Train - hazardous cargo "accident"

[DieselnHooters]

Take a look at Energy East proposed route, through major population centers and dug under the St-Lawrence river near QuebecCity !!?? What could go wrong ?

You are free to make all the environmental disasters you like in your backyard...not ours

We still expect equalization payments in the billions until we bleed you dry, when the $$$ stop flowing our way then Canada is done.

Maybe you will like being an American, you are already fixated on US politics

 

[3930dave]

Updated today....

Lac-Megantic: The runaway train that destroyed a town - BBC News

Rgds, D.

 

[buickanddeere]

Updated today....

Lac-Megantic: The runaway train that destroyed a town - BBC News

Rgds, D.

3930Dave. Best answer I have seen yet.

 

[crazyal]

The problem was that it wasn't just one mistake. They couldn't prove that the engineer didn't set the brakes. He says he did and the fire was set by someone who also released the brakes. The fire department didn't have the engineer come back to inspect the train after the fire. The locomotive's engines were shut down shutting off the air compressor that released the brakes by, I believe, the firemen who never told the engineer. Trying to charge the other two men was pretty much a joke. Neither of them had any control over the brakes being set on the train. Even going after Canadian Pacific is also a joke. They played no role in this accident. They weren't the company hauling the tankers at the time of the accident, they didn't have any control over the company or it's guidelines, and the they didn't hire the engineer.

 

[4570Man]

The problem was that it wasn't just one mistake. They couldn't prove that the engineer didn't set the brakes. He says he did and the fire was set by someone who also released the brakes. The fire department didn't have the engineer come back to inspect the train after the fire. The locomotive's engines were shut down shutting off the air compressor that released the brakes by, I believe, the firemen who never told the engineer. Trying to charge the other two men was pretty much a joke. Neither of them had any control over the brakes being set on the train. Even going after Canadian Pacific is also a joke. They played no role in this accident. They weren't the company hauling the tankers at the time of the accident, they didn't have any control over the company or it's guidelines, and the they didn't hire the engineer.

He probably believes that rather it’s true or not. How else could you sleep at night?

 

[3930dave]

The problem was that it wasn't just one mistake. They couldn't prove that the engineer didn't set the brakes. He says he did and the fire was set by someone who also released the brakes. The fire department didn't have the engineer come back to inspect the train after the fire. The locomotive's engines were shut down shutting off the air compressor that released the brakes by, I believe, the firemen who never told the engineer. Trying to charge the other two men was pretty much a joke. Neither of them had any control over the brakes being set on the train. Even going after Canadian Pacific is also a joke. They played no role in this accident. They weren't the company hauling the tankers at the time of the accident, they didn't have any control over the company or it's guidelines, and the they didn't hire the engineer.

I'll leave my personal views on Accountability at the individual level aside, in the Blame Game.

For me, this really only comes down to 3 major aspects:

1) From a design standpoint, Trains have an historic Free-Pass when come to Safety. Blow ONE air line on transport truck, and the brakes automatically apply.

2) MAJOR companies at both ends of these rail lines are making billions on the risks they externalize, to us. Shuffling the "responsibility" off to some fly-by-night operation that conveniently disappears is just another symptom of how effectively corporations control government "oversight".

3) If nothing significantly changes, then we don't function much differently than a third-world country.

Rgds, D.

 

[ch1ch2]

I do not see any reason the engineer should have been charged. If my limited understanding of how the brake system works, if the engine is not sending compressed air down the air line to all the cars, then the cars will not have the air pressure to release the brakes. Someone would have manually released car brakes in order for the train to roll away.

What am I missing?

 

[aczlan]

Re: Train - hazardous cargo "accident"

I do not see any reason the engineer should have been charged. If my limited understanding of how the brake system works, if the engine is not sending compressed air down the air line to all the cars, then the cars will not have the air pressure to release the brakes. Someone would have manually released car brakes in order for the train to roll away.

What am I missing?

Trains do not have spring applied, air released brakes like on a truck. They have air applied, air released brakes.
If they lose air from the engine, the brakes apply and hold until the air in the tanks on each car runs out. At that point if no one has applied the manual brakes the train can roll. Depending on the number of cars in the train and weight in the cars, there are a certain number of cars that need to have their brakes manually applied when parking.
The question here was if the engineer applied manual brakes in enough cars to hold the train on the slope that it was parked on in the event of a loss of air (such as when the firemen shut down the locomotive and it's air compressor).
He says that he did and I would tend to believe him because of the way he was asking the dispatcher to call him back out to go check on the train. If he hadn't set enough brakes, I suspect that he would have just gone anyways to set them to cover himself. To his dying day he will probably rue the fact that he did not go and check the train even though the dispatcher wouldn't call him back to check it on the clock.

