“Oh my God! If it had hit the train, you could forget about it!"
November 1, 2014 8:01 PM   Subscribe

 
Can Seattle borrow that drill bit?
posted by hellojed at 8:07 PM on November 1, 2014 [14 favorites]


Um yeah, I try not to think about how people's random actions come close to killing me whenever the coincidence strikes.
posted by AlexiaSky at 8:11 PM on November 1, 2014


I'm actually kind of curious what would have happened if the drill had hit the train--would the train have had enough power/inertia to keep plowing through while getting split down the center by the drill? Or would the train's materials have been strong enough the pull the drill with it? Would the train have crashed?
posted by picklenickle at 8:11 PM on November 1, 2014 [9 favorites]


It's funny because no one actually died!
posted by emjaybee at 8:11 PM on November 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


Please evacuate the train. This is a drill.
posted by brownpau at 8:16 PM on November 1, 2014 [216 favorites]


I'm actually kind of curious what would have happened if the drill had hit the train


Yes...unfortunately, we'll never know...
posted by Alexander J. Luthor at 8:20 PM on November 1, 2014 [3 favorites]


Can Seattle borrow that drill bit?

Can Seattle borrow a subway system?
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:21 PM on November 1, 2014 [8 favorites]


I'm actually kind of curious what would have happened if the drill had hit the train

They would have been screwed...
posted by jim in austin at 9:04 PM on November 1, 2014 [18 favorites]


No, just bored to death.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:05 PM on November 1, 2014 [30 favorites]


Man. This is the kind of thing that heads really should roll over, but I'm sure it will basically be treated as a wacky human interest story.
posted by threeants at 9:12 PM on November 1, 2014




See also: Chicago Flood
posted by MikeWarot at 9:18 PM on November 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


OK, its Sunday, can we just forgive and forget. After all, many are called but few are screwed.
posted by lometogo at 10:05 PM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


This is the kind of thing that heads really should roll over

Oh I'm pretty sure someone is losing their license over this one.
posted by fshgrl at 10:39 PM on November 1, 2014


It certainly doesn't auger well for them.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:42 PM on November 1, 2014 [33 favorites]


I wonder who writes their headlines.

They've always been a feisty tabloid (in fact, they originated the format in the US), and arguably own the all-time headline award (hard news division) with FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.
posted by dhartung at 11:29 PM on November 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is the stuff I try not to worry about in bed at night.
posted by oceanjesse at 12:38 AM on November 2, 2014


It would've been a lot less serious had it been an Official Susan G. Komen Pink Drill Bit, right?
Am I the only one who made that connection? Or just the only one to say it out loud?
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:03 AM on November 2, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is a bit too much.
posted by verstegan at 1:08 AM on November 2, 2014 [7 favorites]


What a twist!
posted by maxwelton at 1:44 AM on November 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Here's what I think would have happened (I'm an engineer, but not experienced with earth moving equipment or trains).

If the train hit the bit full on and at full speed, the bit would have snapped almost immediately. Bits are really not good at handling transverse shock impacts, and the base of the train would be solid, with a lot of force. The force of the train combined with the leverage between the solid base and the hole in the ceiling would snap it easily. The hood of the train would probably crumple a little, but the train wouldn't have stopped. The driver might survive. The passengers probably wouldn't notice unless the rest of the bit kept coming down.

If the bit kept coming down, or if the bit came down on the train roof while it was moving, the bit would gouge into the train roof, which I think is not solid enough to snap the bit immediately. With less exposed length the leverage would not be anywhere near as great, and the force of impact would build gradually. The roof would catch on the bit and crumple and pile up behind it for a while (it's a big bit, so it might actually be strong enough to cut through the roof of each carriage, before the resistance of the roof was enough to snap it). I don't know how fast the driver would react to the problem, or if any automatic systems would spot the problem and cut the power, but I think the train would keep going, until the debris piled up behind the bit was enough to either snap the bit or stop the train. Really not sure which way it would go without doing some math. This would be fatal for some passengers and terrifying even for those not injured.

Above ground, I don't think it would be too exciting. They'd know something was wrong, but I don't think anything would break or fall over (really guessing here).
posted by YAMWAK at 2:38 AM on November 2, 2014 [12 favorites]


What does it say about me that I read nearly skewers as neatly skewers?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:37 AM on November 2, 2014 [2 favorites]


We get screwed by the MTA every day in NYC. What's the story here?

