6 1/2 inch thick axle cut in half caused this hopper car to derail. Not a
good day on the railroad. Hulcher to the rescue.

You'll see the cut in half axle along with several of the bearing parts which
had been thrown from the truck set along side the track. Bad wheel bearings
happen on the railroad cars. I have no way of knowing who had made
this bearing or where it was manufactured at. They are all sealed bearings
and thus cannot be greased.

This bearing was a Brenco. Amsted RailBrenco is located in Petersburg Va.
And from what I could find out that is where the bearings were manufactured.

I do know that axle bearings are subject to radial impact loading from jointed
rail as well as flat spots on wheels. In addition they are subject to axial
loads caused by lateral movement as the trains go thru curves. Thus there
is an uncommon amount of these stresses on the axle bearings just
from us having 16 miles of jointed track along with us having 70
curves over half of which are 7 degree or higher. Then there are
additional stresses on the bearings from sections of track that
may contain track perturbations as well as battered rail heads where
the car wheel will "hit" harder than in normal track conditions.

So with that said, we have had a greater amount of bearings go bad
over the years than many other railroads do and I think that a
big part of that is because of our track adding uncommon amounts
of stress to the bearings themselves.

It would be very interesting to me to talk with railroaders who
have all CWR and track with low degree curves to learn the
amount of bad bearings they encounter. I'm willing to bet it would
be a far less percentage than the amount of bad bearings we have.

The load limit on our aluminum hopper cars is 286,000 pounds. We
typically put 115 tons in each car. That is 230,000 pounds plus the
average empty car weight is 52,000. So that is 282,000 pounds which
means we are not over loading the cars.

Made March 18, 2022

Disclaimer: I am an employee of Iron Synergy at Cumberland
Mine. My job is railroad track maintenance. I am very fortunate to
have this job and everyone at the mine is very fortunate to have
Iron Synergy as it's current owner. Our past owners had every
intention of shutting this mine down, but Iron Synergy took
over and have kept this mine alive.

Please understand: I am NOT in any way an official or unofficial
spokes person for Iron Synergy or Cumberland Mine. Any viewpoints,
opinions or anything that I show in the videos, or write in the video
descriptions or any answer to any comment, should NEVER be
misconstrued or interpreted as being in any way shape or form,
any kind of official or unofficial statement from Iron Synergy,
Cumberland Mine, any of the mine's management, any of the
contractors that may be shown in any video, nor of any of
my fellow cowokers.

Any viewpoints or opinions I may make in the videos, in the descriptions,
or in any answer to a comment is strictly that of my own and NOT an
official or unofficial statement or viewpoint that Iron Synergy or
any one at Iron Synergy or Cumberland Mine necessarily has or makes.

Again, we are very fortunate to have Iron Synergy as our current owners.
Please, when making a comment be respectful of Iron Synergy, Cumberland
Mine, my fellow coworkers and also any contractors that may be
shown. Thank You, Dave

#Derailment#BadBearing#BadWheelBearing