Aaron Z

 

[3930dave]

Re: Train - hazardous cargo "accident"

Trains do not have spring applied, air released brakes like on a truck. They have air applied, air released brakes.
If they lose air from the engine, the brakes apply and hold until the air in the tanks on each car runs out. At that point if no one has applied the manual brakes the train can roll. Depending on the number of cars in the train and weight in the cars, there are a certain number of cars that need to have their brakes manually applied when parking.
The question here was if the engineer applied manual brakes in enough cars to hold the train on the slope that it was parked on in the event of a loss of air (such as when the firemen shut down the locomotive and it's air compressor).
He says that he did and I would tend to believe him because of the way he was asking the dispatcher to call him back out to go check on the train. If he hadn't set enough brakes, I suspect that he would have just gone anyways to set them to cover himself. To his dying day he will probably rue the fact that he did not go and check the train even though the dispatcher wouldn't call him back to check it on the clock.

Aaron Z

Well said.

Rgds, D.

 

[cqaigy2]

I'll leave my personal views on Accountability at the individual level aside, in the Blame Game.

For me, this really only comes down to 3 major aspects:

1) From a design standpoint, Trains have an historic Free-Pass when come to Safety. Blow ONE air line on transport truck, and the brakes automatically apply.

2) MAJOR companies at both ends of these rail lines are making billions on the risks they externalize, to us. Shuffling the "responsibility" off to some fly-by-night operation that conveniently disappears is just another symptom of how effectively corporations control government "oversight".

3) If nothing significantly changes, then we don't function much differently than a third-world country.

Rgds, D.

Here we go, and probably not going to change anytime soon. Even when a train falls off the track onto the freeway, you hear that it would cost too much to fix it.

 

[PILOON]

Another aspect is that I believe most of those major RR's are self insured and prefer to spend their $$'s on lawyers when the time comes, hence spreads the blame.

 

[buickanddeere]

The problem was that it wasn't just one mistake. They couldn't prove that the engineer didn't set the brakes. He says he did and the fire was set by someone who also released the brakes. The fire department didn't have the engineer come back to inspect the train after the fire. The locomotive's engines were shut down shutting off the air compressor that released the brakes by, I believe, the firemen who never told the engineer. Trying to charge the other two men was pretty much a joke. Neither of them had any control over the brakes being set on the train. Even going after Canadian Pacific is also a joke. They played no role in this accident. They weren't the company hauling the tankers at the time of the accident, they didn't have any control over the company or it's guidelines, and the they didn't hire the engineer.

Should have been enough hand brakes set to hold the train if the air brakes failed.

 

[vvanders]

I'll leave my personal views on Accountability at the individual level aside, in the Blame Game.

For me, this really only comes down to 3 major aspects:

1) From a design standpoint, Trains have an historic Free-Pass when come to Safety. Blow ONE air line on transport truck, and the brakes automatically apply.

2) MAJOR companies at both ends of these rail lines are making billions on the risks they externalize, to us. Shuffling the "responsibility" off to some fly-by-night operation that conveniently disappears is just another symptom of how effectively corporations control government "oversight".

3) If nothing significantly changes, then we don't function much differently than a third-world country.

Rgds, D.

Sounds much like the situation with the risk involved in working on cell towers. They AT&T, Verizon, etc sub-contract all the work so that when something goes wrong they're not at fault: Tower climbers dying at 1 times the rate of construction workers

We had one of these derail a while back here in WA and took out the water supply for the local town. I see them running up and down the I-5 corridor and just waiting for something bad to happen. The tracks are easy to access and the impact of a derailment is pretty well documented.

 

[crazyal]

A large part of the problem really lies at the feet of the Canadian government. The company asked for and was permitted to operate trains with just one engineer. Had there been two the train wouldn't of needed to stop because the engineer had reached his allotted time. There was no standard for how many brakes that needed to be set. The engineer said he set 7 brakes. Government testing said around 30 brakes should have been set. The problem is that no guideline was published for companies to follow. You can't realistically expect an engineer to be able to do the physics to understand how much energy there was with that much weight, how much braking force each truck provided, or how much force was needed to get the train moving. There was also no regulation as to where to park a train. The siding that's equipped with a derailer to prevent runaways was used for storage of other rail cars so the train was left on the main track (the government permitted this practice).

