City of New Orleans Wreck Estimates

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P40Power

OBS Chief
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Apr 1, 2003
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I just got this information off of the Trainorders.com website from a post made by Gene Poon on the damage estimates on the cars and locomotive that were in this past Tuesday's wreck of the City. I thought some of you might find this information intresting.

Engine 82: $50,000

Baggage 1223: $55,000

Sleeping Car 32036: $2,000,000

Dining Car 38009: $2,000,000

Lounge Car 33013: $700,000

Coach/Smoking 31592: $700,000

Coach 34069: $650,000

Coach 34087: $350,000

Sleeping Car 32005: $215,000

Coach 34135: $176,000

It was also mentioned on the post that it is unlikely the first five Superliners will most likely never see service again.

I dont know about that, maybe the Sleeping Car and the Dining car, since they have 2 million dollars worth of damage. But I wonder if 700,000 and 650,000 dollars of damage might be justified to repair . . . those are quite hefty sums, but I would imagine that would all depend on how much new Superliners would cost compared to the cost to fixed the wrecked ones.

And has anyone seen pictures of the wreck? Man there was one Superliner that had a section of rail pierce the lower level section of one of the cars, I think maybe the 3rd car back or so - the Lounge but Im not sure. It was weird how the rail just went threw the car like that.
 
Actually, that picture of the rail through the car is the most frightening one. If it had gone more through the center of the car there would have been more fatalities. If you want to read more about this kind of thing there is an old book called "Scalded to Death By Steam" that goes on in morbid detail about train wrecks.
 
Are the tracks jointed rails? Looks like it's a culprit for loose bolts, probably no match for heavy cars. Once you ride over the joints, it caused the brace to flex which might loosen the bolts and nuts.

I'll wait to hear from the investigation about it.
 
Just wondering, if the cause of the wreck is shown to be damaged tracks, would the Illinois Central or whoever owns the tracks be responsible for the cost of repairing/replacing the damaged equipment? All those repairs could take a sizable chunk out of Amtrak's pretty lean budget.
 
"Cause: On January 29, 2004 a 2 ½" of rail was added to east rail to replace a section of rail containing a crushed head. Compressive forces combined with poor tie conditions caused east rail to roll outward under movement."
 
Just curious:

Who is Gene Poon and why would he have access to this kind of information?
 
Rail piercing up through the floor during a derailment!!!! That is one of the things that frightens us railroaders the most!!!! Especially that welded ribbon rail, all springy like a snake hunting its kill!!! :ph34r:
 
Guest said:
Just curious:
Who is Gene Poon and why would he have access to this kind of information?
Click to expand...
Gene Poon is an established Internet railfan who has provided a wealth of helpful information over the years.
 
Anthony said:
Guest said:
Just curious:
Who is Gene Poon and why would he have access to this kind of information?
Click to expand...
Gene Poon is an established Internet railfan who has provided a wealth of helpful information over the years.
Click to expand...
Gene Poon was a very respected travel agent, now retired I understand. He was well known for both his expertise in booking Amtrak trips for his clients and for his knowledge of Amtrak and its inner workings.

I also suspect that he's a railfan. :)
 
socalsteve said:
Just wondering, if the cause of the wreck is shown to be damaged tracks, would the Illinois Central or whoever owns the tracks be responsible for the cost of repairing/replacing the damaged equipment? All those repairs could take a sizable chunk out of Amtrak's pretty lean budget.
Click to expand...
Steve, excellent question, unfortunately there is no clear cut answer because of information we are not privy to, that being what is in the contract allowing Amtrak to operate over CN. There very well could be a clause that prevents Amtrak from recovering damages for their equipment should fault be found solely in CN.

However, if there is no such clause then it could be possible.
 
Of course, costs not included in the list are the lawsuits, medical bills, hotel bills, and other such expenses incurred from the derailment. What about the people who will never take a train again due to the derailment? Some costs can't always be measured in monetary terms.
 
Gene Poon has direct access to many Amtrak personnel - if he posts it, believe it. As far as damage, $400-$450k has pretty much been the upper limit of damage that Amtrak attempts to repair. Possibly if there was NOTHING else to repair, refurb, or overhaul, they 'might' get into stuff with higher damage estimates, but don't hold your breath.
 
