would add more tracks, right? You eliminate some of the bottlenecks like especially in baltimore. They built the b and p tunnel Which um eliminated the horse car segment of that journey

They built the bridge over the susque hannah which eliminated the rail ferry, right? But at some point you couldn't really add more tracks effectively And you couldn't really there were no bottlenecks left to eliminate Other than like, okay Maybe we got to build a four track tunnel instead of a two track tunnel Or maybe we got to build a four track bridge instead of a two track bridge. Imagine that was expensive Imagine if railroad engineering followed the principles that would later come to define highway engineering and the answer was We do 28 track

Yeah, 28 track northeast corridor. Exactly. Yes um That was almost considered for one of the early designs for penn station. That's a different episode Very wide train hall. Yes. So, uh, they were experimenting with new methods for allowing more trains to use the same number of tracks, right? um One of them was automatic air brakes, right? Which slowly became ubiquitous across the industry in the late 1800s, right? Which allowed trains to stop much more quickly or you had automatic air brakes on trains

If you wanted to stop the train what had to happen was You have a brake man. Yeah, you have a brake man It was a passenger train. He had to go back through the cars Set all the brakes individually on each car using a big wheel, right? And if it was a freight train He had to walk on the top of the cars All the way back the train set all the brakes individually, right? And sometimes he would fall off and die

Yeah, kind of shit that makes, uh, conservatives be like, ah jobs when men were men Yes Um, and now it was bad because if he fell off and died number one, he was dead Number two, the train couldn't stop All right, so lesson one don't fall lesson two through ten don't fall off the train So but in the late 1800s and early 1900s we're talking prior to 1910, um Pennsylvania Railroad experimented with a lot of other safety devices like illuminated electric signals um

Automatic train stop systems, right? There was uh, they were On the fence for a while about whether they would control their trains using signals or automatic train stop Um, you know, there there was this Thought in the 1800s. Yes. Yeah, we can't get ptc figured out in They had they they experimented with um cab signals even Um, I think those weren't until the 20s Um, but that was uh, that was implemented before the northeast corridor had electric traction Jesus wow

You know, and this is all to improve safety, but also allow for denser railroad traffic You can run trains closer together, right? And they created a lot of the infrastructure that runs the northeast corridor to this day, right? so You know, they um, they had a very advanced system going on the pennsylvania railroad There was one technology though that was very slow to be applied and those were Roller bearings, right? Point to me the roller bearings here roller bearings. You see these these blue guys?

Right, you have a you have a bearing on top. You have your roller your rollers are in there, right? This is how the weight is transferred from the truck onto the um from the car Onto the truck Onto the axle onto the wheel onto the rail, right, right? Okay So, you know, you have this issue where you're trying to transfer this weight onto a rotating shaft, right?

so You need bearings right and and in the Early 20th century and before these bearings were very very primitive um, you know, so You had something called the plane bearing Right or the friction bearing Or the journal bearing

It's a couple of names for this. Is this really I see here that it's on fire. That's bad Yeah, you don't that's that's the That's the good axle is going to be on fire is yes, that's going to be yes. Um, um, um, this is a very bad thing Which we will get to shortly So your original railroad cars the weight was transferred by means of a plane bearing or a friction bearing So you have this thing called a journal box, right? Which is this box here that's on fire, right? And it's full of oil and rags

Hell yeah, yeah, I I I okay. I do kind of love the 19th century's approach to fire safety. It's just like Yeah, listen, where else am I going to store my oily rags on it? Yeah Well, you know, what do you mean my warehouse is burned down? That's where I keep all of my oily rags You need the oily rags Because the oily rags Continuously luke lubricate the rotating shaft Industrial society is a conspiracy to generate as many oily rags as possible And then you have to find like use cases for me about my period. Jesus Christ

So I have a draw for this lube oils Thank you. Thank you um So this was um, so you know, this is uh, this is in order to continuously lubricate the rotating shaft Which is in contact with the bearing pad. Yeah, right? Which is you're getting through this with a straight face Because I'm just I mean, I'm hard to tell when you talk about lubrication Engineering this is Engineering

