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Train Derails on Bridge IV: The Aftermath (With Graf Train Passing By)
Kahnawake, Mohawk Nation - EvilGentleman - Monday, April 3rd, 2006 : goo
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On February 17, a train derailed on the CP Rail bridge between Kahnawake and the Montreal borough of Lasalle due to extremely high winds. Over the next couple of weeks, I took pictures of the recovery effort here and here. But the pictures I really wanted were these:
Finally, on March 26, the repair crews that had been working on the bridge took a day off, and my friend Jeff and I took a little walk from the Kahnawake side of the bridge to go have a look at the damage. As we walked up to the site of the derailment on the railroad ties, we started noticing distance marks grease pencilled on the rails, with the marks on the right rail indicating distances in feet, and the left side indicating the number of ties to "point zero"
A number of the spikes that hold down the rails had been popped right out of the wooden ties by the forces generated during the derailment.
As you look down the rails, you notice the shredded wood to the right that used to be the ends of the rail ties. Also note the ladder that has been broken off of one of the rail cars as it impacted the offset beams beyond.
A better view of the shredded wooden ties. And the inner stabilizing rail, which is designed to hold the bridge together in the event of a derailment (it worked!) has pulled apart from one of its connecting joints, shearing bolts holding the rail on the left.
This view shows how much the ties shifted, and how they are now sitting at a different angle.
Another view of shifted ties. Normally they are spaced 8 to 10 inches apart, and are squared and parallel.
One of the metal bands that usually keep the ties properly spaced.
The protective cage around one of the ladders that descend to the stone masonry piers. It is totally flattened. I also find it interesting how much damage was caused to the corner of the giant beam by rail cars that were empty.
The eastern track was reopened a few weeks ago, but trains have to travel at a crawl when crossing the bridge now. Oddly enough, this one was a CN train, and the tracks are CP. But it is not uncommon for them to allow passage on each other's tracks.
The engineer looked at us rather oddly as he passed us. I guess he did not expect to see people on the middle of a bridge over the Saint Lawrence River, standing on a badly broken span.
Enter the graffiti
Jeff watching the train pass
An old friend from TV passed by to say hello
The Mercier Bridge is visible through this rail car
I was trying to take a shot of the Mercier Bridge through the open doors on a boxcar. This was my second attempt, and I was tracking the boxcar, but somehow, the boxcar is blurred and the bridge is clear. I guess I need to practice tracking, or get a faster camera. Or both.
The end approaches
The last car passes over towards Montreal
A spring lying among the debris. I assume it is part of the suspension of a rail car. I find it interesting how it is lying under the plate that the rail sits on.
A different spring. Note how the right side of the wooden ties have been sheared about 2 feet from the end. The view down the middle of the rails is usually symmetrical, with the wood on both sides ending about 8 inches from the beams.
This is the furthest I was able to walk on the bridge. I was still 500 feet or so from the point where the rail cars finally came to a halt during the derailment. But the tilted ties in front of me were wobbly (see the foreground), and they were not connected to anything at all, with only about 4 or 6 inches of wood resting on the beams to the right, there was a great danger of the ties coming loose as I stepped on them, and there was nothing but 80 feet of air and then water underneath. Many others fron Kahnawake walked much closer by walking on the metal beams along the sides, but I was always nervous to do that, so I turned back.
A zoom in on the site where the rail cars sat between the bridges. The repair crews left a box of equipment, and they had installed a platform connecting the two sides of the bridge (with the 2x4 wooden hand rails). The small pieces of plywood help distribute their weight among multiple ties, so as to lessen the chances of shifting them further.
I am assuming that this is a brake shoe from a rail car.
Walking back past the point of derailment, then another 123 feet, 10 inches beyond, we noticed that the rails had shifted back and forth pretty hard. Notice the rail spikes that have been dragged through the wood, leaving gouges. Note as well how the spikes are bent in opposite directions.
This is how a ladder with its protective cage is supposed to look.
And last but not least, a bit of vertiginuous photography. This is what I saw the whole time whenever I looked down. What you are looking at is a sheet of ice floating by under the bridge on the fast-moving waters 80 feet below. The white colour was quite distracting, as we found our eyes naturally drawn to the highly visible motion below, causing a few bouts of vertigo.
This article has been viewed 4668 times in the last 2 years
David Boyle: 4th Apr 2006 - 01:33 GMT
Well done! It is so good that I feel that I can say, "Been there; done that!"
EvilGentleman: 4th Apr 2006 - 03:38 GMT
Thanks for all the compliments. After I shot these pictures, I showed them to some people I know, and I had a few of them suggest that I should try to sell them to a newspaper. I thought to myself, "As if!" But what the heck. So I contacted the Montreal Gazette, and was promptly brushed off, after being given a lecture about how it was old news, and how they already had plenty of pictures on file. I never had a chance to fully explain my vantage point, so I wonder if they really had shots like this. Then I tried La Presse, one of the French dailies, but they never returned my call. I can only imagine the difficulties faced by professional freelance photojournalists, and the impressive techniques they must use to sell their pictures to a customer. I tip my hat to them.
chiamattt: 4th Apr 2006 - 03:56 GMT
It is pretty much all timing. You said this happened on Feb17th, but you took the pictures in April.
