Trains and Earthquakes?

[Ryan]

After being rudely awoken this morning, I got to wondering about what policies railroads had in place for earthquakes. I would imagine that a severe enough quake would seriously throw some rails out of alignment and that after an earthquake of a certain magnitude you'd have slow orders (or no trains at all) in the area until the tracks can be verified safe.

I'd imagine UP and BNSF are probably equipped to deal with this, but what about CSX, who doesn't really operate in areas that would be considered "earthquake prone". Despite running fairly close to the epicenter of this quake, the Brunswick line seems to be running normally this morning.

 

[PetalumaLoco]

A mag 3 quake; "Felt quite noticeably by persons indoors, especially on upper floors of buildings. Many people do not recognize it as an earthquake. Standing motor cars may rock slightly. Vibrations similar to the passing of a truck." That wouldn't be a problem for the track.

 

[Ryan]

I figured that for this one, I was more interested in the general case. How big is "big enough" for the railroads to do something (and what do they do at that point)?

 

[the_traveler]

If the quake is severe enough to do damage, all trains would stop until the tracks could be checked out and verified by railroad officials as safe to use.

 

[Ispolkom]

I'd imagine that most of the sensors that register track integrity would be tripped by earthquake damage. Wouldn't most earthquake damage be (broadly speaking) similar to a landslide or washout?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I'd imagine that most of the sensors that register track integrity would be tripped by earthquake damage. Wouldn't most earthquake damage be (broadly speaking) similar to a landslide or washout?

My concern would be that continuously welded rail might hide some areas with lesser damage as it has done in the past. As for what CSX does when there is a widespread disruption in their detection and signaling network you can see an example at the 2:13 mark in

courtesy of Danny Harmon's archives.

 

[battalion51]

My guess would be that if there appeared to be the possibility of damage trains would be required to either stop or move at restricted speed until there could be inspections of the tracks. If a track light came on obviously that would be an area of extreme concern that would need to be addressed.

 

[hmy1]

On the Pacific Surfliner route in San Diego, there is definitely some sort of policy in place to inspect tracks and vulnerable areas (such as the Del Mar bluffs) after an earthquake. The frequent service disruptions made this particularly evident earlier this year after the 7.2 Mexicali quake. One data point I recall was being halted for about an hour for the inspection after a 5.4 aftershock (from about 120 miles away). Better safe than sorry.

Sorry I'm late responding to this; I just joined this forum.

 

[George Harris]

When there is discussion on earthquake warning systems, the warning time is descirbed as being in seconds, and how many depends upon how far you are from the epicenter. In other words, earthquake warnings are, for all practical purposes, useless.

If you are close enough to the center and the earthquake is big enough, you have a derailment. I can't recall when or where, but it was in California sometime in the last 25 years, but there was a freight train derailment due to an earthquake. Essentially, things went up and sideways and when they came back down, they were no longer on the rails.

There have been two incidents of high speed trains derailing in earthquakes. One in Taiwan earlier this year, and the other in Japan in 2004. In both cases, everyone quite literally walked away from it. The Japanese one was very close, probably under 10 miles from the epicenter of a 6.8 earthquake. It derailed a Shinkansen trainset moving at about 125 mph at the time. The train slid over a mile along the concrete, remaining more or less upright. Bumps and bruises, no serious injuries.

In one publication on the subject, the starting point of the discussion was that in the 10 year period 1994 to 2003, inclusive, 220 of the worldwide totoal of 960 earthquakes of 6.0 or larger were in Japan.

Earlier this year in Taiwan there was an earthquake caused derailment of one wheelset of a high speed trainset (Shinkansen equipment) moving at about 175 mph. In this instance, the train slid and bounced abot 2 miles along the concrete trackbed. Again, bumps and bruises and everybody walked out.