Dieseltrain piston through a roof

[BigBlockMopar]

Keeping up with the trend of showing things that went through roofs, here's something that happened somewhere in 2010.
(I remember having seen this some time ago, but I'm not sure again if this has been posted here at the time)

This is Canadian National locomotive number 2699. It is a 212-ton machine powered by a 183-liter, 4400 hp V16, 4-stroke diesel

Shortly before this picture was taken, whilst working under load, 2699 experienced what is known in the trade as a catastrophic uncontained engine failure. The train was passing the town of Independence, LA at the time.
The first picture below shows that one of the 16 cylinder packs that form the engine was ejected through the engine bay body side and thrown clear of the locomotive.
In addition to this the piston from that cylinder was thrown free by the force of the failure. It was ejected so violently that it traveled through the air and crashed through the roof of a nearby home where it imbedded itself in an interior wall.

[TheSilverBuick]

The thing about diesel engines that big is when one, or a couple, cylinders fail, the engine doesn't stop. The horsepower/torque made by the other cylinders is more than ample to keep spinning the whole assemble effectively cutting and crushing the failed parts into everything else.

Any guess on how much that piston weighs? I'm betting over 10lbs.

[milner351]

can you imagine the mountain of paperwork after an incident like that?

I wonder how many hours that engine had on it and when the last maintenance was done.

[TheSilverBuick]

We had a CAT engine last 6 hours once. When you're cranking out that kind of horsepower (at only 1,000rpm...) it doesn't take much once a weakness is exposed. It could of popped a head gasket or something and hydra-locked, or ate a turbo seal and had an engine run away condition.

[DanStokes]

I'm surprised that the piston wasn't bigger. I was thinking a bore of like 12" or some such. Still, a pretty good hole.

I wonder what Truck would run with 4400 HP? Might need a gear change.

Dan

[Thumpin455]

When I worked for Dana, in the Perfect Circle piston ring plant, I machined rings for those pistons. The smallest was 9" bore, the biggest was 10 3/8" EMD had the big ones. We had an EMD piston sitting near my cell and the thing was heavy, going to guess about 15-20lbs easy. You sure didnt want to drop it on your foot. That slug looks like one of the 9" range ones, cant see the skirt in the pics, wonder if the piston is in one piece.

Some of the pistons have 5 rings, some have 10 rings per slug. If I remember right a single cylinder ring pack was usually about $600 after all the ops had been done on them. 4400hp at less than 1500rpm is some massive torque, and all they do is spin a generator.

[pdub]

That big chunk looks like it might have come off of something like this?