Train Derailment in Lynchburg, VA

The news article says it was carrying crude oil. Just what's needed - another crude oil train derailment .

 

I wonder if this train was headed to the oil terminal at Yorktown.

 

Ken

 

 

Now with every derailment we wonder how did this happen? Thanks for posting this news Scott.

Here a link to some video;

http://instagram.com/p/nbHqexhD4e/#

All I have to say is WOW!! 

That's some serious flames!  Oil fires will continue to be a big deal and most likely will increase in frequency due to the large amount being shipped by rail these days. 

 

Art

Here is a link to the BBC news report on the accident. It shows burning oil going into the James river.

This is going to make the national news tonight.  There is already a move to ban oil trains from populated areas here in CA.  Of course, nearly everywhere in CA is populated these days.  This is going to add oil to the fire so to speak.  

 

Why can't a train full of card board boxes derail instead of trains full of hazardous stuff?  Why does the spill always need to be near a river or town?

 

Does anyone know if the Canadians have issued their report on the oil train disaster?

 

Joe

I'm not fan of the Keystone pipeline but I also recognize it's probably the lesser of two evils. Can't help but wonder what would happen if this were to occur in the heart of a city. Here in Seattle we have a large BNSF yard pretty much smack dab in the in the middle of the city, rail lines going right under downtown and also within a few feet of the water which fishermen are dependent upon. 

Latest I read was that a witness saw the riverbank dirt and gravel slide away under the rails and then the cars tipped over.

Well..this did happen in a city in Québec, it wasn't pretty. I chuckled when an article stated the environmentalist will push to regulate crude on the rails after this accident, even though reports indicate the track might have been washed out. For those that don't live on the East coast it has been raining for over two straight days with floods in multiple states. So people don't want Keystone.... they don't want crude on trains I guess the solution is to hand carry this stuff in buckets.

 

Certainly a bad day for CSX.  Mudslide at St. Paul and N. Charles just beyond the Charles Street tunnel  in Baltimore city has everything through the tunnel shut down indefinitely. This tunnel is perhaps not as well known as the Howard Street tunnel but just as important to north-south rail through Baltimore.

 

Poppyl

Lac Megantic has only a small fire dept and very little foam.Firefighters from Maine drove three hours to get to the scene and were hampered by the language barrier!

French for the Canadians and English for the Mainah's.

 

This fracked crude is bad stuff.

 

Gunny

Video looks like the James is flowing fast.  We've had many inches of rain in the area yesterday & today.  The bank may have eroded.

We had a natural gas pipeline blow up in a residential neighborhood in a city just south of San Francisco just a couple of years ago.  As best as I can recall, eight people were killed, several more were seriously injured, and about 40 homes were completely burned to the ground.

 

Natural gas isn't oil but it goes to show that pipelines also have problems.  This failure was blamed on the gas company (PG&E) not properly maintaining the line and improper procedures when pumping gas.  The line had been installed  some 40 years ago.  I think that there was a major pipeline leak in southern Canada about a year ago.  

 

Whether by rail or other means, we are going to have to come up with a way to safely transport hazardous stuff.   Wasn't there another oil train fire somewhere in the midwest earlier this year?  Maybe tank cars need to be equipped with automatic fire extinguishing  equipment.  Could they put foam tanks on each car that would smother oil leaks?

 

Joe

For the older generation ie WWII era, given that oil supplies and other volatiles had to move quickly, wonder if there were just as many mishaps?  But maybe not publicized, so as not alarm public or tip off spies. I think I recall that due to tank car shortages, boxcars were used that had rubber liner "bladders" put in to carry liquids maybe oil and gasoline.

I hope the Texas Inn wasn't damaged.

Mostly because rail lines tend to follow rivers (naturally more level) and serve towns and cities.

Lynchburg is only 55 miles from Roanoke and is in our local TV market..here is the latest from WSLS Channel 10:
http://www.wsls.com/story/2539...derails-in-lynchburg

Picture from WDBJ Channel 7. Channel 7 has over 40 pictures on their website of the derailment.

http://www.wdbj7.com/news/local/25738814

 

 

WSET Channel 13 in Lynchburg

http://www.wset.com/story/2539...ed-like-a-deep-fryer

Scott Smith

   We just had a memo at work on our news reports ,on the push for safer tank car regulations for rail tank cars. But before blaming the tank cars first (which was mentioned in the report of the worthiness of the tank car fleet) we yet do not know the cause of this incident.