Even when violations were found Transport Canada never followed up on them to ensure they were fixed or unsafe practices were changed. A large company like Canadian Pacific has the resources and finances to come up safe practices while a small company like MM&A counts on the government to set standards for them to follow. I'm not saying MM&A is a great company or that they didn't make mistakes. It's just that the balance seamed to be too far to nobody was doing much of anything for safe operation of trains.

 

[3930dave]

Most Canadians would consider themselves over-governed.

Corporations.... whole different game. I can't drive a vehicle down the road w/o adequate insurance. Even w/o Loss of Life occurring, I highly doubt that MM&A was adequately capitalized to deal with even one cleanup of a waterway major oil spill. "Self-insured" doesn't work with fly-by-night companies, they just fold up and leave the bills to the taxpayers - about as hard to predict as the sun coming up tomorrow.....

As an individual, it's pretty easy to get beaten over the head (or bankrupted) by govt regs. Somebody in another thread referred to Govts liking to "Regulate everything, and Enforce nothing" - unfortunately very applicable in the context of Corporations, and this thread.

"Regulations" can create the perception that Govt is doing something, but it's the Enforcement that matters much more.

Rgds, D.

 

[Cub 7274]

That train was probably tied down the same way every time it was parked there with 7 or 8 handbrakes applied it wasnt the first time.
Sadly the lead locomotive was known to have defects long before it arrived there the train was over tonnage and no one wanted to delay the train but instead used things like duct tape to keep things moving then the fire occurred and things went down hill from there.To apply 30 handbrakes would take at least an hour and how you could do a "push pull" test would be difficult on a one man crew and he would have been working over his 12 hours.
Also if the train didnt move and the relieving crew man came on duty he would have to release all those brakes which would cause a serious delay that would have not been tolerated by management as its all about the wheels turning with minimal delays.
If that perfect storm had not occurred that same train might be parked there right now with 7 handbrakes applied no issues, it was real easy for the MMA to file for bankruptcy blame everyone but themselves and run away.
That shortline operation was a disaster waiting to happen as it was all about $$$$$$$$$ those employees were pawns.

 

[3930dave]

That train was probably tied down the same way every time it was parked there with 7 or 8 handbrakes applied it wasnt the first time.
Sadly the lead locomotive was known to have defects long before it arrived there the train was over tonnage and no one wanted to delay the train but instead used things like duct tape to keep things moving then the fire occurred and things went down hill from there.To apply 30 handbrakes would take at least an hour and how you could do a "push pull" test would be difficult on a one man crew and he would have been working over his 12 hours.
Also if the train didnt move and the relieving crew man came on duty he would have to release all those brakes which would cause a serious delay that would have not been tolerated by management as its all about the wheels turning with minimal delays.
If that perfect storm had not occurred that same train might be parked there right now with 7 handbrakes applied no issues, it was real easy for the MMA to file for bankruptcy blame everyone but themselves and run away.
That shortline operation was a disaster waiting to happen as it was all about $$$$$$$$$ those employees were pawns.

Not hard to argue that we are worse than a 3rd World country.

In the 3rd World, if all your passengers can pay is 50cents for a trip, then you expect corners to be cut.

Here, mega-corporations at both ends of that line make big money off that crude. They have the money, but prefer that we tolerate these risks, so that they can add very slightly to their profit.

I live in a province where the minimum wage just went up. A couple of Tim Hortons stores decided to cut benefits to employees (sounds like a Canuck joke, but I'm not making this up......) and the province immediately decided to hire another 80 or so inspectors because of this.....

We are supposed to believe that the Canadian govt wasn't complicit in what was going on with these crude shipments ?

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Use of handbrakes mandated on Canadian railways following fatal Field, B.C. derailment | Globalnews.ca

Maybe we can now get some 20'th century regs enforced......

Rgds, D

 

[3930dave]

No pipeline East....... careful what you wish for.....

Repsol energy looks to Alberta to replace Mexican, Venezuelan oil | The Star

Rgds, D.

 

[PILOON]

Back when I owned an aviation facility one client had the contract to monitor the pipelines.

The method was to weekly overfly the line and observe visually.
Simple, dead forestry was the telltale sign of a leakage and by doing so on a weekly basis the leaked volume was minimized.

He used an older twin engine aircraft for safety reasons and reliability.
The operation was no riskier than crop dusting.

For sure there is much less danger than derailed rail cars could (and have) cause, both to environment and human life.
(think Megantic and other major derailments)