B&O Railroad Museum Progress

I gather the main reasons for the building failing were, poor roof design, poor construction, poor inspection. in other words, an accident waiting to happen.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

I haven't heard about the poor design part.

If that were actually the case, it would be very surprising to have stood for

100+ years before a collapse.

"Mark Mathu"

...

That's what the magazine article stated.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Design and construction were above par for the era in which it was built. Inspections and minor repairs were done a few years ago. Nobody but nobody could have anticipated the tons of snow and ice that precipitated the collapse.

I just reiterate the magazine article which quoted from an official investigation report.

See also: -

Scroll down to "Primary Flaw" part of which is quoted below.

Quote:-

His report says that in some areas the strongest points of the 80-foot trusses were not positioned under weight-bearing beams, called kingposts, that held the roof decking together. That was the primary flaw causing the trusses to buckle inward and send metal, wood, slate and snow cascading like an avalanche onto the museum's prized exhibits.

Rockey also found that the trusses were not properly braced top to bottom to keep the wood decking from moving over the years. The lack of bracing meant that the trusses began to twist and weaken as the weight from snow mounted.

End Quote:

As I wrote, poorly designed and built.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Interesting report. Remember these flaws are one man's opinion. And that man happens to be making a lot of money recommending the total roof replacement. Not saying it's wrong but it does go against other opinions I've heard, including these lines in the Sunspot story: "Well, I would say that should be taken with a grain of salt," Avery said of Rockey's comment. "It would be unfair to say all of [Baldwin's] roof work is flawed....He probably did what was right at the time, and it survived for 119 years"

Wasn't the building around for a hundred years or so? It's been 20 years since I went there but I thought it was a fairly old structure adapted to the museums use. If so a poor design likely wouldn't be a reason.

Dave

"Dave Henk" <

119 years. Still doesn't mean it wasn't a poor design, just lucky.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Hope I am as lucky! Here's to seeing all of you at my 119th. ;-)

Seems to me that a building that old went through 2 storms of the century, and while the design may not have been optimal, it must have been the best that could be had for it's original intended purpose. And as the purpose was to house steam locos for maintenance and repairs, the designer may have expected the ambient temperature at the roof to be high enough to actually melt away some of the expected snow load. It was the modern day recycling of that building, and the short sighted changes to make it usable as it's new purpose that lead to this catastrophy.

Steve

: > Wasn't the building around for a hundred years or so? It's been 20 years : since : > I went there but I thought it was a fairly old structure adapted to the : museums : > use. If so a poor design likely wouldn't be a reason. : : : 119 years. Still doesn't mean it wasn't a poor design, just lucky. : : : -- : Cheers : Roger T. : : Home of the Great Eastern Railway :

: :

and while the

for maintenance and

Sorry, wrong. We were there in 2002 and were told that it was built as a repair facility for passenger cars. That's why the turntable was inside and covered and why there were no smokejacks.

It was originally the Mt. Clare car shop, it never housed steam locomotives.

I stand corrected. I had seen the shuttered area near the top from a photo made in the sixties, then made an ass-umption. Viewing the dimensions now, the clear span at the center of the building would likely compromise a design. I have not been to the Museum, and now it sounds doubtful that I would be able to see what once was. Thanks all for pointing out that misconception I had of it's origin.

Steve

"Corelane" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m02.aol.com... : >> [the roundhouse] was built as a repair facility for passenger cars.

While you misconstrued the roundhouse origins, you are correct in that the building did withstand many a fierce storm over its lifetime. Sure hope I make it to 119.

I'd like to clear up a little misconception about what "storm of the century" (often referred to as 100-year storms [or floods, or earthquakes, etc.]) really means. (As a structural engineer, these things are near and dear to my heart.)

A 100-year storm is a storm that has a 1 in 100 (1%) chance of happening in any year. It is determined by looking at information from past years and applying statistics (bell curves, standard deviations) to try to make sense of the randomness of the snowfall.

The 28 inches of snow which fell in Baltimore when the B&O roof collapsed was very close to being a 100-year ("storm of the century") type of snowfall. As a matter of fact, I think that storm went a little beyond; i.e. the odds of seeing that much snow in any given year was even less than 1 in 100.

But because snowstorms have randomness, we can't say with any certainty that once a 100-year "storm of the century occurs there won't be another one for

100 years. In fact, it could be longer than 100 years between storms of that size, or even a much smaller interval between storms. Because there is a 1% chance of that much snow in ANY year, it's possible that there could be no storms of that size in 100 years... or one storm... or two... or maybe even three.

Because there's a chance of that much snow in ANY year (even if it's a small chance), there's even a possibility that there could be 100 storms of that size in 100 years. There could even be more than 100 storms of that size in

100 years, since it can snow more than once a year. But the odds of those situations occurring are astronomical; as I'm sure you can see.

- Mark

IIRC when the Zambezi dam was being built in the 1960s they had a 100 year flood about halfway through the work that caused quite a setback, a year later just as construction was getting back in full swing they had a thousand year flood.

Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.