There's nothing funny about this. There's nothing listen. Don't be immature. There's nothing funny about lubricating shafts Rotating shaft a rotating shaft You should see a doctor What you're gonna do prescribe me some fucking oily rags Yeah, that's you know, it's all the people in red are talking about oh, I have a sex rag because all they want to do is brag about having sex And and you know, it also makes the traits run. So do for one really. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm So this plane bearing right works very well

Um, it can handle a lot of weight. It can handle high speeds Except if there's an issue and there's a couple issues that can happen One of which is you can have a spark somehow With this high speed on the railroad next to the wheels Yes That can set the oil on fire and then you run out of oil Because the problem is not the fire itself The problem is when you run out of oil if there's a leak there and the oil leaks out

You can also have a problem, right? Oh, so just keep spraying oil into the fire. That's that's how I do it That's what you're gonna have to do. Yeah, so if that happens You lose the lubrication Oh, no shaft starts to heat up And it heats up very rapidly into very high temperatures, right? And this creates something called a hot box I believe you mean every day you meant testicular torch

So a hot box Before it had its modern meeting A hot box was a journal box wherein this bearing was contained Which was overheating on fire about to fail, right? Because once you ran out of oil this bearing would You know just heat up exponentially to the point where

The the shaft would fail Right and the axle breaks and derails the train. Yes Uh, yeah, you you basically you you break the axle the train falls down onto the tracks It usually caused an absolutely catastrophic derailment Because these failures are much more likely to happen at high speed than low speed. These are all wooden Are we still in the wooden cars there? We are are we? Oh, yeah, we still have wooden cars Yeah, just just in general you don't see a lot of axle failures in modern train accidents like the yes That's a relatively resilient part. Yeah

So this is mostly a solved problem. It took a surprisingly long time to solve it. We'll get to that later So you needed to pay really careful attention to all of these journal boxes when the train was going down the railroad you actually have um Designated points where you know the train would slow down There'd be men on each side of the track and they would you know, look at every single journal box as the train passed right And if the uh, if the train had no problems, they'd give the signal the train was all black right

Because nothing was red hot in there, right? Oh, and otherwise, you know, they stopped the train the black edition. Yes So in but also in order to slow it down to do that a guy has to run along the roof of every Like this is an extremely dangerous jobs program all around very very very labor intensive Yeah, um lots of people losing uh Anything from fingers to limbs. Yeah Are you drinking bourbon? No, I'm drinking fancy, but I put ice in it. Oh smart girl

I'll kill for a fancy right now You know, it's a Nazi drink. Yeah, I was about to say killed for a Listen listen between that and the Volkswagen two two good ideas the only good ones they had What about uh, what about Nutella? Uh, was Nutella nazi too? You're gonna fucking Where's italian? What?

Yeah, fuck Shit, I mean, uh, jesus. Okay. I Wow Yes Welcome back to genocide chat. Well, welcome back to genocide chat. So I'm I'm I love it horrified there I love in Nutella and uh, yeah, no It is nothing I like not a product of fascism at which point you remind me I live in britain and it's just like, oh Okay

You know, I sometimes you just you know, you have to you have to just enjoy the things you enjoy And um, you know, if it's fascist how many jews died in concentration camps If it makes you feel better alice There I was little 18 year old liam And I loved Nutella And as an 18th birthday present to myself I imported a five kilo. That's 11 pounds for those of you in the states Jar of Nutella that rolls good idea. I

started eating it I but I can no longer actually eat Nutella the smell like the mention of it upsets my stomach It's like it's like the thing where the kid's dad catches them smoking makes them smoke the whole pack At the end it turned into like Nutella soup And my friend adam I remember would just go into the my kitchen with the spoon and come out like 20 minutes later Uh, just having done what I can only assume was sex with the Nutella It's got that gorilla grip about us. What's a young man supposed to know?

