Not sure of 1/2 what you said but all major rerailing operations for class 1 railroads is contractors. Hulcher, rj Corman, winter's rigging, steel city, cranemasters, etc. They've been using sidewinder since the 70's. Took all the carman wrecking jobs away.

Depends on the damage to the car.

Depends on damage, value of car and car owners wishes.

Thank you

No. Big tires, little wheels

this was the first derailment 3 weeks ago

I don't know, but I just read that article about two weeks ago. It was good. Interesting line of work.

Hulcher Services..probably the crew from Gettysburg PA

Kevin Finn the yard job who added the cars to the train put the empty cars and than the loaded cars, so because they were empty, the locomotives pulling it just caused the cars to tip over.

@Kevin Finn - This is called a "string-line" derailment. Caused when empties are placed ahead of loads or when a long train doesn't have mid-train helpers and too much pulling power on the head end (or both). In curves, drag causes the middle of the train to move slower than the head end causing the lighter cars to topple inward. Any Yard Crew or Yardmaster that doesn't know how to stack a consist for the grade should be working in the fast-food industry. UPDATE: It appears now that 100% of the blame for this is on Management (surprise, surprise). They're forcing employees to build their trains using some sort of worthless computer flow-chart system.

So your saying is the heavier cars should have been right behind the locomotives pulling and light or empty cars on the end?

@@IlikeCatF Yes that would have probably prevented this but if the train were really long there should have been a helper cut-in mid train. The point there is to keep the middle of the train moving at the same pace as the head end to take the torsional stress off the cars behind the lead engines. On the SP, we had some pretty tough hills that combined steep grades with a lot of curves. In particular was the line over Tehachapi Pass on the Mojave Sub. That line consists of a steady 2.2% grade with many 10 degree curves including multiple horseshoes and a loop. It was pretty common in those days to see a train with 24 axles of power on the head end and up to 48 axles of power cut into the middle as a "swing helper". Since westbound trains were always superior to eastbound trains on the SP, most eastbounds climbing the grade would at some point have to go in the hole to clear a westbound. That meant often having to restart a train on a 2.2% grade while wound through half a dozen curves. The heavy cut of power mid-train made this possible. But that was then. Today railroads try to get a train over a mountain with as little power as possible with the results showing in this video. On Tehachapi, UP has experienced quite a few string-line derailments because they try to run their trains mid-west style with all the power on the head-end and maybe 1 or 2 engines on the tail end.

Wrong. Theres shit tons of spikes anchoring it down. Especially in such a heavily curved area.

The caption says these are NS MoW crews, not a contractor.

Once cleaned up the track crews will come in and tidy things up. A rail geometry car will be used to make sure everything is repaired properly.

They have more control using the mobile Cat units over using a crane on the rails.

I guess I probably didn't word my original comment too well. What I was essentially trying to get at is why RR companies today seem to "outsource" everything. I can remember when we used to own all the necessary equipment and take care of these things ourselves. Oh well, Changing Times I guess.

Its Hulcher services from Gettysburg and Washington PA no railroad owns wrecking equipment anymore. The cars will be assessed for damage, and either home shopped for repairs, loaded up on special flat cars for repairs or scrapped.