Talk:Derailment

Flangeless wheel link?
In the article, flangeless wheel is linked to blind driver which in turn redirects to driving wheel. The end result is you click on flangeless wheel and end up at an article which says nothing about what a flangeless wheel is, which is very confusing. I don't know enough about the topic to figure out the best way to fix it. -- RoySmith (talk) 04:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced section
This following parapgraph was cropped from the article's end section. I was unsure how to work this into the article, without references. Flibirigit 07:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Track caused derailments are usually caused by wide gauge. Proper gauge, the distance between rails, is 56.5 inches. As tracks wear from train traffic the rails tend to spread apart. This is primarily because wood ties weaken and crack from the stress of bearing train load tonnage. As ties weaken they loose a solid tight grip on the spikes which hold the track gauge. As the gauge between rails widens, the train wheels drop between the rails.Train tracks most often loose gauge in curves, where the outside wheels push the rail out. Most railroads are replacing wood ties with concrete ties.  Concrete ties are better as they are prestessed and poured with a metal slot to hold the base of the rail in place. But converting existing tracks to concrete ties is costly and time consuming.

Extra
The width of the tread of a standard gauge wheel is about 3 inches (don't quote me!) so the rails have to go only a small amount wide, before you have trouble.

Concrete ties have much longer life than wooden ones, even though they cost more. Good timber sleepers are also hard to come by as forests are denuded. It therefore makes sense to change to concrete sleepers when the timber sleepers are life expired. Remember that is costs to change sleepers in addition to the cost of the sleepers themselves.

Tabletop (talk) 04:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Scale?
Can scale on the running surface of the wheel cause derailments?

Tabletop (talk) 04:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Reverse curves?
Can reverse curves that are too sharp, including reverse curves in the middle of crossovers, cause derailments? Tabletop (talk) 04:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

text needs to be internationalised
The text is locale-specific in a couple of places, such as saying that "Proper gauge ... is 56.5 inches ... on standard gauge track", "Each rail segment is 39 feet long", and "The wheel rests on an area of rail no larger than a dime in size". This needs to be corrected. Teemu Leisti (talk) 03:27, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Rerailment
It would be interesting to know what was done in case of derailment, how locomotives were rerailed again in the early times of railroading in the 19th century. Did they already have available adequate devices as cranes or similar? --Ingo64 (talk) 10:14, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Methods to detect rail breaks
The first paragraph of this section Methods_to_detect_rail_breaks needs to be clarified or eliminated. A "clean break" (head, web, and foot) is most unlikely and connecting "pins" to the head would not eliminate other conductive pathways. By the way, for transit properties a "clean" break would not be detectable because of the traction power return cables along the trackway. My recommendations would be [a] to give emphasis to prediction of rail breakages and [b] to expand the "See also" entry with a link to a more comprehensive treatment at Rail_inspection#NDT_methods. Paul Niquette (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:21, 26 September 2011 (UTC).

Flangeless wheels
The Australian Standard Garratt had a pair of flangeless driving wheels which were prone to derailment. Tabletop (talk) 05:54, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Methods to derail a train
Wikipedia needs a how-to derail a train. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.193.246.183 (talk) 15:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * What terrorist organisation do you belong to? Afterbrunel (talk) 18:15, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Probably a descendant of van der Linde gang. enjoyer|talk 01:39, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Dubious and non-authoritative
Practically all of this article is of a dubious technical standard and is written in the style of an enthusiastic amateur. There is plenty of half-truth and true-but-irrelevant material, and it badly needs someone with access to verifiable sources (unfortunately not me) to do something about it.Afterbrunel (talk) 17:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Redraft
I have made a start in redrafting this article. (See dubious and non-authoritative above.)

It needs a lot of work. I propose to remove some of the images, which do not assist the reader in understanding the article; also many of the references are simply to "a derailment took place at X on date Y" which in most cases add nothing to comprehension. Also the vast amount of text on rail breaks is disproportionate (and maybe needs an article of its own); and rerailing is also given more space than it deserves.

I am UK based with some exposure to Western- and Central-European practice, and also to U.S. practice; any help with internationalising the article would be of value.

