Boomerang Accident in Chile - Caught on Film

[wakey1512]

I think the wheels are at the front of the car, and the back car is attached to the catch car bogie, so it would have been on the track as normal - the train would fishtail and fly about all over the place if it only had one set of wheels. It wouldn't make the cobra roll that's for certain.

The reason the other half of the train come to a halt is due to the roll back brakes at the bottom of the 2nd hill. If the proximity sensors detect something pass it twice within a small time it assumes it's valleying and will stop the train.

 

[CoastinBear]

I think the wheels are at the front of the car, and the back car is attached to the catch car bogie, so it would have been on the track as normal - the train would fishtail and fly about all over the place if it only had one set of wheels. It wouldn't make the cobra roll that's for certain.

The wheels are indeed at the front of each car, and the car at the back of the train has a set of wheels at the back as well, so cars 1-6 are supported directly by the wheels attached to the front of each car, with car 7 also being supported by the wheels at the back of the car (the ones that engage with the catch car for the initial haul up the backwards slope). The rear of each of cars 1-6 are supported, via a coupling, by the wheels at the front of the car behind. If a coupling breaks, then surely the car behind that coupling retains the wheels and the car in front will be left with no rear wheels.

The thing that complicates matters is that the train was going backwards at the time of the decoupling.

The rear section of the train would have wheels remaining to support the front and rear of that section so it could get through the cobra roll; the front of the train would be left with no wheels at the back of the last remaining car, so the chassis would be scraping along the track causing fairly rapid deceleration.