CSX train derailment in WV
http://www.wsaz.com/news/headl...erway-292096241.html
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Ouch..that will probably make the evening news.
That's gonna leave a mark...
Originally Posted by willygee:
Ouch..that will probably make the evening news.
Boy did it,those explosions were huge
2 miles from my house but across the river. A tank car exploded while I was looking across the river at the fire and I fell flat down and left the area, very spooky indeed.
That's gonna leave a mark...
And not a good one..gonna be a lot of back lash..
Same crude oil train that derailed in Lynchburg, Va last year. Two major derailments putting oil tank cars on the ground, in a river, and on fire in less than a year. CSX is going to have a whole lot of explaining to do.
Ken
I drive by there every time I go see my daughter. Rugged area. Hope all are OK.
https://fbcdn-video-l-a.akamai...aba5f264aade5ca9a3a3 short video of fire and an explosion from my side of the river looking across at wreck
Wow, That is impressive. Hope everyone stays safe. going to be hard to pinpoint a cause on that, unless something is all ready known.
Very cold.......broken rail?
But dont build a pipeline, theyre bad for the environment
Wow, nasty derailment, hope nobody got hurt.
And this right after the NTSB had a meeting about this very thing....
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/201...tank-car-safety.html
watching a youtube video on war trains and the announcer stated that on any given day in the war a million barrels of oil moved on the rails in the US now why cant we do that now?
Gentlemen,
Yep that is definitely going to leave a big mark, hope nobody was hurt to badly.
PCRR/Dave
Pipelines will be built but the oil rail traffic has different destinations and patterns from what the pipelines will handle...both will work together to carry oil well into the future.
This wreck will definitely give more ammo to the Nimbys in DC for the Virginia Avenue Tunnel...and everywhere else the public is all of a sudden scared of rail traffic.
CSX has made improvements in track maintenance but they still haven't completely changed their ways of the 80's and 90's.
Also one in Canada, Now CN wants detour on CP where engineers are on strike? Dan
I have run a number of oil train, the best ones to catch, all brake in really good condition, nice power. I have not heard the causes of previous oil train derailments. Broken rail is always a possibility. Wheel defects are rare, defective brake system on a car is rare, but does happen.
Just wondering if there is any link to oil tank train derailment.
Way back during the height of oil train movements, WWII era, you know there had to be serious derailments with oil cars. just not widely reported or known about. Possibly the volatility of the oil today is a much greater than in the past.
Dan
Oil shipment moved inland during WW II, as the German U Boats were sinking huge numbers of oil tankers running along the eastern seaboard. Would imagine that there were a number of oil train derailments, as train wrecks were mighty common in the "good old days", but discussion of that was kept hush-hush, as part of the war effort. Think even the small Winston-Salem Southbound Railway got into the oil train business, as it was reported that the largest train ever to run on that road was a147 car empty oil train, pulled by a leased N&W 2-6-6-2. The WSS connected the ACL and the N&W.
This is big news all way out here in the SF Bay Area. All the local news stations are carrying this story.
The Union Pacific is requesting permission from regulators to move North Dakota crude to the refineries in the SF Bay Area. This would involve going over Donner Summit or through the Feather River Canyon. The trains need to go through some heavily populated areas along the shores of San Francisco Bay to get to the refineries. There is a yard in downtown Oakland that is packed with oil tank cars nearly every day. (I am not sure where this oil is coming from. We do have oil wells in central and southern CA. Some of it may be from ND.)
The SF Bay Area refineries get most of their oil via ship at the present time. You can see several tankers anchored in SF Bay waiting to unload nearly every day.
As you can imagine, there is already strong environmental opposition to UP's request in the SF Bay Area. This is going to add fuel to the fire so to speak.
Joe
Here we go again. This is not good for the railroad industry
Another local news channel said the tank cars involved were of the "newer" design.
They also mentioned no oil or diesel have been detected in the water which is good news.
You are right. Here is a news article mentioning that CSX has confirmed that all the tank cars on this train were of the newer design.
These are just my opinion,
Thanks,
Naveen Rajan
Our water is still turned off, I do believe that most of the oil has burned off due to the ice all along the river, they have a barge and crane trying to pull the tankers that went into the river out. I hear several helicopters flying around and the news said there are inspectors coming from DC.
Hope to God UP DOES NOT ship oil through the pristene Feather River Canyon.
I have a question that I don't think I have ever seen brought up.
Why do these trains not have five buffer cars next to the engines? Seeing how volatile this stuff is, it may not make a lot of difference, but, it sure looks warranted to me. I can't find my HazMat book to look up what they have classed this stuff as.