There is a lot to do to bring this article into an acceptable standard. Afterbrunel (talk) 14:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I have made some progress on this. As I see it we need a few more citations, and some more consistent comparative statistics. I am mighty uncomfortable with the list of actual accidents. This seems quite random, and the use of the national flag and the present tense narrative sounds too sensational. I would like to move towards referring directly in the text to accidents that illustrate the derailment mechanism being described. At all events entries like "United States June 30, 2010 A coal train derailment in Wayzata, MN. No injuries." with no further detail is completely out of place here. Afterbrunel (talk) 14:25, 23 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I more or less agree with your proposals. The list of accidents is not very informative, and would be better spun off as a separate "List of..." article.  The accidents cited in this article should be limited to those that illustrate a specific point being made in the text. Similarly, images embedded with the text should relate specifically to the nearby text.  Image galleries should be used as appropriate. Any noteworthy or striking images that do not directly relate to a specific section to the text should be relocated to a gallery section, and not embedded randomly in the text.


 * I am neutral regarding a spinoff of the material on rail breaks to a separate article, but don't want to see the coverage lost. As for the material on rerailing, it definitely could be improved.  I think the coverage is important in the context of the overall article, and would like to see a better explanation of the processes and tools.  I would do it myself, but lack the specific technical knowledge; I look forward to seeing improved coverage.


 * The wheel-rail interaction diagrams are quite helpful, but their large size dominated the entire article's page layout. I have moved them to an image gallery, to make them easier to compare with each other, and to make them less disruptive. I suggest making the text labels in the diagrams more readable, by using simple identifier callouts (dimensions "A", "B", etc.) keyed to their meanings in the caption (this will  also simplify the re-use of the diagrams in Wikipedias of other languages).  Also, the rail cross-section is tilted to the right; its significance should be explained, along with an explanation that it represents the outer rail of a banked right-turning curve.


 * The article is rated as "High-importance", and definitely needs an upgrade in quality. Thanks, Afterbrunel, for initiating it. Reify-tech (talk) 22:57, 23 June 2013 (UTC)


 * A quick question: The wheel-rail interaction section mentions "tan(L/V)" as an angle, but shouldn't this be "arctan(L/V)"? Reify-tech (talk) 03:01, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you Reify-tech, for these points. Usually when someone edits my stuff immediately after I have done a huge redraft, I have negative feelings toward them; in this case, however, I agree with the changes you have made. I'll see if I can make the other changes you mention over the next few days.


 * Arctan? Well yes, you're quite right; what I should have said was not "if tan(L/V) > flange contact angle" but "if L/V > tan (flange contact angle)". For general accessibility I would prefer to stick to tan (i.e. avoid arctan) by reversing the equation. I may have to label the flange contact angle ... I was hoping to avoid Greek letters for the same reason. Glad you agree about the cited accidents -- I was beginning to feel I may have overdone the draconian changes, so it is good to have some support.


 * Everyone: ther's still a lot to do -- any help welcome! Afterbrunel (talk) 06:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Example accidents
I have now deleted the previously written "example accidents". These were simply cut-and-paste from the article Lists of rail accidents and did not seem to illustrate any of the issues in this article.

I have added a few that (I believe) are illustrative; mine are all UK based so far; some more are needed, worldwide. Could I urge that any that are added are based on official factual reports ... newspaper reports and sensational "popular" books tend to be fanciful and focus on frivolous and lurid detail -- "bystanders looked on horrified as the packed express train plunged to its doom in the torrent hundreds of feet below" ...

I'll be doing more on this article but as always, anyone is most welcome to help. Afterbrunel (talk) 11:22, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Major redesign of article
Hey guys and girls, I will be planning on doing a major redesign and cleanup of the article because it contains some weasel paragraphs that can go off topic. I have found one section "General Introduction" that goes completely off topic, and I removed the section because of this. But there is more of the article to fix, I consider globalising the article so that is refers to the global perception of "derailment". Have any questions, no problem, leave them here below! DS Crowned (talk) 14:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

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What does this mean?
Only one person was killed, the eleven-year-old son of President-elect Franklin Pierce, who was also on board but was only badly bruised. 108.200.234.93 (talk) 22:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

To add to article
To add to this article: an explanation of what a "journal bearing" and a "journal box" are. 204.11.189.94 (talk) 14:44, 6 February 2023 (UTC)