I I I don't like this this lube oil discussion at all So anyway, these journal boxes had to be lubricated very frequently to ensure reliable operation. Hopefully I'll get a lot of Nutella in there. Yeah And this was something that was um, you know, recognized as a serious problem early on in railroading We're not recognized as a serious problem, but people had solutions for it. But it wasn't until 1899 When uh, henry timpkin Founded the timpkin roller bearing company right

And timpkin had some ideas how to reduce friction and the hazards associated with plane bearings by Replacing them with roller bearings, right wheels within wheels quite literally. Yes I mean a roller bearing is a really really old idea, right? You know the simplest roller bearings out there were used by the ancient egyptians to like move giant blocks of stone By putting logs underneath them, you know the Roll do you mean first by the ancient? Israelites to do that. I believe that's a true man. Yeah, but like being supervised by aliens That's about

That's the hierarchy on the job site is gray alien egyptian is In fairness the aliens did pass down the technology to build the jewish space laser Okay, so we're talking about roller bearings, right? So you have a your shaft Turns in sort of a pocket, right and I see steel cylinders on the outside Right which sort of roll against the outer casing. They're in a a guideway called a race right So you have very low friction you have very low maintenance you have less things to catch fire and catastrophically fail They are however

more expensive Mm-hmm Also, it is insane how much shit like when we used a lot of like heavy sort of direct Mechanical stuff like this how much you need bearings because like this was a thing that I uh, I got into through military history when you'd see shit like the um The u.s. And british like bombing campaign over germany you'd see like Oh, yeah, they destroyed like an entire city and like two thirds of the aircrews got killed in order to blow up a ball bearing factory You're like, well, why would you need to blow up a factory that makes ball bearings?

And the answer is because you use them in anything that like Use them exactly. Yeah, exactly um, so Timkin they had some difficulty marketing these uh, these roller bearing systems For a long time and one thing that really changed the tide was when they uh, they did their big publicity stunt They commissioned the out american locomotive company Alco to build this locomotive the timkin four aces Right because it looks great one one one one

It also had the the the four Cards, what do you call it? the um The like suits like suits they got the four suits on the uh steam dome here um You know they built this as the first all roller bearing equipped locomotive um And they sent it on demonstration tours around the country

um, and it had incredibly superior performance right um, just based on how little friction there was um, and it was uh It's very very successful. It could you could pull heavier loads It could you know, I could do all kinds of stuff right catch fire a lot less. It did not catch fire even once Which is incredible for the time. Yes um, this this locomotive actually after they uh, they did the publicity stunt

The northern pacific bought it and used it in regular service until 1957 um And then when they found out it was being retired timkin was like hey, we want to buy this thing and you know Put it on like in front of our offices Uh northern pacific was like, yeah, this is a great idea and then during negotiations. They accidentally scrapped it um, oh So railroad management is not good. Um, no So

you know Roller bearings didn't really become standard on equipment though until after world war two, right? Um, and of course You know, they they they became standard on passenger equipment a little bit earlier though Uh, because they gave a smoother ride um I don't think they I don't think the first freight cars with roller bearings showed up until like Just after world war two Imagine that's not a huge priority. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who cares if uh, you know, a cattle car catches on fire, you know

The castle probably yeah, well, you're gonna kill them anyway This is just nice for fighting the processor. What you've done is you've created a smoker. Yes So now with that in mind We should talk about The pennsylvania railroad's p70 coach And it's a good looking coach. It does look very good. Uh, I always thought it was a really good looking one Um, you know, someone made a model of it for transport fever. I don't know who I thought it looked very nice So I put it right right here. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a great look. Yeah, exactly

um So anyway in the 19 odds, right Before 1910 pennsylvania railroad was in a bit of a situation. They were in a jam, right? They were building this big new thing called pennstation Right pennstation was underground With long approach tunnels on both sides, right? And it seemed Unwise to run conventional wooden passenger cars into it, right?