Those dudes taking pictures in Iraq and overseas have systems where the pictures go from their camera to a laptop in their backpack and transmitted via satellite phone to their agency pretty much as soon as they take them. Thats how much timing matters these days.
kc: 4th Apr 2006 - 13:34 GMT
It's very leisurely, has a cumulative power. Hard to imagine the papers giving space to something like that, walking, looking, and musing. Interesting to me in fact that this electronic medium has allowed such meditative moments....really enjoyed it, the shifting views, the trains...that one with the spikes being yanked out of the wood, for some reason, was the one that really spoke to me about the force involved, I started hearing the grinding and shrieking in my head...
Tyfoid Kid: 4th Apr 2006 - 13:37 GMT
Very much WOW! There was a lot of physics at play in an accident like this.
I thought they used the metric system in Canada, why are the measuring things out in feet and inches like us bums to the south?
GGP: 4th Apr 2006 - 13:44 GMT
we need a daily newspaper on walking, looking, musing--oh, wait! we already have one! it's called citynoise.
evilg, thanks for this. it was a pleasureful & exciting excursion.
Peter: 4th Apr 2006 - 15:21 GMT
how quickly everything happens these days... is the essence of future-shock.
GGP: 4th Apr 2006 - 16:18 GMT
happens, is forgotten.
happens, is forgotten.
happens, is forgotten.
"what is there i have not forgot
or will forget?"--James Schuyler
jack: 6th Apr 2006 - 15:09 GMT
very interesting pic's. you went out on a limb for us, literally. we thank you but it was a little dangerous for you to do that. i've never seen the st. lawrence river or ice flows that big. and the damage, just because of high winds.
Micah: 14th Apr 2006 - 03:21 GMT
Wow! I never knew how much damage could be inflicted by a derailment. I just thought the train sort of flipped over and fell off. Whoopsy-daisy! I didn't realise it took half the track with it!
Jack is right: those pictures look muy muy peligrosas.
Graham Schurman: 18th Jul 2006 - 11:40 GMT
Did you have permission from CPR to take these pictures? You could have gotten into big trouble with the the CPR Police if they had known you were on their bridge, especially since it was in severely damaged condition. Railway police take trespassing very seriously. I wouldn't want you to end up with a large fine because you were unaware of this.
Having said that, I like the pictures very much.
EvilGentleman: 18th Jul 2006 - 14:32 GMT
Since the original bridge's ironwork was built 120 years ago, in 1886, the C.P.R. Saint Lawrence Bridge has been used as a pedestrian walkway by the Mohawks of Kahnawake. It became somewhat easier to cross in 1910, when the track was twinned. The train bridge remained our sole means of crossing to Montreal until 1934, when the Honore-Mercier automobile bridge was built.
In 1959, additional extensions to the Mercier Bridge to raise the road above the St Lawrence Seaway resulted in the trip across the river on foot from Kahnawake being doubled, to two miles. The result was that a lot of the Mohawk pedestrian traffic reverted to using the train tracks, as the walk is exactly one mile from where the tracks leave the ground on the south side of the Seaway in Kahnawake to where they touch ground again in Lasalle.
CPR has always preserved the right to press trespass charges, but has traditionally declined to exercise that right in regards to Kahnawake pedestrian traffic, so long as the conduct of the pedestrians is not a danger to anyone other than themselves. This is not to say that we have actual permission to be there, but it is more of a traditional de facto "turning a blind eye" situation. It is generally simpler for all involved to just let things remain status quo, rather than alienating Kahanawake with the CPR.
I found some really good data on the bridge at article.pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ppv/RPViewDoc?_handler_=HandleInitialGet&journal=cjce&volume=24&calyLang=eng&articleFile=l96-131.pdf
And hey, at least I waited until the train was removed from the bridge, and I chose a day when there were no workers on the bridge. I was not so much worried about fines as I was concerned that my presence might spook a few of the rail workers, who tend to be less used to the bridge than people from Kahnawake. I would not want to distract some poor schmoe from his job, and thus put him in danger.
I am glad you like the pictures.
EvilGentleman: 17th Aug 2006 - 00:24 GMT
I'm glad you like them, I wish I had a way to better share the experience, it was truly awesome to see the destruction up close.
Bob Hughes: 16th Oct 2006 - 20:50 GMT
In depth photography, very well done too. I sympathise with your fears walking over the broken ties with a long drop to the icy river below. Thanks for sharing the articles.
joey: 9th Feb 2007 - 05:36 GMT
to this day, still one of the best posts of all citynoise.org times. thanks for the map, too.
where are you? we haven't seen you post in a while.
EvilGentleman: 9th Feb 2007 - 18:09 GMT
At the moment, I'm in class, the only place I have internet access for now. Never opt for consolidating phone and internet bills, if you are not 100% financially stable. I cannot regain my net service until I pay my old land-line bill, and I can barely afford to pay my cell bills, never mind catching up on the bill for the disconnected land-line. Darn, I was meaning to do a one-year anniversary post, but I'm now two days too late.
EvilGentleman: 7th Mar 2007 - 17:21 GMT
Bienvenue. Editor, before you mis-read and delete the above anon comment from march 7th, I believe it actually translates into a quite nice compliment. According to my french-english dictionary, "terrible" in French translates into either "terrific" of "dreadful". I suspect he means the former, and I am flattered.
turkey 101: what happend to the train tracks.
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