Oooops!

"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse) 11/06/2018 at 16:10 • Filed to: Runaway, Railopnik

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Time to spare a thought for an Australian train driver who is remaining anonymous. He (or she, we don’t know) stepped down from the cab to investigate something that didn’t seem quite right. All well and good and nothing out of the ordinary until physics and specifically gravity intervened. A massive object like the earth exerts a considerable gravitational force to objects near it. Objects like, for example, a train stopped on a very slight incline with no means to prevent movement. Our driver looked up to see his train heading off without him and towards a place nearer the centre of the earth than that in which he left it. Trundling off downhill on its own in other words. It began oh so slowly. A train has however very low rolling resistance so once it gets going it’s going to keep right on going so long as even a negligible gradient is available. Off it went then.

In an ideal world our hero would arrive in a helicopter and abseil down to a locomotive, scramble in and apply the brakes just in the nick of time to avert terrible disaster.

In the real world somebody sitting in an office 1,500 km away in Perth pressed a few buttons which moved a set of points and derailed the runaway without injuries but with an impressive amount of repairs to be done to track and rolling stock.

It hasn’t yet been revealed what happened but I’m guessing the driver is going to face one of those meetings where tea and biscuits are not supplied.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Cé hé sin 11/06/2018 at 16:21

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One of the things I appreciate about the older film Runaway Train is that while it featured abseiling from a helicopter, that was after it had already been diverted to safe line, and the one doing the act was a megalomaniac who did so to ride it to his death . And the train’s brakes had been destroyed by being left lightly on when the engineer slumped off the engine. Bleak film, written by Kurosawa. Have you seen it?

mrbaits > Cé hé sin 11/06/2018 at 16:21

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That engineer will get railroaded for sure.

user314 > Cé hé sin 11/06/2018 at 17:15

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Cé hé sin > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 11/06/2018 at 17:15

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Not as of yet, no.

This runaway ran away for more than 100km until it reached the spot selected by the signallers to derail it.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Cé hé sin 11/06/2018 at 17:22

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It’s a thriller, but it’s equal parts mechanical disaster film as prison break film, winter survival film, strategic film a la Pelham 1-2-3, and a Shawshank- like duel between a prisoner and the warden. Directed by a Russian, if memory serves. Probably mandatory viewing for railfans.

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Cé hé sin 11/06/2018 at 17:56

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And what happens when they find out the “thing that wasn’t right” turns out to be the brakes?

ranwhenparked > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 11/06/2018 at 19:23

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Did they make any size  comparisons to the Chrysler Building?

pip bip - choose Corrour > Cé hé sin 11/07/2018 at 04:52

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funny crash to be honest

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 01/22/2019 at 08:32

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I have seen it. Bleak but quite good, as I recall.

Abseil ? Did you have to look that up to use it again here? By the context of its use, I assumed what the word must have meant, but I’d never heard nor read it before.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 01/22/2019 at 08:34

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He rides the train presumably to his death, yet the temperature is perhaps forty below and he’s moving through the air at 50+ mph, so unless the train crashed to rest relatively soon, the cold might have taken him.

How did the couple get off the train? I do not recall.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/22/2019 at 09:36

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I knew that the word was “abs...” something, but I admit it had been too long since I’d used the word, so I had to look up the spelling .

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/22/2019 at 09:39

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Eric Roberts’ character and Rebecca DeMornay’s character are in the second locomotive, and Jon Voight’s character cuts them loose, riding only the first. Since the slave controls had already been disconnected and engines 2 & 3 were not running, they coasted to a stop as #1 continued to the end of the line.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 01/22/2019 at 14:08

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Right. I’ll have to watch that movie again. It’s been many years.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 01/22/2019 at 14:08

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Your diction is always impeccable. I served in the Army and though I never knew abseil as a word, we always said dope on a rope.