Thursday, March 16, 2023

Broken axle

Ron Ziel and George Foster, Steel rails to the sunrise, Hawthorne Books, 1965
 Long Island Railroad locomotive #16 sits stranded along the line on July 22 1915 when the middle driver axle broke, Fortunately the engine did not derail and there were no injuries, but the bent right hand side connecting rod ensures it's not going anywhere without help.  An accident like this was bound to attract a crowd of sightseers who made sure they were in the photograph.

3 comments:

Dave said...

Wouldn't want to be the service guy on call that day.

Anonymous said...

Got a spare rod with you? I was wondering how they would handle it. Probably remove the rods on both sides, And depending on where the axle was broken, probably remove the other half of the wheel/axle and gingerly tow it home?

Dave said...

Quickly googling it looks like they had some pretty heavy crane cars even in 2015...maybe they had to back one up along the track in front of the engine and put it to use?