MASSIVE INFERNO, THREAT OF “CATASTROPHIC” EXPLOSION AFTER ~50-CAR TRAIN DERAILMENT

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They wanted "to avoid a massive explosion" by literally blowing the mother trucker up. How freaking stupid do we look?
 

Another Norfolk Southern train derails in Ohio, railroad says no toxins aboard

A Norfolk Southern train derailed in Ohio on Saturday, prompting local officials to order residents living near the site of the accident to shelter in place.
www.cnbc.com


 
Yup.

The laws of physics haven't changed in a month.

Over at Citizen Free Press, they've got an updated summary with two vids taken by dashcams on two sides of the crossing where it happened. On the second one, you can clearly see two NS steel coil cars, lift up, have their trucks (wheel assemblies) fly off, and jackknife. The train continues on, and then folds up in several more places.

That's the result of having more power pushing (rear Distributed Power) than pulling, and having empty cars towards the head end. Made worse by the long length of these trains...that's the purpose of spacing power through the trains, so they can run these three-mile monsters.

It's obvious that the limits of physics have been reached. It's ALSO obvious that those in charge at NS, have no CLUE.
 

I had a long on-going debate in college where I thought that the Train engines were only there to produce electricity. Then all the cars had motors on them to push the trains along. I had toured a locomotive plant in Chicago which was pretty interesting and that I swear what they told us, but then again I was just a kid. Also got to "drive" a locomotive a little bit. However, I think what I've learned is that they were probably making specialized engines that were used over mountain passes.
 
That does nothing for the problem.

I pointed out in a PM to another member, elsewhere...the problem in Springfield was, slack running in. It hit a set of apparently-empty steel coil cars...lifting them up, literally. That can and does happen with violent slack run-ins. It can be made worse with Distributed Power - especially if it happens as the track profile (gradient) changes. For example, the head-end starts climbing a rise. It will naturally slow down. The majority of cars are still on the level; and if there's Distributed Power, there's shoving force in there. There always is, with DP on the rear - cars in the rear have the slack bunched; at the head-end, have the slack stretched; and where that neutral, or transition, point is, will constantly be shifting.

But you have the head end start a grade, the DP in back shoving hard, and there's those light coil cars...they get rammed with violent slack action, they lift up (that does happen, as stationary cameras have found, at yard entrances) and this time, do not drop right back down. No, they start to jackknife; and the carbody(s) clear the trucks (wheel assemblies)

...which easily can happen as they're held in by gravity and a recessed plate; there's no benefit to fastening them on...the high weight and recessed socket being enough to keep things together unless they're already piling up...

...and you have a derailment. In the Springfield case, that video shows those coil cars, land back down, moving at speed, still...tearing up the rail...cars following, come off the rail and drag along before they, too, start piling up.

In other words, this is NO solution. The solution here is a cap on train lengths. Not weight; with a reasonable-length train, heavy tonnage isn't such a factor. We used to move 4000-foot solid grain trains, weighing 25,000 tons...they were a handful but they weren't inherently unsafe. Although, in fairness, Conrail had a 40-mph speed limit on such heavy unit trains.
 

So Distributed Power would be like the Tesla of Train Cars... Cars with special wheels that are electrically powered motors, Correct?
 
Voodoo said:
So Distributed Power would be like the Tesla of Train Cars... Cars with special wheels that are electrically powered motors, Correct?
Click to expand...
No. Something like that, doesn't exist - except in light-rail or heavy rail electrified railcars.

Distributed Power, is a helper engine set, without a crew running it. Helpers, or pushers, used to be commonplace. We used them, even just a few years ago, getting out of Helena over Mullen Pass. They tie on, in the center or the rear of the train, and shove you on.

Since that's their full-time job, they don't need to be told when to power up and throttle back, unless there's something unusual, like negative signals, or an incident...track blocked or similar. But they control the helpers, and the regular crew controls the lead power and radios instructions back.

