Massive explosions from oil train derailment- Canada

[bikkuri bahn]

When will people no longer tolerate the regularity of derailments on North American freight railroads?

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/massive-explosions-strike-quebec-town-after-train-carrying-oil-derails/article13050578/

[Densha]

Another?! I read so often about derailing freight trains in NA indeed.

 

In another continent: two months back a train with toxic gasses derailed in the Belgian village Wetteren which had the same kind of result. This was a train between Rotterdam en Gent, the two diesel locos pulling the train are Dutch locos (don't ask me why the Deutsche Bahn inherited the cargo services of the Dutch railways, it's weird). The incident was caused by passing a switch with a higher speed than allowed.

http://nos.nl/artikel/503092-goederenwagons-ontploft-in-belgie.html

[bill937ca]

CBC video:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/07/06/quebec-train-derailment-fire.html

Edited July 6, 2013 by bill937ca

[marknewton]

A bad business for all concerned.

 

I'd be interested to know what the actual circumstances of the derailment were. If the train was stabled properly, it wouldn't have rolled away. So either it wasn't secured properly in the first place, or someone knocked the handbrakes off...

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[bill937ca]

This whole thing is very suspicious. This is not CN or CP, but a short line railway. The train was parked unattended for the night. There is no explanation for how it rolled away.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/07/06/quebec-train-derailment-fire.html

Train inexplicably rolls away

The derailed train belongs to Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway, which owns more than 800 kilometres of track serving Maine, Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick, according to the company's website.

 

Chairman Edward Burkhardt said an engineer parked the train west of Lac-Mégantic before he went to a local hotel for the night.

 

While other details remain unclear, the train rolled away later that night and derailed in the centre of the town.

 

"He had parked the train, so far as we can determine, properly," Burkhardt said, adding that the brakes were properly applied.

 

The company will have to wait for clearance from authorities before they can look for more answers.

 

Burkhardt said that while it's not clear how much oil has been spilled, his company is committed to cleaning up.

 

"We're pledging a complete cleanup and remediation of the area," he said.

[marknewton]

Very odd. If, as is claimed, the train was properly secured then someone would have had to interfere with it to cause a runaway.

 

But based on my experience most runaways happen because of crew error. I know - I've done it myself.

 

I'd be interested to know exactly what procedure MM&AR use when securing a train. Interesting to see Ed Burkhardt's name pop up, too.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited July 7, 2013 by marknewton

[bill937ca]

More info:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/07/07/quebec-lac-megantic-questions-raised-environmental-safety-concerns.html

[Ochanomizu]

Hello All,

 

I want to make comment on this accident as it appears to have had great consequence to innocent people.

 

I am not train driver and I do not work in rail industry. I apologise if my comment appear naïve.

 

On radio news bulletin:

"News reports now suggest that fire fighters may be to blame for the catastrophe.  They attended to a fire in the engine approximately 90 minutes prior to the main accident.  They may have disengaged the air brake."

 

Is it true?  If so, I believe it to be a case of passing the buck.  Surely local fire fighter who is trained in fighting the fire in the building cannot be expected to understand the workings of a locomotive.  One must question the servicing and maintenance of the locomotive, both the records and the regime. One must consider whether the locomotive was even fit for purpose at the time of the incident, and whether budget cuts had anything to do with the incident.

 

I suspect the whole debacle was preventable.  Laying blame on those responding to the event is unreasonable and inappropriate.

 

I draw analogy with Fukushima.  Of course, reactors failed after tsunami event.  But we all know that it was a combination of problems that caused the failure, not the tsunami alone.  The reactor is on low-lying land.  The sea walls were not tall enough.  Most critically, the plant was not properly maintained and some reports suggest a failure was imminent irrespective of earthquake and tsunami. 

 

Likewise, with train disaster in Canada, the symptoms must be traced to the true cause of the accident which, I suggest, lies on a balance sheet in the accountants office.

[marknewton]

The more I read about this incident, the less sense any of it makes. Allowing for the fact that I have no idea what operating procedures are employed by the railroad involved, I can't imagine any circumstances in which you would leave a train standing unattended for any length of time on a grade with only the automatic brake holding it. 