Um, all steel rail car. Oh, yes The first production one. Yes This uh, this this development scheme led to a car called the p70 the p70 The p is for passenger the 70 is 70 feet between the bulkheads I I I see on the schematic here on the bottom left. They have a p70 broiler What what what is what that I have no clue

Hmm Listener, if you know what a p70 broiler is, uh, just go ahead and let's know Yeah, I'm thinking like yeah, you got your you got your broiler chicken. You have your What's the other car your rotisserie? So You know, this is uh 70 feet between bulkheads first one sat 88 passengers later one sat 80 passengers Uh, I think they eventually settled on 72 once they were renovated a couple more times It's about 80 feet coupler to coupler

um And this was the first of what we would call heavy weight cars, right All steel cars clear story roof, right? You can sort of see up here Most of these most of these types of heavy weight cars had six axles the p70 had four though um, and you know what one of the things that Uh, what was a characteristic of heavy weight cars was they were extremely heavy Which was thought to provide a better ride

um and These p70 cars were built in several batches by several manufacturers A lot of them have differences between each other, right? You know, so Your earliest cars had lower numbers in like the 1000 series. They had friction bearings plane bearings, right? And the newer cars Which are built in the teens in the 20s and I think even into the 30s. Um They had higher numbers. They were in the 3000 and 4000 series

They had roller bearings. They had air conditioning. You can tell on air conditioned car because it has this, um This little protrusion right up here, right? I love I love to be in the 1920s and my air conditioned cab signaled Uh, like holy shit, we controlled train thinking the railroads are gonna get better every year forever. Yes who Knows what they'll be riding in in uh in in 2021 in 2021 Jesus exactly So over the lifetimes of these cars, they were refurbished and upgraded many times the last ones were not retired until the early 1980s Jesus Yeah, new jersey transit was running some there was also a a train that ran out of chicago called the valparaiso dummy

Which uh, I was using them until it was discontinued I kind of I kind of like that though. It's like some uh, sustainability, you know, you built the thing to last and at last Yeah, they're serious about it in railroads The most the most efficient the most ecological railroad car is the one you've already built. This is true um During the 30s a couple of these were dressed up to look like more modern lightweight cars um So, you know, they they sort of put some sheet metal over the clear story

And then they ruined it in fancy and they were like, yeah, they did liposuction to them It doesn't really lose you any weight, but it makes it look a bit thinner. Yes So god, I want liposuction With this knowledge We should look at The congressional limited on september 6 1943. Oh good a specific date Yes, it looks looks incredible though. Check out that thick layer of grime covering everything. It's the war alice Yeah, it is actually this is a color photograph from uh

um Something that sort of looks like what the train would look like but this is From the 60s. I think oh still looks fucking great. You have a thick layer of grime. You have um They they they can't do the lowie pinstripes anymore. So they got the one thick stripe on the gg one Um, they got the the big keystone wouldn't have been there, but you can see the p70 coach is back here, right? um so September 6 1943 the congressional limited left washington dc

About four in the afternoon, right? It's scheduled for a non-stop journey to new york city a non-stop. It does stop in Newark, new jersey That's the only stop it makes right famous for being new york That's why they're on the same side of the river and everything. The most convenient way to get to lower manhattan Was get on the hudson in manhattan in new york Right now the path So most trains were scheduled to stop there. In fact, that's why most trains are scheduled to stop there to this day um

sort of uh inertia right This was a scheduled three and a half hour trip Which is better than the acella schedule. Yep Remember what they sold from y'all Just thinking back to our 1920s Very old passenger being like man, the future is going to be amazing. The future is going to be amazing. Yeah

Um, it was also labor day. So the train was longer than usual, right? There are a bunch of passengers on board who were soldiers on leave from world war two They were coming back from fighting nazis to go visit their families and then we're going to go back and fight some more nazis, right? All right, so so now here's Here's where we have to think about some numbers, right? uh, so The train was made up of 49 30 which is a gg1 this electric locomotive here

Well, the coach is talking about I've ever built. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. The coaches were 47 zero six 38 54 39 40 37 51 39 71 38 61 18 60 39 41

I see the problem immediately. Yeah, I was gonna say I was I was like, oh others mean that they're not sequential but So the ones two thousand when you set this up with that they made these in two flavors the like 3000 dish series which had the roller bearings and the ones before that which didn't And then you read me a list of numbers all of which are over 3000 apart from one Well, here's the interesting thing Um, the later series were also built with plain bearings to my knowledge So they were modernized with roller bearings. Oh, okay. Okay earlier series was modernized