Distributed Power is a two-way radio linkup - the throttle, and air brake controls, as well as engine reports, are all relayed back and forth on digital radio signals. It's closed, like a cell-phone circuit. No other trains can intercept - the head end control is mated to the DP control as the train is being built.

So you have pushing and pulling.

There's also an option to control the DP units separately...this is all done on a digital screen. We called it "putting a fence up." You could idle down the DP units, or, have them push harder than the head end. Coming into Missoula Yard from Evaro...if we were held out, we'd be in a valley, train sagging in the middle; and starting the train to enter the yard was a rough process. Lot of jolting of slack. By leaving the lead power idle, and throttling up on the DP, it would keep it all bunched and roll in the yard easy as pie.

As to powered cars: Not possible, except as I mentioned. First, traction motors would have to be compatible with the locomotive generators. Second, 600 volts would have to be fed back there. Third, there's a limit on how much power can be pulled off a locomotive's prime generator.

Some railroads do have what are called "slugs" - made from obsolete locomotives; they have the diesel engine taken out but the traction motors remain. Weight is added with concrete, often in what had been the fuel tank; and then cables are installed and connections arranged.

To use a slug, a compatible diesel locomotive (called a "mother") has to be in there. Most diesels don't have the wiring. Generally a mother-and-slug are kept together as a set at all times.

Railcars are kept simple, and for obvious reasons: Maintenance on them is minimal; they're stored outdoors; often they don't go in for PM service for YEARS.
 
Goldhedge said:
It is amazing how the spotlight is all over these train sets....

Were there as many accidents before E Paradise that were quietly localized and not so national?
Click to expand...
Not so many. No, this Precision Scheduled Railroading has only been around a few years; and they've been pushing the envelope more and more. They've finally reached the limits of physics versus train lengths and weight.

When that limit is reached, suddenly, bad (expletive) occurs. Like we're seeing.

True story: Just a few years before I started working with Conrail...the guys were telling this story. Seems that after 30 lean years, 1960 to 1990, with the NYC and Pennsylvania, then, the Penn Central, and finally, Conrail...FINALLY there was steady money coming in, and the track was upgraded, ballast cleaned, long-deferred maintenance to the right-of-way and roadbed were caught up with. New, modern heavy welded rail was installed - the roadbed was immaculate.

In celebration, Conrail increased their "normal" (maximum) speed from 50 mph to 70 mph.

And what came of it were about five high-profile hellish crashes. No matter how good the roadbed was, it wasn't a completely-straight, level tangent, the way the AT&SF has through the Mojave Desert. AND...double the speed, and the distance to stop is quadrupled. Force of impact is quadrupled. Forces against the rail are exponentially increased.

The speed increase represented about a 40 percent higher speed; so the stopping force/distance was more than doubled. The force against the rail, in curves or when there's abnormal action, like a soft spot...more than doubled.

And the impacts, when they happened, and they did, were double the fun.

Conrail management, at that time, was not the arrogant, clueless, money-first soulless automatons that today's Black Rock tools are. They immediately reduced the speed limit to fifty, and the crashes stopped.

You won't see NS do that until the FRA ORDERS them to do it...and then, you can expect them to legally fight to keep on running self-wrecking monster trains.
 
pmbug said:
NTSB going to audit NS safety practices...
Click to expand...
They have to look like they care. Of course they're going to 'investigate'.

The question is where have they been all this time?

Too little too late. That cow left the barn already.
 
The problem is systemic.

It's rooted in operating practices - three-mile-long heavy trains - that push the limits of physics, of cars' ability to remain on the rails.

This will keep on until the idiots in the front offices, reverse their decisions. Until they simply ACCEPT that to move more freight, they have to hire more crewmen.
 
Casey Jones said:
This will keep on until the idiots in the front offices, reverse their decisions. Until they simply ACCEPT that to move more freight, they have to hire more crewmen.
Click to expand...
....and learn to treat them well.
 
Why can't they make unit trains of haz mat stuff?

Instead of mixing it in with regular freight, where a hopper car with deferred maintenance can cause a catastrophic accident, just hook all the haz mat cars into single trains when they are traveling between train yards.


