Talk:San Bernardino train disaster
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Photo Gallery (no photo)
I was looking to add some cites to this article. Actually I intend to greatly expand it in the future, but for now I'll add the cites, and someday later I'll read those cites and then update the text. As always, my web searching led mostly to WikiClones and a brief paragraph with no meat at a dozen sites. But After an hour of search I had come up with two cites to add to the one NTSB cite (I found clones of that, too). I didn't actually link them to text, but that will come later.
So anyway, I came up with a dilemma. There's a site called TrainWeb that hosts train websites. They don't produce content, they just give webspace to various railroad hobbyists. Putting that name in the cite would as useful as saying Geocities. So I want to cite the hobbyist who put up the page. If the home page said Kern Junction Railroad Club, I would just say that, and be done with it. However, the actual name is Kern Junction Railroad Photo Gallery. This site has pictures of a memorial at the Tehachapi Loop, along with text explaining the incident. It's very meaty piece of text, apparently written by someone with direct contacts. I certainly want to cite this site, but if someone sees "Photo Gallery" and clicks it expecting to see train wreck photos, they'll be sadly disappointed. So I added "Note: No relevant photos at this site." The problem is this is calling the memorial irrelevant. So I'm insensitive. I invite anyone to make it better (but don't delete these two cites I dug up). -- Randall Bart <wiki@randallbart.com> 23:53, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
- I did add a videotape cover, showing a bit of the carnage of the derailment. TVSRR 03:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
- I've reworded the link to the Kern Junction Railroad Photo Gallery. Instead of saying no relevant photos, I stated what is there (a photo of the memorial plaque). KerryVeenstra 13:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Statement of melting wheels not supported by reference 7
In the Cause section of the Wikipedia article, this statement is made:
- the wheels were actually turning molten when the train left the track in its destructive crash
The statement is followed by footnotes 7 and 8. [Note: the footnotes were renumbered by an edit. In the text that follows, 7 refers to p.45 of the NTSB report, and 8 refers to the Crash Scene Investigation show.] Footnote 7 can be verified easily. Page 45 of the scanned accident report (page 54 of the PDF, near end of second paragraph) reports that many wheel sets showed "evidence of overheating." The next paragraph mentions that "Some brake shoes had been burned away and the backing plate had begun to melt." Evidence of overheating can be discoloration, and there is no mention of wheel melting on that page of the document, and so footnote 7 does not support such the claim of melting wheels.
I have not seen the episode of Crash Scene Investigation that is mentioned in reference 8, and so I don't know whether the statement of wheel melting should be removed or whether footnote 7 should be removed.
If reference 8 does not support the claim of melting wheels, then it could be reworded to mention the condition of the brake shoes instead. Such a statement would not be as dramatic, but it would be accurate.
Thoughts?
--KerryVeenstra 16:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I've read the NTSB report. It does not support the statement that the wheels were melting. So I removed the footnote to p.45 of the report. The reference to Crash Scene Investigation still needs to be verified. A statement of the brake shoes melting would be supported.