Time to drill down on details a bit.
posted by spitbull at 6:06 AM on November 2, 2014


Chicago has so many tunnels and things running underneath downtown that it has a dedicated Office of Underground Coordination to review all construction projects and make sure they don't accidentally drill/dig/punch into any of it. I'm assuming it was created in response to the 1992 flood linked upthread, but I'm not entirely sure.

Also, I think the Office of Underground Coordination should make hats or shirts or something, because it sounds so wonderfully subversive until you realize it's just a mundane engineering office coordinating stuff that's literally under the ground.
posted by gueneverey at 6:44 AM on November 2, 2014 [3 favorites]


Somebody screwed down
posted by hal9k at 6:45 AM on November 2, 2014 [2 favorites]


arguably own the all-time headline award (hard news division) with FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.

Also the (less than hard news division) with their classic

HEADLESS BODY
IN TOPLESS BAR
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:24 AM on November 2, 2014 [4 favorites]


"FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER" seems kinda tame now.

But lettuce all poor a foorty for the subs!
posted by Mezentian at 7:29 AM on November 2, 2014


The bit is heavy steel pipe which has to withstand immense twisting forces; the roof of the train is mostly sheet metal for weight. If the train was moving my vote is that it would open up the first car like a sardine can, then either snap and/or derail the train when it hit the bulkhead at the back of the car it hit.

However, it's not really clear that the train was moving. If it was just sitting there the bit would likely have gone right through it, seriously injuring at most a few people who had the bad luck to be directly beneath it, and probably boring right through the bottom of the car to pin the train in place.
posted by localroger at 7:29 AM on November 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


According to one of my coworkers, something similar happened in Philly once. The Broad Street line runs under Broad Street and is not very deep. A hotel wanted a new canopy on the sidewalk at the entrance. My coworker then worked for the city department that approves these things, and the department told them no, there is nowhere for footings to go, it's just space and subway. The hotel went ahead and ended up with a hole in the subway. Thankfully no subway car was involved though.
posted by sepviva at 8:13 AM on November 2, 2014


Also the (less than hard news division) with their classic

HEADLESS BODY
IN TOPLESS BAR


That's the Post, feh.
posted by dhartung at 11:55 AM on November 2, 2014


Something similar happened in London in 2013; news report & surprisingly interesting (if you're me, anyway) Rail Accident Investigation report.
posted by Luddite at 12:53 PM on November 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


It torque no time at all for the puns to turn up in this thread!
posted by crepesofwrath at 1:09 PM on November 2, 2014


Oh, what? That drill is nowhere near anything. Way to get all hysterical over nothing, New York!
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:16 PM on November 2, 2014


Can anyone explain why "17 Lies We Need to Stop Teaching Girls About Sex" is the first FPP listed under "Related Posts?" Is it lies about length? What actually happens during penetration? Or is it just plain old getting screwed?
posted by tzikeh at 3:46 PM on November 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Sooo...I take it they've started fracking in Manhattan.
posted by Suggestive_Bobcat at 5:18 PM on November 2, 2014


Similar things have happened in Moscow twice in the recent years, most recently this January. In both cases, a concrete pile was driven through the roof of a subway tunnel, with one of them hitting a moving train. Fortunately, nobody was hurt.
posted by daniel_charms at 2:41 AM on November 3, 2014


Oh, that's good. Piles can be very painful.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:53 AM on November 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


Can anyone explain why "17 Lies We Need to Stop Teaching Girls About Sex" is the first FPP listed under "Related Posts?"

It looks like one commonality is that both posts have "no" as a tag (the perils of a sort of loosey-goosey tag system). Aside from that, I'm not seeing the logic, but I am having a bit of a giggle over trying to determine if this phrase from the other post has anything to do with it: "sex education in America has gaping holes in its curriculum."
posted by taz at 3:51 AM on November 3, 2014 [5 favorites]


But we're supposed to call dig-safe?
posted by DesbaratsDays at 9:34 AM on November 3, 2014


This post comes with its own theme song.

Holy crap, Wire was on the Tonight Show? How the hell did that happen? And who is that blonde playing host?
posted by e1c at 12:41 PM on November 3, 2014


Nothing to do with subways, but while we're on winning headlines, there is an (apocryphal) story about the London Times reporting on MP Michael Foot's involvement with a nuclear-disarmament committee:

Foot Heads Arms Body
posted by illongruci at 3:20 AM on November 6, 2014


I vaguely remember something similar happening on the DC Metro a year or two ago -- a road construction crew drove pile through a vent shaft, and dropped a bunch of rocks into the station...
posted by schmod at 11:26 AM on November 6, 2014


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