Vigilant Team Members Detect Potential Issue

Was that noise just the wind? Because they didn’t ignore a sound they heard in the darkness, two team members in Oklahoma prevented a possible derailment.

A Stillwater Central Railroad train was on a run from northeast Oklahoma to the central part of the state. Sometime after midnight at a stop just outside of Oklahoma City, Engineer Justin Hurt and Conductor/Engineer Sam Yim were positioning a group of sand cars. In the process, Yim was on the ground, and as Hurt ran the motor, Yim heard something that didn’t sound right.

The two followed the sound to discover a wheel bearing that was “just about to give up,” according to Trainmaster Randy Campbell. Wheel bearings allow rotating parts of a wheelset, like axles and wheels, to move smoothly. A defective bearing on a railcar could cause the axle to shift and a wheel to slip off the rail.

“They stopped all movement and got hold of the Mechanical team,” said Campbell. “They said the end result could have been catastrophic if not identified by the crew and train movement stopped immediately.”

Chief Mechanical Officer Mark Carman received a call about 12:30 or 1 in the morning. He gave the crew the okay to “limp” the car about 3 miles to his location at the Oklahoma City depot for repair. “Thankfully, it looked like they caught it early,” said Carman. “If it went a whole lot longer— it could’ve lasted another hour or two — we would’ve had a possible derailment or issue on our hands.”