When I worked for the NYS&W (week end trainmaster) all hazmat cars had to be placed at least five cars from the locomotives. The paperwork/manifest had the UN numbers for everything on that train in the exact order from the engines. In the event of a derailment, we had few, the FD knew exactly where the hazmat cars were. If they were burning they knew what was burning and how to deal with it. We moved a lot of LP gas and other wonderful stuff.
Originally Posted by mark s:
Oil shipment moved inland during WW II, as the German U Boats were sinking huge numbers of oil tankers running along the eastern seaboard. Would imagine that there were a number of oil train derailments, as train wrecks were mighty common in the "good old days", but discussion of that was kept hush-hush, as part of the war effort.
Too true, you never would have read anything about these derailments during WW2. The fact that they even kept as much oil off the water as they could, was a secret in itself.
Besides, such an accident wouldn't have been news in the 40s unless it burned down any buildings (and not even then unless it was in a downtown area or killed anyone). Back then, it was the cost of doing business and people didn't go nuts at the possibility of something like this happening back in the day.
Big Jim asked why there are not 5 buffer cars between the engines and the head Hazmat car. It was discussed earlier here
https://ogrforum.com/t...90#40004361489456690
But I will also paste the answer I posted there:
LOADED unit oil trains, and certain other hazardous materials cars, require all available buffer cars, 5 are required, to be on the head end. If there is only one buffer car available that is OK, the train can still move. If there is a DP or pusher locomotive on the rear, again buffer car(s) must be between the locomotive and the loaded hazardous tank car.
If the pusher or DP unit removed from the rear of a LOADED oil train, all available buffer cars must be moved up to the head end, till at least 5 buffer cars are between the locomotive consist and the hazmat tank cars. In most cases, when the locomotives are removed from the rear, the buffer car is also just removed from the train. That way one buffer car is all that is available on the head end.
On empty oil trains if the DP/pusher is removed from the rear of the train, the buffer car can stay on the rear as no buffer car is required, it is just along for he ride.
Personally I think the FRA rules should allow the buffer car(s) to remain on the rear of loaded oil trains even though there is no power on the rear, even if there are not up to 5 buffer cars on the head end. That way the train could be pushed by a help engine if needed. (And they would not have to find e buffer car when adding a DP unit to train later.)
From an older version of the UP Hazmat book found on Google:
"2.
Do not place a placarded car nearer than the sixth car from an engine
(working or not working) or occupied caboose/business car. If the train does
not have at least five buffer cars, the available buffer cars must be placed to
protect the engine (working or not). If there is an occupied caboose/business
car in the train, the buffer cars must be divided equally to protect both the
engine and caboose/business car. At least one buffer car is required."
If you want to be confused, read the book. Glad I don't work in Louisiana or Texas with all the chemicals! Dan
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t...vm=bv.84349003,d.aWw
It appears as if the rail industry is going to have improve on the "new" tank design. I thought that the "new" design was supposed resist spills and fires during derailments.
I am fully aware that a moving train generates massive forces but I would hope that a tank car can be designed that resist rupture during a spill.
Maybe tank cars need self sealing liners similar to what World WII bombers used. A shell would go through the bomber's fuel tank and the tank would seal itself thereby preventing a leak and a fire. Some planes returned with huge holes in the wings.
I believe that rail oil shipments are going to be stopped unless the industry can solve this problem.
Joe
https://www.facebook.com/JoeMa...131892890161/?type=1
Chemicals are usually transported on my side of the river NS RR, Dupont Chemical plant is 15 miles down river from me, Thank God it was crude oil and not something worse.
Now this will give ammunition to the owners of tank cars who had argued in the past against requiring these beefier CPC 1232 tank cars. I remember reading on multiple news website after the Lac-Mégantic disaster that the tank owners believed that politicians requiring these better designs will not prevent these catastrophes. They believed that reducing the speed of oil trains had a greater benefit over the CPC 1232 design. To the extent I still remember their data, the better design only prevented breach in certain situations like over the coupler & the bottom half of the car, not all the unpredictable scenarios that could emerge in an accident or derailment.
Well I can understand the concerns of the car owners. They have a large number of the older DOT 111 tank cars, with many made in the last 10 years. With typical freight cars expected to last 40 – 50 years, these tank car owners cannot easily afford to replace all the DOT 111 cars or take them out of service from the railroads they had leased these cars to, for expensive retrofits to the better design. Even if they did retrofit the DOT 111 cars, I am not sure if they can pass the cost on to the railroads who leased them at the lower rates initially.
These are just my opinion,
Thanks,
Naveen Rajan
Originally Posted by naveenrajan:
You are right. Here is a news article mentioning that CSX has confirmed that all the tank cars on this train were of the newer design.