Before roller bearings were a thing. They knew what to do oh So so they modernized it with the same like fucking hot box bearings, but then they were like, well, we've already modernized it What do you want exactly? Yeah We're not gonna spend the money again chart. Yeah, and then behind those were um A couple other coaches. There was um or cars. There was uh, there was the lunch counter kitchen car There was a dining car. There was a parlor car There was a second parlor car. There was a third parlor car

Jesus christ Look the pullman company was uh, I I'm making up making bank off of this train Uh, they had a sleeping car for some reason. I don't know. I assume that's a We're in the half hour like I I imagine it was a through car to somewhere else. Um, they had a force. It's in the force. You're just like, yeah I gotta go in the back and like Yeah, exactly and do some morphine, which is totally legal still

I have to uh, I have to consult with my secretary about important business All right this way mr. Rosniak So coach 1860, you know was it was a modernized car. It was modernized in 1935. It was built in 1909, right? Um, and because it was modernized early, it still had the friction bearings, right? So this Proved to be an issue I see

Wow always well with this train until it reached a point just um She would say westward of frankford junction, right? There's a man in the rail yard. He spotted an overheated bearing in Guess which car The 1800 one. Yeah, 1860 car number seven. Yeah, I did it So The train was traveling between about 45 and 70 miles an hour. There's a lot of conflicting uh reports here um But either way he couldn't like

Immediately stop the train because whatsapp was down, right? Let's back up now apparently. This is true So the train was you know traveling at a moderate rate of speed. It wasn't going super fast, right? And he called to another worker who was closer to the signal tower to tell the signal tower to stop the train That guy ran up to shore tower Uh shore tower was what's up? Yo, this train is jacked lmao Yes Exactly. Well, it is called shore tower because it controls The switches that send a train to the jersey shore

So you went to I'm guessing this guy didn't run fast enough He didn't quite make it there in time So they called ahead to the next tower homesburg junction to tell him to stop the train there, right? um, and it was uh just a little bit too late right So car 1860 which was the seventh car of the train It had a hot box on the left front axle, right? um

As it passed shore tower just beyond the frankfurt l bridge Right that bearing completely failed so The front of car 1860 collapsed onto the tracks And then it sort of vaulted over Right. Oh shit

And over and for several hundred feet down the line until it whacked into with a signal bridge, right? Which uh peeled the roof off like a like a can of sardines Spectators said And then it came to a rest Um the following car car number eight, which you see here um Derailed in a less dramatic, but no less deadly fashion. It sort of wrapped itself around the signal bridge support

In what they described is sort of a u-shape now. I'm looking at this photograph. It doesn't look like a u-shape to me, but You know look look if you follow the like top edges the the carriage down you can see it's got like it's more like a v-shape But it's going to end in it like a boomerang The following cars Also derailed and sort of scattered themselves along this four track right of way, right? Oh shit, we lost the sleeping cow with a bunch of drunk guys in it. It's about to say I follow even a 20 of 28 right of way If they were heavily if they were heavily enough asleep, maybe they'd be fine. Yeah, go limp. Just go limp. Go

Stay loose buddy That's our advice for surviving any disaster is just go limp Ideally be as drunk as possible Everyone behind the coaches was drunk on 75 martinis So The train derailed right, you know, it was really bad um, the wreck was heard for like miles around in fact, um It was heard as far away as the william cramp shipyard

Which was two and a half miles southwest of the accident, which is right Just south of the place we now called graffiti pier right Um Workers at that shipyard were among the first people on scene They did just brought Settling torches and all kinds of crap to cut open the damaged train cars to rescue the injured and you know recover the dead um

Now recovery took more than 24 hours. I mean it was a nasty scene Um, yeah, looks it. Yeah, that stands tourism Everyone was killed was in car seven or eight There were a number of serious injuries. There were 79 dead 113 injured from his incident Do not hot box your train I recommend using roller bearings if you can But one of the things I found most interesting about this particular disaster is the investigation and its conclusions

