Don't Drop That Locomotive! (Or, Don't You Just Hate It When This Happens?)

A video shot of the unit hitting the dock. Ouch!

Have you ever watched as one of your locomotives took a nose-dive to the floor? It happened to me once. But it was nothing like what happened to dock workers in the West African country of Gabon.

While unloading an Australian-built EMD GT46C-Ace at Port Owendo in 2012, the cables snapped, dropping the 132-ton unit on to the dock. The result wasn't pretty, as this video of the incident shows.

What the unit looks like when it hasn't been dropped.

Comilog is a French mining company that transports manganese from Franceville and Libreville in Gabon’s interior to Port Owendo.

You can read more about this incident, and other shipping-related accidents, at CargoLaw.com, a website about accidents involving ships and cargo. (Motto: Ship happens!)

Speaking of accidents, closer to home the CN locomotive below got into a bit of a tight squeeze at the coal unloading facility at Westshore Terminals on B.C.’s west coast. According to a newspaper report, this is the second time someone tilted the locomotive, instead of the coal cars, at the terminal.

Oops!

Thanks to West Toronto Junction for alerting me to the video of the dropped locomotive.