 

 I can only hope the industry gets on the ball and fast,to better the fleet of cars and do some serious infrastructure upgrades on their desired routes or this business will be lost to other methods of transport.

Are tank cars filled with oil managed/regulated the same way as other hazmats?
If the spill had been a single tank of chlorine, there would have been no fire, but the death toll could have been enormous and damage to the river would be catastrophic for all life forms.
I know I'm Monday-morning quarterbacking here, but given the recent weather, shouldn't the RR have inspected the tracks and river bank prior to allowing that train on that route?

You know if we had switched to solar and wind power years ago this kind of thing would not be happening today </sarcasm>

Once all the new safer tank cars have replaced the older ones things will be safer.

When I was young, we were promised a world powered by safe, clean nuclear energy. 

Just a generational thing, but if there is any humor to be found in this tragedy, it is this. The story that ran in our local paper had a quote that said, ".......toppled like Tyco trains." This was quoted from a "31 year old....."

 

I am pretty sure if it had been one of us older guys/gals on here, it would have read ".......toppled like Lionel trains."  (OK.....maybe some of you would have said MTH - but would the public recognize that one?" ) See, generational.

 

And yes, the rain probably did contribute. It seems like it is never going to stop raining - or warm up - around here this year.

 

Greg

And I remember an old GE science poster in school stating that "nuclear energy electricity would be so cheap it wouldn't need to be metered to homes."

As we continue to use  fossil fuel energy, many things are considered. Current hot spot for oil finds is the Bakken Oil fields, Dakota's and Canada. Energy  transportation infrastructure usually lags behind exploration as much as five years.  Political involvement seems to stretch that time, or stop completely the infrastructure development.  That puts crude oil on the rails to just about anywhere.  Another consideration is that Bakken Oil may be corrosive, and not easily piped.   Not only do the rails follow rivers, water level routes, they also by nature intersect major metropolitan areas.

We kicked this around in January, when there were dramatic derailments in the news.

A very informative thread about new find crude oil and transportation.  Click on the underlined phrase to access.     

My daughter lives in Lynchburg and I have been down along this main line on my bike.  (There is a bike and hiking path here that includes the Joshua Falls truss bridge.)  I was wondering the same thing another member mentioned about the roadbed.  You'll notice in one of the on line photos that the roadbed slopes rather abruptly to the James at about the point of the derailment.  I have stood by main lines and watched three or four ties go up and down in unison as wheel sets passed.  Not much under those ties.  If that was the case here, then the roadbed could have contributed to the wreck.

My question is, if the roadbed was a problem, why didn't the train crews sense that the roadbed was unstable here recently and report it?  Maybe I am making this too simple.  Just asking.

The riverbank has eroded. The tracks need to be moved far away from the river.

 

How far can the tracks be moved?

 

Where is an alternative right-of-way?

 

 

Andrew

CyPhi68,

Like most accidents, a combination of unusual events are the cause. A washout and bank erosion.)The nice hiking area and bike trail that you use is one of them. It seems that area (scott's very first pic) seems to push more storm water towards the river and roadbed causing a washout effect. (see the shot below from the news video). There is also obvious erosion by the river handling run-off and 2-6" of rain in a short period increased by years of development and lack of storm water management.

Then, toss in railroad elements and poor decision making and you have the recipe for a derailment.

 

The Corps of Engineers using the clean water Act makes it very difficult to get permission to stabilize a streambank these days.

It's going to happen.  Just probably not in out lifetime!

 

General Fusion TED video

Thought I would throw in my .02.... With my job the past couple of months have been spent working on planning for such an event in NYS. Couple of things we found, for starters rail transportation is very safe unfort when something happens it usually happens in a pretty significant way. Also while there is a push for new cars I am not sure that it will solve the problem. The new cars incorporate a "head shield" on the front and back of the DOT111s and some added protection for valVing. This only works when two cars hit end to end generally it is when they go over and the ground features tear a hole in the side. There is going to be an extreme cost to the railroads to replace all the cars but are being enticed by the larger size of the "safer" tanks.

From the fire side of things when you see the pictures of these burning it is usually a calculated decision by the IC (fire chief) because it ends up being safer and more environmentally friendly to actually burn the oil as opposed to washing it down stream with thousands of gallons of water.

Ironic, isn't it?

How would they do that?

 

 

Andrew