Right. Oh, did they cover it up because of the wool? No Uh, so the interstate commerce commission was tasked with investigating the wreck and said It is found that the accident was caused by a broken journal Uh-huh Well, that was the end of the report All right There weren't like recommendations as to how to prevent this from occurring in the future

There wasn't like any kind of You know, it's just sort of like the whole the whole thing was based around well, you know Sometimes things just break and there's nothing we can do about it Oh, that's a wartime spirit to build this country Who's not to say it's up the whole reports like nine pages Jesus So it's um, it was just bizarre to me that there was no like, okay, they weren't gonna issue any recommendations They weren't gonna do anything this sort. I I mean one of the weird things about roller bearings is something the railroad sort of adopted organically as opposed to

having any regulations put on them because you know You know plane bearings clearly an obsolete technology, right, which is on its way out Uh, the federal railroad administration Finally banned them for interchange service in 1994 What that is prompt. Yes Solid 51 years later

I That's incredible. They are still legal for captive service. What does that mean captive service means you don't hand off the car to another railroad well Well, it's a good thing we don't have railroads that just couldn't you know Run a train entirely within their own network for thousands of miles. I was about to say I believe uh, uh You're not going to see Break out the class once You do occasionally see some journal bearing cars in like maintenance away service on the class one railroads

Not very often. Um Sometimes if you like have a weird railroad like the florida sugar railroad They use a lot of journal bearing cars Um, you certainly will not see them in passenger service though Small mercies Yes, also What is it with uh catastrophic train crashes and the troops uh the the train being filled with troops? Because like we'll get to this if we ever do quents and so but that was another one where it was like a

Like it was a troop train. So I don't know why it's like some kind of correlation there It's probably because there was just so much railroad traffic during world war two Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, he's had more trains running. You have more. Um And this without being like bombed and stuff. Yeah, yes So uh, but luckily, you know the government acted eventually and um You know nothing speedy speedy regulation speedy regulation speedy and effective regulation

Nothing bad happened at frankford junction ever again until 2013 um There's a 2012 no good. Yeah It's that's that's like, uh, like the way my dad drives trying to figure out whether to take an exit or not off the motorway Um Well when I I was at college when this accident occurred and I was like, well, well, it's a good thing the tank cars weren't uh parked closer to um The right of way

Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what have we learned from from this? Don't use plain bearings On your railroad don't use plain bearings on your railroads. Do not use the oily rag box I don't know if any railroad owners listen to this podcast Warren Buffett, I'm calling you out But it's like really weird I I didn't I realize until I I did the research for this one that the uh that that you could run cars with journal bearings until

1994 they were banned in 1991 on hazardous material shipments though. So that was a little more prompt Um Well, I mean like Playing devil's advocate for a second clearly that was fine, right? Because there was no like giant accident that required the federal government to ban them sooner I think one of the one of the big things about um, you know, passenger train safety In this country, especially since 1971 is there's so many fewer passenger trains that you just don't have the accidents That you know, you would otherwise have if you had a more more extensive network sort of like

The sort of like bloody thing that would require better regulation. Yeah But also like sometimes when you have these accidents the regulation that comes out is really stupid and bad um, that's uh, that's uh, when we do the um Port defiance bypass accident. I will go off on that one um, hell, yeah You know, I it's um It's uh, it's it's just weird Uh, you know that it took so long for anything to be done about especially when they came out with a report that said

Yeah, this kind of bearing is inherently unsafe Well, the federal government had a war on that was you know, they were distracted. This is true Well, I figure the interstate commerce commission wasn't too concerned about the war You know, they had other things that you know, they're just regulating interstate commerce Rather than doing war Hmm Although I have no idea Yeah, probably all of the guys who used to work on it were like at that moment in fucking ansio or something

Yeah, they were there on Omaha Beach Yeah Dreaming of roller bearings Mm-hmm Well That was the 1943 brankford junction wreck Hell, yeah, we have a segment on this podcast called

safety third Shake hands for danger Greetings from Delaware Wtyp No, let's just end the episode now Well, thanks for coming Delaware is a failed state Listen, listen, they've produced a president, you know I'm so did we it was Buchanan. Is that something you're proud of? Oh my god

I'm a chemical engineer Who's worked in a number of different industries over the years? I have far too many stories of safety related idiocy Well a process man am I? Yes This particular anecdote does not involve any injuries or property damage But is a cautionary tale about the safe handling of hazardous liquids Oh, no

It was a monday morning in early march in lovely westchester, pennsylvania Oh boy home of the intersection of high and gay streets I don't see baby. I don't see all day, baby When I got to work in front of the building where my office was There was a tanker truck This was not an uncommon occurrence as drivers would have to wait Uh, if there was not an open space at one of the off-loading stations I thought nothing of it and went inside

It turned out the truck was full of glacial acrylic acid gaa I don't know what that is Um, and the load had been rejected by our quality lab because it was too hot Like stolen or no, it was temperature wise too hot. Oh, okay Uh, I I'm sure if um They were in the business of receiving stolen goods Yeah, I run a chemical chop shop. I I received tanger trucks of stolen chemicals Constantly

We just have we just have a bunch of That fell off the truck Come down come down the crazy Chemical storage warehouse, my name is crazy ross any chemical you want I got Once again, that's crazy roses. If I'm too hungover to answer the door knock five times and I'll be right with you That's crazy roses chemical All I can say is we have a PO box. Do not send us unknown chemicals speak for yourself Got a water cooler in the corner. It's full of hydrogen fluoride

Suck that so don't go Just knocking it over like I could do it too. What's that? What's that really bad one? Uh, poof Oh, one of the fluorines. Yeah. Yeah, it's a fluorine oxygen oxygen fluorine And I don't remember what the actual chemicals that you know poof Horrible to work with. Yeah, poof is the the really really really really really really really really really really really really really really reactive one um Yeah, the name's kind of onomatopoeic

This is true So gaa Is a major component of acrylic resins and plastics It is flammable corrosive and highly reactive with both unsaturated hydrocarbons and itself Oh good This reaction is an exothermic process meaning it generates heat. This will be relevant shortly Ordinarily gaa is shipped as a liquid and is treated with inhibitors to prevent it from reacting with itself

The problem was that this batch had also arrived at the plant the previous friday It had been rejected then too, but for the opposite reason At that time it had been frozen because of the cold weather Now another relevant fact here is that frozen liquids can't really keep things in solution Things like inhibitors Since we couldn't pump out the frozen acid the batch was rejected and the truck turned away The shipping company had told the driver to go back to the terminal in philadelphia Upon arriving there in their infinite wisdom. They had apparently hooked

They'd apparently had the workers hook up a steam feed to the internal heating and cooling pipes in the tank truck And it left it that way over the entire weekend I guess they figured we'd accept it when it was redelivered on monday if it was liquid by then Now the good news was they had thawed the acid The bad news was that they had heated it up to over 100 degrees fahrenheit Our upper limit for acceptance if I recall correctly was 95 degrees fahrenheit. Is anyone there? Yes, I'm just horrified I thought uh, I thought I thought we'd lost people all right. We may have lost Liam, but I've I've I've simply been

Can you hear me? Yes. Are you seduced? No, can you feel my hands? This is a free exit Yeah, no, I I muted myself by accident because you yell at me whatever I type loud Get a quieter keyboard No, you got a podcast. It's fucking hot. I would rather I listen. I would rather break up with you than get another keyboard We're not dating not anymore Great fantastic. All right. All right. All right. I lost a relationship. I didn't even know I had You know, it's true what they say you never realize what you had until it's gone

Dude, I figured out one of my exes had a kid on purpose and then we got married this weekend How do you think I fucking feel right now? Jesus fucking Christ. That's how I feel Oof To make matters worse the temperature in the tank was slowly rising Remember GAA can react with itself without inhibitor and their reaction is exothermic Also, remember this truckload of acid had been frozen three days before Which meant the level of inhibitor was definitely lower than what is said on the paperwork Hugh a bunch of panicked engineers suddenly realizing we had a potential