These are just my opinion,
Thanks,
Naveen Rajan
One of important factor was discovered in transporting the type of crude oil involved in these mishaps. During shipment butane and benzine separate from the normally less volatile crude which instantly ignites upon sufficient impact. The mad rush is on to replace the older cars that cannot be retro fitted.
One thing we always find is that industry can "never" afford safety improvements until it is forced to do so. We found this with car seat belts, air bags, and many other items. The government also had to mandate air brakes, knuckle couplers, steel passenger cars, no brakeman on car tops, etc. for the railroad industry.
My feeling is that tank car owners and the railroads cannot continue to have accidents like this and expect to remain in the oil transportation business. It may require a combination of better cars and slower speeds to fix this. The CBS Evening News did a recap including video of oil trains accidents going back a couple of years on tonight's broadcast. It was an frightening list that included the Quebec accident that killed 43.
Joe
Amtrak has cancelled the Cardinal for the rest of the week........They think it will be back in service Sunday.....gonna be tough to restore that area by then......bet a lot longer!!!
Why not separate the volatile parts out prior to loading?
How do so many ethanol trains make it without horrific accidents...other dangerous chemicals too. Its the stuff you can't see that will wipe a town out.
Originally Posted by PAUL ROMANO:
One of important factor was discovered in transporting the type of crude oil involved in these mishaps. During shipment butane and benzine separate from the normally less volatile crude which instantly ignites upon sufficient impact. The mad rush is on to replace the older cars that cannot be retro fitted.
Well, as a tank car shipper of chemical products, I reckon I'll weigh in here.
Most of the argument regarding retrofitting of DOT111 tank cars has not revolved around the cost; rather it is the time frame in which PHMSA will allow car owners and lessees to complete the retrofit. The NPRM issued by PHMSA last August was proposing two years for retrofit or replacement of 111 tank cars in crude oil or ethanol service and, if memory serves me, five years for retrofit or replacement of ALL 111 cars in a flammable service. This last part exponentially expanded the fleet of cars requiring either a retrofit or replacement. Cars built to the CPC-1232 standard and used in crude oil or ethanol would be allowed the longer time period.
The problem with the compressed time line is there simply is an insufficient shop capacity to retrofit existing cars, a process that is estimated to cost somewhere between $35 and 50,000/per car. All tank cars in service require periodic regulatory testing and inspection. During the ethanol boom in the mid-2000's, a substantial number of 111 tank cars were constructed. All of those cars are now reaching their 10 year deadline to be shopped for HM201 inspections. This has already created a backlog at tank car shops resulting in what is now a delay of approximately 6 months from the time a car enters the shop till it is released. If additional work is necessary, such as a relining, this can stretch the shopping to as much as 9 months. Additionally, while the tank car owners have conducted some preliminary engineering work with regard to the retrofit, until PHMSA actually releases their new rules, the final engineering work can't be completed.
It is considered a likely outcome that because of the cost of the retrofit, many car owners will decide to either divert 111 cars to a non-flammable service or scrap the cars and replace them with new cars specifically built to the new PHMSA requirements. This creates a different kind of capacity problem.
The tank car industry currently has an annual production capacity of somewhere around 32-33,000 cars. The current industry backlog for new cars is about a year and a half to two years. If we suddenly have to replace 50-75,000 111 tank cars and still have the normal requirement for newly built cars to replace aging ones, the leadtime for a new car could easily go to 4-5 years.
I think it is easy to see the dilemma in which the oil, ethanol and chemical industry will find ourselves if we have to stop using existing cars several years before we can receive a replacement. Tank trucks aren't a viable option because there are too few truck drivers and the volumes too substantial. I can easily see commerce grinding to a halt and thousands of people losing their jobs.
So, in short, the industry is prepared to make whatever changes are required by PHMSA; we simply need an adequate amount of time in which to do it.
Curt
On the bright side, less highly corrosive to fuel systems and lower mileage Ethanol means longer, healthier life for cars right with less Ethanol tank cars?
Read in a business book the Ethanol lobby was the golden star winner for forcing us to support an industry.
If the soil and grounds surrounding the track area is not contaminated, it will be an easy rebuild. If they are contaminated, it will be longer but not much, Once they are able to go to work, tracks should be restored in about 36 hours or less. I am sure all the track panels and treated ballast are in place, as well as the men, and machines.
The longest part will be moving the derailed cars to a place they can be scrapped and cleaned up. As hot as the fire was, the cars might be very brittle.
I remember a derailment between Wilmington and Lumberton back in the 80's had aviation fuel. The tank cars were so brittle, they would crumble if you tried to move them. Reminded me of a tin can that had been in the campfire. The granite ballast would crumble to dust in your hand.
Gene