All Amtrak operating agreements with the freight railroads include a “hold harmless” clause which insulates the railroad from Amtrak and passenger claims, and also insulates Amtrak from claims from the freight railroad. It is basically a no-fault clause. So, regardless of the underlying cause of the wreck, Amtrak will be responsible for all costs associated with damage to its equipment, service disruptions, and for passenger claims. CN will pay for its service disruptions and to fix the tracks.
 
and, I would think that the more damaged SLIIs would go before the more damaged SLI's .

In new york, our NYCTA made a pretty dumb mistake. In 1994, there was a wreck involving a car, R40S 4259. it was hit by an R42N(4818or9 IIRC)

both of the cars survived the wreck structurally sound, but with nose damage. since NYCTA had a wrecked 42 lying around, they managed to fix up the 42 pair with parts from it, but they had no parts for 4259, so it and its pair 4258 were left pairless.

in 1995, 2 incidents happened. in the first one, car R40S 4260 got a nasty sideswipe leaving it unrepairable.

after this 4258 and 4261 were paired together.

in the second accident, car R40M 4461 hit R42M car 4664 on the williamsburg bridge. 4664 was totally wrecked but 4461 was in decent condition after the first 15 feet. after the wreck, 4460 and 4665, the 2 damaged cars pairs were mated(no big deal because at the time, R40Ms and R42s were regularly intermixed.)so when all of the accidents cleared up, the people at CIYD planned to comine the 3 wrecked R40 cars into 2 useable R40S cars. from 1997 to 1999, cars 4461 and 4260 were spliced together, and were numbered 4260(as most of the car was from 4461, they also had to do a "sex change" changing it from a "female" odd car to a "male" even one. )in 2001 they started work on 4259, (possibly using parts from 2 cars wrecked at bushwick aberdeen- 4427-8)as they were working on the car somebody realized something. as they needed to cast a whole new nose, and had rebuilding programs for the R32,42,46,and 68s going on, the cars would likely not be finished until 2006. the cars set to replace the R40S fleet, the R160s, are scheduled to start being delivered in... 2005. of course, upon this realization, work has stopped, but couldnt they have realized this a while ago and just have saved all the money of restoring them?

Well back to the topic. Amtrak CANNOT afford a screwup like that. thats why I would doubt that the superliner 1s are as likely to be fixed.
 
F59 PHI said:
Well back to the topic. Amtrak CANNOT afford a screwup like that. thats why I would doubt that the superliner 1s are as likely to be fixed.
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The difference between Amtrak and NYCTA is that Amtrak is not expecting any new Superliners or replacements anytime at all. There's not even the beginning of the planning on considering a new order. Right now, Amtrak needs to get its fleet into good repair. If that means fixing a couple 20+ year old Super I's, they'll have do it. I think Amtrak is looking at cost to repair before considering whether it's a Super I or II. Besides, looking at the repair list, it looks like Beech Grove has been fixing more Super I's than Super II's. According to On Track On Line, of the 22 Superliners that have been repaired or pulled out of storage, 13 were Super I's and only 9 were Super II's.
 
Been out of touch for a few days. When and where was this accident? Any casualties? Respondents here seem more interested in the damage to carriages etc than to passengers! Sorry if it's old news and you've covered the human cost already - it's just that the level of interest in all the minutiae of damage/costs to inanimate train carriages, etc, seems rather macabre.
 
I found the reports of the accident further down the topic list and reading your responses to the news, makes me feel very sad for most of you! There were people involved in the accident and the majority of you go on and on and on with your concern about damage to engines, tracks, carriages!!! Only about two people mentioned passengers! Am I missing something here??
 
KiwiKate, come on. It was a terrible tragedy that one of the passengers got killed and the numerous others injured, and I guarantee you that every person on here has shown remorse in some way, whether it be written for all to see on these message boards or not. The fact is, the accident could have been a lot worse, and that is what I am personally thankful for.

You have to move on in life. What's done is done. It's terrible that it happened, but you have to move on. No need to "feel sorry" for people on here because I doubt seriously that anyone on here would put wrecked rail equipment over human life.

This is a Amtrak fan forum so obviously you can expect a lot of talk about damaged equipment and what not after an accident.

You can't judge people by their responses on a public forum. Just my two cents.
 
I fully agree with NativeSon. Sometimes it's better for one to express their emotion for the loss of life privately, than on a forum. I don't sign on to talk about the loss of life or the injured. That doesn't mean I don't care about it, it just means I want to keep those thoughts to myself.
 
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