40,000 pound bomb sitting in the parking lot The consensus was that we had to cool it down as fast as possible The first thing they tried was hooking a garden hose from our cleaning closet faucet To the internal heating and cooling coils on the tank wagon. Oh, Jesus This did about as much good as you can imagine There was no way to agitate the liquid inside to ensure the entire load could get in contact with the cooling coils The solution to this was to have the driver rock the truck forwards and backwards several times To get the liquid sloshing around

The fucking american truck simulated dlc is out of control. You got a fucking Yeah, just just rock back and forward on this bomb you've made Once again, this did precisely fuck all and the temperature of the acid continued to rise At this point the safety director gave the order to evacuate the engineering building And the site emergency response team ert Pulled out several high-powered water cannons normally used for firefighting as shown in the picture Right

The idea here was that a massive flow of water over the outside of the tanker would be enough to cool the acid In theory this would slow or stop the ongoing polymerization Before it hit the point of no return and started to auto accelerate Of course if it did get that hot the only remaining recourse for us would been to run like hell And hope we reached the minimum safe distance in time I have no idea what that distance would be but i'm pretty sure I couldn't have run that fast from where I took this picture For the next couple of hours hundreds of gallons of water per minute were blasted onto the tanker Amazingly this worked and the temperature rise was reversed

The next step was to open the lid on the top of the tanker and dump in some fresh inhibitor to kill the reaction completely Since there wasn't a pressure gauge on the tanker The emergency response team suited up in full turnout slash firefighting gear including scuba Well, uh scba. It's not underwater. It's the above water thing sabba And put a ladder on the side of the tank

The man who drew the short straw climbed up opened the hatch And you don't pay that guy enough. Whatever that guy's getting paid. It's not enough more Nothing happened Yeah, and that guy has to order a new set of turnout pants Yes After the collective unclenching of everyone's sprinklers A 50 pound bag of the most potent inhibitor we had on site was passed up the ladder and dumped into the tank At that point we figured the truck was safe to go back on the road

Since there was now enough inhibitor in it for a batch five times the size of what was in the truck It was entirely unusable for any of our products, but Wasn't our problem anymore That's just gonna get done down a drain dude. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah, probably that went straight in the Delaware River Yeah We set the driver on his way and that was the end of that By that point it was close to the end of the day. We all went home and drank heavily Or I know I did at least

Good lord I worked at that company for a few more years during which we had a couple of other incidents But i'll tell you about those another time if you're interested Absolutely. Thank you for all you do and keep up the great work on the podcast It makes me glad as I went into engineering as a profession and validates my frantic yelling about safety to disinterested co-workers Best regards, josh Thanks, josh Thank you, josh

Let me know if you want a localish chemical engineer on on the show as a guest commenter. I've seen some shit Oh, yeah, also no trees were killed and no animals were harmed in the creation of this message However, many electrons were terribly inconvenienced It's old timing Um Next episode is on the common eras bridge disaster. No, it's no. No, it's not no It's not the next episode is on the boston molasses flood. Is it? Yeah, I didn't know we were switching bits

Yeah, we actually said this we told you I don't I don't believe you the the next episode is on the the boston molasses flood You don't listen to man. This is why we broke up You said communication is key and yet. Where were you? Oh my god. Well, my sister was pregnant ross. Where were you? You don't have a sister That oh Not that you would know because you never listened mr. High and mighty i'm logging off. Goodbye. All right Uh, good night everybody. Do you want to do ads real quick? Do we do? Uh, kill james bond podcast trashy issue podcast lions live by donkeys podcast franklin franklin when

podcast Is it a podcast? It's a one-man podcast one-man show Franklin at some point. Uh the reboot of the lea maderson podcast Coming eventually what I sort of figure out the format I want to do. Um uh, I guess until next time by Death to pet boys

That's right Very nice company nine stupid ass company. Let's say. All right. Bye everybody coffee to zen