If they did that, the haz mat trains could taken better care of and watched over more closely for problems.
....and they could still run normal freight like they do now. If a train full of normal freight crashes, it may make a mess, but it won't blow up and pollute the surrounding area.
 

They used to.

Some railroads probably still do.

Trains with more than a threshold of HazMat, were called "Key" trains. They were handled differently - routing, staging. Key trains were not to be run onto sidings if at all possible. If there was a meet, the Key train was to hold the mainline, even if stationary...while the other train would run through the passing siding to get by.

Key trains were only to be routed on cleared and approved routes - mainline track without clearance issues, not through urban areas if at all possible.

But all this takes PLANNING. Planning is anathema to modern railroad management. They love chaos...no scheduling; no organized building of trains...just make them longer and longer.
 
Joe King said:
....and learn to treat them well.
Click to expand...
That will never happen.

Why? UNIONS.

Management believes they have no need to consider ANY issue regarding unionized employees - that's the unions' bailiwick.

Union leaders are all about POWER. About hob-nobbing with politicians. About expensive conventions in Vegas or Hawaii. When there's a problem, they bray to the news about how **THE GOVERNMENT** should fix it, whatever it is.

They do extract money from employers, but money isn't everything. And it's reached the point where it's physically impossible to live as railroad managers demand - over 72 hours a week, no sleep/wake schedules.
 
Goldhedge said:
Bean counters...

It must cost a small fortune when a train derails to clean up that mess....
Click to expand...
Different account.

And most times, paid for by insurance.

Burning your house down, should cost you, too. In practice, it can be very profitable - unless, of course, you're caught.
 
The other night I was hangin' out down by the river (as ya do) and there is a big RR bridge there. A train went by. There were several cars making extra noise from the wheels as they went by. Including one near the rear that was really loud. So loud in fact, that it could be heard over the sound of the pusher engine a few cars behind it, as well as for awhile after it passed. It sounded as though the wheels had the brakes applied. That is when I thought of the question I posted above. I thought, why would ya want haz mat stuff mixed into a train like that?

Btw, it was a Union Pacific train.
 
Several things could have been in that mix.

First, it could have been a car handbrake on, on the rear. Either because the crew didn't catch all the brakes, or some yard rat tied brakes down on the wrong end (rear, not front); or because vandals wound a brake down. That is commonplace; and with the miles, the wheels the handbrake works on, get very hot. They'll trip a defect detector.

Second, it could be sticking brakes. Also quite common. The linkage on those brakes is quite primitive; and the valving in the air-brake system gets dirty with the years and sometimes sticks...holds the brakes on, as they're supposed to release.

Third, it could be the train had applied brakes to stop or slow. This is often done WHILE the locomotives continue to push, to control slack.

But, obviously, with tired, new, Jabbed crew, and idiots calling the shots on the four major railroads left...anything is possible.
 
Casey Jones said:
with the miles, the wheels the handbrake works on, get very hot. They'll trip a defect detector.
Click to expand...
Yet the one in Salem had a car go by with fire all around the wheels, and it didn't alert the train to stop. How much more damage was done in that 20 miles?

Perhaps what is needed, is to add cameras to the defect detectors and run the feed to the locos so the crew can watch for problems on their train.
 
Technologically impossible.

The question is whether the Salem defect detector was operative. The silence around that issue suggests it was not.

NS had abolished the job/position that involved maintaining those detectors. Nothing can be invented that will MAKE UP for deliberate, wanton neglegence.

There is no practical way to link up a video camera to a moving train, and crews have their hands full with conditions, with signals, with slow orders on track (at one time after CSX took over Conrail's NYC mainline, we had 98 slow orders on 185 miles between Cleveland and Buffalo).

The defect detectors, WHEN OPERATIONAL, give a verbal alert to crews, and a digital board alert to dispatchers. How much more of an alert can they give? If the crew is impaired or stupid, and the dispatcher is not tending to his console...nothing's gonna help.
 
