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Show A. Totally buried emergency power supply unit. B. Totally destroyed part of the rail station. C. Crushed and deeply buried pig stall. D. Part of the building still standing. E. Freight warehouse pushed to F. L. Overturned locomotive 120 tons 1. Coach pushed down the slope. 2,3 Overturned coaches. 4,5 Coaches remaining on the Fig. 15. Plan view of the Dalass rail station track, and the displaced train components, scale 1: 2250. The forces for pushing the turned- over locomotive or coaches with the smooth metal surfaces on the powder snow are small and, assuming a coefficient of friction of 0.1 to 0.2, amount to about 200 to 400 kg/ m2 at most for the locomotive and about 70 to 140 kg/ m2 at most for the coaches. The facts that the part of the railway station building located behind the locomotive was not destroyed, that even the window shutters and windows in part remained intact, and that the light wooden shed located behind the second coach was only slightly pushed aside, permit the conclusion that, with the movement of these parts of the train, the avalanche was essentially stopped. The great dammed- up mass of snow also indicates this. The statically determined forces which were expended in bringing the avalanche to a standstill amount to about 1000 to 1200 kg/ m2 for the locomotive and about 700 to 1000 kg/ m2 for the railroad coach, depending on the hypothesis for the lifting process. From the magnitude of the forces determined, which occurred in the movements of the locomotive and coaches, the inclination of the effective resultants can be estimated to be 20 or 30 percent. 14 |