Incredible video; Train Vs. Tornado

[A HERETIC I AM]

It looks as if this camera is mounted on the rear of the locomotive. Watch the trees along the side as the video progresses.

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/167988/detail/

Amazing.

[1]

1. tornado 1, train 0...

[TexasObserver]

2. blew the train right off the tracks

[lordsummerisle]

3. So

there's a video camera trained (sorry) on the rear of the locomotive to record once in a generation events like this...?

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. It wouldn't surprise me that the rail roads are putting them on all locomotives

these days. Helps in accident investigations, no? (grade crossing crashes, etc.)

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. Amazing. The train lost that round

[Suich]

6. Good grief!

:wow:

[armyowalgreens]

7. I'm glad the locomotive didn't flip. Hopefully the drivers okay.

That was some crazy shit.

[Oak2004]

8. As an F4 survivor I can personally assure you, *anything* versus tornado

will end as a real train wreck, in more ways than one.

[uppityperson]

9. Best wishes to you, went through F5 as a child

wind still freaks me out. Doing relief work after Katrina was very stressful, did some research on my childhood to find out why.

[Oak2004]

29. I think I've gone the opposite direction

I've studied emergency management. I am a hard core weather geek. I'm fascinated, even as I am terrified, of the things -- I can't get enough tornado videos, etc. (at the same time I deliberately moved to a state with a very low incidence of them, and on the rare occasions there's a tornado warning, I don't hang around to watch the sky, I react like it was incoming artillery and take shelter in a matter of seconds). On one message board I frequent, I even use a tornado avatar.

It may be the other extreme, but it's ultimately the same thing: no one who has ever experienced the force of a major tornado can ever, ever, forget it.

[applegrove]

10. Scary. Glad it wasn't a passenger train.

[Ganja Ninja]

11. That was freaky.

Especially watching the tank car catching up to the locomotive. Of all the things to see coming at you.

[tridim]

12. IMO the collision at the end was the most incredible part

Lots of kinetic energy on display there.

[FormerDittoHead]

15. Yes. I did a "Oh my God!" as I saw the tanker approach. n/t

[Lorien]

20. Me too. I hope it was empty! nt

[progressoid]

13. Nature is cool.

[Dappleganger]

17. And scary!

[BR_Parkway]

14. And the train whistle? Was he sending SOS for "Oh shit!" ?

[mnhtnbb]

16. Undoubtedly haulin' butt through rail crossings, trying to beat the storm.

[Raster]

18. Wow!

[aikoaiko]

19. Accidents happen now and again.

Accidents happen now and again, just when you least expect

Just when you think that life is okay, fate comes to collect

Accidents happen now and again, when people or trains get smart

If you don't concentrate on the thing that you're doing

Accidents will happen, just like that

[Art_from_Ark]

21. So where was the tornado?

Tornadoes sound like 100 freight trains. There was nothing that sounded like a tornado in this video, and there was nothing to suggest excessively strong winds. Also, the car in front of the camera was jumping up and down as it was moving down the track, while the car/engine the camera was mounted on showed a smooth ride. And why was the tanker car so far down the track just after the first derailment?

It seems to me that this was just a garden variety derailment-- no tornado involved, just faulty tracks/couplings/wheels.

[kentauros]

23. Watch it again and pay attention to the peripherals.

The trees are being whipped around, the amount of rain increases and at one point the wind direction changes and blows a lot of debris in front of the camera.

Next, notice just how fast the train is going by watching things like trees and power poles zip by. When the freight car rolls over, the engines up front are still going the same speed as before while the cars behind the freight care were separated and no longer being pulled, so they lose momentum, especially as they were derailed when the freight car rolled off the tracks. Not enough momentum was lost to stop their forward motion as, even empty, rail cars are pretty heavy. We have no idea if that tanker was empty or not, nor what it was hauling. Thankfully, it didn't rupture or that video likely would not exist...

[Art_from_Ark]

25. I saw the video

and I did see the trees moving wildly for a short time in the peripheral area.It could have just been a wind gust as far as that goes. The field of view is too constrictive to make a definitive conclusion. But there was no howling sound that would be indicative of a tornado.

Also, how did the two cars become detached? By the time the first car derailed, the tanker car was far away from it, so it seems to me that they must have become separated some time before. The engineer realized this and put on the brakes. The first car, which was already unstable, derailed, slowing down the engine that was pulling it, and this allowed the tanker car and the others behind it to catch up. Doesn't seem to me that a tornado was really involved in this.

[kentauros]

27. Okay, if that evidence isn't enough to indicate a tornado to you,

then what about the fact that with this camera mounted on a train, it was likely done so officially, and that the engineers probably knew what the weather was doing around them? More than likely, the naming of the video was by the train officials and not just some Internet-Joe that "happened" to get their hands somehow on an official train video.

Also, any gust sufficient to take out just one rail car in an area of terrain lined by trees would be enough to take out far more than just one car. Tractor-trailer rigs get blown over by high winds, but that's only in open areas free of trees to block the high gusts. A tornado is a dense area of high winds. How many stories do we hear of homes completely destroyed and the house right next door is barely touched? Looks like that's what happened with these cars.

The fact that we don't hear thar high-speed wind sound could also be due to the fact that the microphone is facing away from the tornado on a train that is moving. I'm surprised that it's a camera with a microphone at all. But you don't have to hear the winds first to get affected by them. Do we know what the inside of a tornado sounds like? Perhaps it's just as quiet as the inside of a hurricane (having been through several of those myself...)

[XemaSab]

28. If you google "train tornado lawrence" you get news articles

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2525772/Tornado-derails-toxic-train-cars.html

[malaise]

22. Wow

Mind blowing!

[gristy]

24. Holy cow

:wow:

[cboy4]

26. Fantastic video

:thumbsup: