Horseshoe Curve Minor Derailment on July 31, 1991

In the summer of 1991 the Railroaders Memorial Museum had the Horseshoe Curve visitors site closed for renovations and installation of the funicular. Dad and I didn't know this so we were pretty disappointed when we showed up on the evening of July 31. We decided to poke around a bit anyway so we went through the tunnel and parked about 1/4 mile away out of sight on the old siding alignment and walked in to the backside of the curve. At about 7:30 PM a loaded slab train came pounding up the hill from Altoona, but something didn't look right. It turns out that the lead truck of the first gon was on the ground shooting sparks and popping out pandrol clips. We were able to flag down the helpers and they got the train stopped short of MG Tower, where it would have torn up the plant pretty good. The scanner chatter verifies what happened. That's my dad hustling up to the helper crew to tell them what happened. The rear end crew was pretty grateful and gave dad and I the nickel tour of the helpers. Later after we hiked in to MG the brass hats not only let us stick around, they treated us to some spring water in MG Tower! By then it was too dark to get video of the set out gon, but the wheels of the lead truck didn't have any flanges left on them. Note that in my exuberance I misidentified the SD50's on the head end as SD60's in the video.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Horseshoe Curve Derailment
• Horseshoe Curve
• Conrail
• Derailment
• slab train
• SD50
• C40-8W
• SD40-2
• Homer
• MG Tower
• Alto

[cp256]

I held the scanner close to the vidcam.

[b18cyacrxs]

Why was the engineer coming out on the deck just as he was passing you by. Did he see you guys waving way before he got there?

[cp256]

@b18cyacrxs Yes, that's exactly why.

[b18cyacrxs]

@cp256 Damn Man that's Crazy. Great Catch. What did you guys yell? It sounded like the whole car is derailed.

[cp256]

@b18cyacrxs Both of us were yelling slightly different things so I think it may have been a combination of "first car" and "front gon" is derailed.

[formidable38]

Those SD40's on the back sound f****n awesome!

[cp256]

@formidable38 I have always loved the sound of helpers going away in RUN-8. No train sounds to pollute the sound of turbocharged 645's or 710's screaming for all they're worth. A great spot for that is at SLOPE by 24th St in Altoona. The GEs just don't have the right sound for me.

[IIIIIRepoIIIII]

This is why railfans are an asset to railroads

[railbum]

thank God for railfans!



[488scooby]

well done lads,

[MilwaukeeWaveFan]

How did you guys get the radio transmission?

[Nathanrailfan]

@NSAaron Uh, more like CSX and Penn Central.

[SPTunnelMotor]

@cp256 @formidable38 Amen!

[SuperCoolDude2014]

Omg dis is on my birthday

[NSAaron]

"Charlie Sugar Extra" Even Conrail had their interpretation of CSX.

[longwhip]

We derailed like that and was only pulling 300 amps and could not feel it on the ground. I happend to be pulling out of a siding and saw the cars sliding up toward the mainline right toward me...right behind the power consist they would not have known anything until they hit the first crossing and it would have took a chance RE-RAILING...nice video!!

[derail14]

they would have tore out MG thats what would have happened.