 

Even on the best maintained rollingstock, the air will eventually leak out of the brake cylinders and the brakes will release. I don't want to go into a lengthy discussion of how the automatic brake works, but the idea that the driver could just leave a loco running to keep the brakes applied is ridiculous. 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Ochanomizu]

Hello Mr marknewton,

 

I am curious to know what correct procedure would have been.  Is it appropriate to send a helper loco down the line behind the train?  Would it have prevented the movement?  Also, if the first loco had a fire then perhaps it was faulty and could not provide power for braking.

[westfalen]

The normal procedure, details vary from railway to railway, is to put on enough hand brakes on the cars to hold the train without the airbrakes. If this had been done it the train would have stayed where it was even without a loco attached. As Mark said, no train crew in their right mind would go off duty leaving a train with just the airbakes to hold it.

[marknewton]

G'day Ochanomizu,

 

As Westfalen noted, the correct procedure is to apply sufficient handbrakes. On most railways I know of the crew will then briefly power against the brakes to ensure that they will hold the train.

 

It's hard to make any sense out of this story as it's being reported by journalists who have no idea how a railway works, and they're interviewing people who also don't know anything worthwhile. But the repeated references to the loco/locos being shut down after the fire leads me to wonder - did the driver leave his train standing on the independent brake only? As unlikely as that is, it's the one scenario where shutting down the loco would cause the brakes to release.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

As much as I hate to point the finger at another engineman, it's looking more and more like this driver did leave the train standing on the independent brake only. Unbelievable!

 

Mark.

[westfalen]

I have to agree Mark, but will any mention be made of the cost cutting and staff reductions for the benefit of shareholders that put the put the poor guy in the position of having to secure his train alone after an almost certainly full on 12 hour shift with a comfortable motel bed beckoning. Before Ed Burkhardt and his like started remodelling railroading to get rid of supposedly needless expenses there would have been other crew members and yard employees present to secure the train and there would also most likely have been another crew to take over the train immediatley anyway, rather than having the same one go off duty for their (his) rest period. Having one man do the work formerly done by six looks good in the financial report but the results come home to roost eventually.

[marknewton]

I agree with you 100% on this. Having single-man crews on freight trains is reckless and stupid in my opinion. Not only is the company culpable in that regard, so is the lax and ineffective regulatory regime that the Canadian government has created.

 

I feel so very sorry for the people of Lac Megantic, but also for the poor bloody driver. From the comments that Burkhardt has been making, it appears he's going to be scapegoated for the whole debacle.

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

A brief interview with Ed Burkhardt:

 

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/safety/ed-burkhardt-talks-about-lac-megantic-with-railway-age.html

 

I have to admit, I have very mixed views about all this. Some years ago when I was running heritage steam trains, Ed Burkhardt came out with us for a day as a guest of the company. We had him on the engine for part of the trip, and we were all rather impressed with him. He came as across as a very genuine and down-to-earth sort of bloke. I find it hard to reconcile that impression with the media coverage he's received since this awful accident.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[westfalen]

I agree with this comment, "I'd like to know more about Mr. Burkhardt's comment, "I guess our track is good for 63 mph, because that is how fast the train was travelling at the bottom of the hill." Was he serious, or was this a tongue-in-cheek comment? It comes across as an attempt at wry humor, and that seems highly inappropriate at a time like this, and highly insensitive to the families of the FIFTY people who were killed in this disaster."

 

Some of QR's recent CEOs were nice blokes when you met them, but just the same I'm glad they're not running QR anymore.

[bill937ca]

From CBC:

 

"Transport Canada has issued an emergency directive requiring at least two crew members to work trains that transport dangerous goods.

 

It also says no locomotive attached to one or more loaded tank cars transporting dangerous goods can be left unattended on a main track.

 

The directives take effect immediately."

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/07/23/quebec-canada-transport-lac-megantic-new-train-rules.html

[lurkingknight]

looks like they called off the search for any more remains. 5 still unaccounted for.

 

 

before and after of the area

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/08/before-and-after-photos-show-how-train-explosion-flattened-lac-megantics-bustling-downtown-core/

 

Burkhardt came off as exceptionally crass in his first responses to the incident, with more than a touch of self-degrading humor

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/07/31/montreal-lac-megantic-montreal-maine-atlantic-lawsuit.html