|
|
| Re: NJT Collision in Bergen (1230650) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > SubChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: NJT Collision in Bergen |
|
|
Posted by WillD on Sun Jun 23 02:43:02 2013, in response to Re: NJT Collision in Bergen, posted by Jersey Mike on Sat Jun 22 14:54:33 2013. Crash energy management means you get to buy a new car instead of new bodywork.No, as usual, the real world situation is quite the opposite of your hypothesis. The DOT's tests readily demonstrate how easily rigid railcar bodies will buckle under stress. The whole point behind CEM is to keep the passenger cabin and underbody from suffering intrusions and intact. By containing the failure to essentially disposable areas of the railcar while keeping the frame and cabin damage-free they're actually making it *easier* to repair a vehicle which had been damaged in a grade crossing accident. It's no different than Amtrak's bolt-on noses for the P42s, but on a larger, more comprehensive scale. Caltrain's submittals to the FRA clearly state the collision scenarios and the amount of repair work required. Only on striking a semi-truck with a large payload at somewhere north of 50mph is any major repair work required. At speeds below that, or on striking an automobile at most speeds, they do not anticipate any major repair work resulting from the collision. Even then major repair work would consist of replacing the deformable energy absorbing units ahead of the cab, putting the fiberglass covers over those items, and repairing the shear-back couplers. They anticipate these repairs being cheaper and easier to perform than doing the metal work to repair a damaged FRA compliant cab car. Siemens enumerates the variety of repair services they have supplied to customers of their rolling stock. Alstom states that they provide similar services. But then replacing extruded steel or aluminum and applying some fiberglass covers while replacing some shear pins can just as easily be done in-house. but without some sort of heavy frame behind it there is probably going to be non-repairable structural damage. Moreover with less weight the WillDMU is liable to leave the track and split open where there's nothing to crumple. Again, the FRA's documentation disagrees very explicitly with your narrative. Without CEM the crash energy is distributed throughout the train buckling cars at random. But with CEM that energy can be distributed and bled off at engineered points far from the passengers and crew. That makes it more likely the CEM equipped train will remain upright and on the tracks. In Europe level crossing accidents such as these are highly rare events That definitely is not the case. Just from a quick look at Google News I count at least four separate bahnübergang unfälle being reported on in German language media the past month. I'd argue (again) your claim is not reflected in the real world. They actually have a large number of grade crossing accidents owing to ubiquity of railroads, particularly passenger railroads, and some of the densest road traffic in Europe. But because of that same ubiquity of passenger rail those collisions are actually less noteworthy than here in the US where passenger rail is relatively rare. Incidentally, yesterday a DB train struck a semi and while there were 32 injuries, there were no fatalities. This despite it being a fairly old, outdated BR 628 or similar DMU. |
|
(There are no responses to this message.)
|
|