Cab car-led train impact with locomotive-led train, January 31, 2002 and March 23, 2006.
The video shows a comparison between conventional equipment and improved equipment for a cab-car led passenger train. The collision scenario being compared is the impact of an initially moving cab car led train with an initially standing locomotive led train. In each view, the conventional equipment is shown at the top half of the frame, while the Crash Energy Management (CEM) equipment is shown on the bottom half.
The first scene shows the cab car coming in from the right and impacting the standing locomotive, which is on the left side of the video frame. The camera pans to follow the cab car as it approaches and impacts the standing locomotive. In the conventional equipment at the top of the frame, the cab car impacts the standing locomotive at 30.1mph. The conventional cab car initially crushes, and then the impact end starts to rise. The end of the cab car continues to rise as the cab car crushes, and the cab car overrides the locomotive. Eventually, the cab car overlaps the locomotive by approximately 20 feet. The camera pans as the locomotive-led train begins to move. Once the locomotive-led train is moving faster than the cab car led train, the end of the cab car slides off the locomotive and falls to the ground. There is very little structural damage to the locomotive during the impact.
Concurrently, the same view of the CEM equipment is shown at the bottom of the frame. The cab car comes from the right and impacts the standing locomotive at a speed of 30.8 mph. The passenger train has crush zones on all the ends of all the cab and coach cars. The front end of the cab car the back end of the last coach car have cab car crush zones, which preserve the operator's compartment and absorb additional energy while controlling a collision with a locomotive. All the other ends of the cars have coach car crush zones. In the test there is controlled structural crush, no loss of space for the passengers or operator and the trains remain in line. Crush occurs at all the interfaces between the cars in the passenger car.
The second scene uses a fixed camera pointed down the track to capture the entire passenger train. The conventional equipment is shown on the top half of the frame while the CEM equipment is on the bottom half. In the CEM test, some of the cars uncoupled after the crush zones crushed. The uncoupling did not affect the crashworthiness performance.
The third scene shows a fixed side view of the collision. In the conventional equipment, shown on the top half of the frame, the ramp formed by the deformation of the underframe can be seen. The wheels at the front end of the cab car rise off of the rails and the truck detaches from the car body. In the CEM equipment, there is no ramp formation, and all of the wheels remain on the rails.