A law firm specializing in stockholder rights is filing a class-action lawsuit against Norfolk Southern for pursuing precision scheduled railroading (PSR) and making operational adjustments such as longer trains and head count reductions. The fallout from the Feb. 3 derailment of an NS train in East Palestine, Ohio, has also led to falling stock prices for NS, according to the firm.

New York-based Bragar Eagel & Squire is seeking people or entities that purchased or had NS (NYSE: NSC) stock between Oct. 28, 2020, and March 3, 2023, to be part of the suit.

Stockholder rights law firm sues Norfolk Southern over PSR

A law firm specializing in stockholder rights wants Norfolk Southern investors to join a class-action lawsuit over precision scheduled railroading. The firm says certain PSR practices compromised safety and depressed NS stock prices.
www.freightwaves.com
 
It will take years to be heard.

Twenty years ago, CSX Transportation was sued by a fund that owned a block of its stock, alleging gross mismanagement and gross over-compensation of presidents (in succession) John Snow and Michael Ward. They noted that prior to the CSX absorption of 45 percent of Conrail, Conrail was far more profitable; and then noted how Conrail management, initially given high-ranking positions (former Conrail VP Ron Conway was briefly CEO, before a boardroom coup) were all broomed in favor of John Snow's syncophants from the Chessie System days.

What came of it was, more chaos. Ward "resigned" in favor of an outside hire, Hunter Harrison...former Illinois Central executive, who floated up with Canadian National's purchase of IC, and became CN's head.

"Precision Scheduled Railroading" was Harrison's brainchild. He imposed it on the formerly well-run CN; and then at the Canadian Pacific after he was booted from CN. Then, the stupes at CSX, hired him...as he was quite ill. He lasted 10 months, but put all his PSR lackeys in key positions.

That's Harrison's curse on the industry. Now, the whole of North American railroading is run about as well as the backwards, dilapidated, haywire Illinois Central was run.
 
Is this an example of deferred maintenace, or is Union Pacific just burnin' the Midnight oil? At noon. Lol




Why tf don't they stop and put the fire out?
 
Deferred maintenance.

You know...there's really very little to burn, inside there. Even the coolant piping is steel, not rubber. The only things that can catch fire is some wiring insulation...

...and, OIL.

Oil. ALL OVER EVERYTHING. Those engines leak - as machinery does. The engine rooms are kept under a mild positive air pressure, so air blows OUT, not in. That minimizes dust - but as you know from looking at your car engine, dust sops up the dregs of oil that get out.

Now. Those engines are cleaned off...on rebuilds. ONLY on rebuilds. Oil, incredibly, is only changed/drained when the unit is stored or rebuilt. They have about 100 gallons of lubricating oil (some bigger locos have more). Up until recently, pure water was used as coolant - to prevent lubricating-oil contamination. So, while they'd add oil as needed and sample oil for analysis (checking for bearing metals, etc) it was never changed.

The engines would get smeared with oil, and caked with coked oil.

Then, you have some sort of flash point. Could be arching on some electrical equipment; could be some insulation or material falling onto the exhaust piping or the hot side of the turbocharger. Often it's from a fire inside the exhaust - which on GE locomotives, is as big as an HVAC air plenum.

THOSE get caked up with soot from extensive idling, also...and stack fires are commonplace. If there's a stack fire throwing oily residue out, and it lands elsewhere on the engine body, and there's oily residue...you can have such a fire.

Hey. Look at all the money they save by not cleaning anything up. One thing that hit me when I started working with Montana Rail Link was, how CLEAN their power was. And how well-preserved - we had several GP-9s from the 1950s, not museum pieces or for special events, but just doing a day's work on local merchant runs.

Not the big, PSR-operations companies.
 
So that loco can keep working just fine while on fire like that? Wow, seems like it'd be losing power, or somethin'. I figured it was a broken fuel line leaking/spewing diesel fuel all over, and had ignited.

Or when stuff like that happens, would they just shut off that loco and run with the remaining three?
 
