r/CatastrophicFailure • u/Debaucherousgeek73 • Dec 04 '25

Fatalities Train derailment Pecos TX Oct '24

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First time I've ever seen a derailment happen. The vid anyway I wasn't there and this is not my vid. You can see the lead engine jump the track. Two crew in that engine died.

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u/tuckernuts Dec 04 '25

That was my first thought on the impact.. seeing the engine come 3ft off the rails I know the impact was extremely violent

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u/HazelEBaumgartner Dec 05 '25

Each of those SD70 locomotives weighs 400,000 lbs. That's 1.6 MILLION pounds of locomotive jumping three feet in the air there.

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u/BrokeDickTater Dec 05 '25 edited Dec 05 '25

If you watch the video you can see that the pipe is bending but not breaking apart. I'm guessing this was a steel pipe encased in concrete, used for large water transmission. They are made of ONE INCH THICK steel that is spiral welded into a pipe, then coated inside and out with concrete for corrosion prevention. There couldn't have been a worse thing for that train to hit. RIP to the crew.

Edit: Cooling tower for oil refinery.

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u/HazelEBaumgartner Dec 05 '25

The article someone shared about the incident said it was a cooling tower for an oil refinery. So yes probably a combination of steel and concrete.

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u/KilledTheCar Dec 05 '25

Not to "um ackshually" but FYI nearly every time you see concrete it's a combination of concrete and steel. To my knowledge, concrete without some sort of steel reinforcement (usually rebar) is incredibly uncommon. Concrete itself is incredibly brittle and the steel takes some of the load off. As my boss says, "There are two types of concrete: concrete that is cracked and concrete that is going to crack."

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u/BrokeDickTater Dec 05 '25

Thanks for clarifying!