No, it'll burn up wiring. And if the train is in a prairie area, with dry underbrush, it can set brushfires.

But when it goes in for repairs, they'll JUST repair the rubber and wiring that's been damaged. Maybe steam-clean the area. They no longer even repaint the engine hood covers when they're damaged like that.

I should have mentioned, those engine spaces have a sump - like a ship's bilge - and there's a lot of oil and diesel fuel in those. Again, they're only drained during major service. If that catches fire, then there's a problem.

If there's a fire in the stack - which is different - then it can keep on going, although it's also a hazard to start ground fires.
 
Joe King said:
I've seen some really gnarly lookin' side covers on locos before. Mostly Union Pacific.
Click to expand...
Union Pacific has been messed up a long time. It could have been the Southern-Pacific purchase...but I don't know; I have been far away from that.

UP is the only major railroad I had NOTHING to do with. I worked for a contractor on the Burlington Northern, later BNSF. And with MRL, I ran on BNSF track from Sandpoint, ID to Spokane.

But I've had nothing to do with the UP or its predecessors.

They were chaotic for years, though. Merger mania. First they bought the Chicago Northwestern...no obvious issues there, that I'd heard of. How were the people? Don't know. Did they float up to upper management? Can't say.

The Southern Pacific had absorbed the Denver & Rio Grande Western...actually it was that Rio Grande Industries, the parent company, purchased the SP. In time they elected to merge the two, and chose the SP identity because of "Better name recognition." I know better - the D&RGW contract was FAR better for the men, than the SP, which had struggled for twenty years prior to.

But the SP identity - and management and operating practices - were the ones that survived.

Inside of a year, the UP purchased the SP - and that, if you remember, was what tied Western railroading in knots, circa 2000. The UP completely messed that one up. It was almost taken over by the government - and was given a series of Emergency Orders by the Surface Transportation Board, as regards to allowing BNSF trackage rights, and moving some dispatching "temporarily" to Fort Worth, where the BNSF is headquartered.

They apparently never completely got out of that. A shame - thirty years ago the Union Pacific was another well-run outfit.
 
Not having read the link...sounds like Canadian Pacific, which is big in Minnesooo-duh.

Another Hunter Harrison train wreck. After he was booted out of CN, and before he was hired with CSX...he went to CP, to spread the gospel of long, heavy trains with two sets of Distributed Power. Look, it moves! One crew doing the work of three!

So they're as messed up as any railroad.
 
I see it's the Buffet National Sorry Franchise company - BNSF.

Same rules apply. Insane operating precepts, designed to squeeze pennies out for clueless-but-greed-driven oligarchs...and it all piles up.

Ethanol shouldn't even BE in gasoline. It damages auto engines; in use, it saves no oil. It can NOT be shipped by pipelines - only by oligarchs' railroads (Buffet National or Blackhawk Union Pacific, or Blackhawk Norfolk Southern).
 

CDC Investigators Got Sick While Probing Toxic Train Derailment​

CDC members investigating the potential health impacts in a small Ohio town impacted by a toxic train derailment became ill, CNN reported.
By Alexa Schwerha
Mar 31, 2023 07:15 PM
View original
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials investigating potential health concerns in a small Ohio town impacted by a toxic train derailment became ill during their study, a CDC official confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Seven CDC members reported sore throats, headaches, coughing and nausea while in East Palestine, Ohio, weeks after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in early February and a controlled burn leaked hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, into the environment, Belsie González, CDC senior public affairs specialist, told the DCNF. The CDC members’ symptoms are consistent with health complaints reported by residents and first responders. (RELATED: Rail Union Reports Sickness, Safety Concerns At Ohio Train Derailment Site)

“Symptoms resolved for most team members later the same afternoon, and everyone resumed work on survey data collection within 24 hours. Impacted team members have not reported ongoing health effects,” González said.

more

CDC Investigators Got Sick While Probing Toxic Train Derailment

CDC members investigating the potential health impacts in a small Ohio town impacted by a toxic train derailment became ill, CNN reported.
dailycaller.com
 
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