Train - hazardous cargo "accident"

[3930dave]

At first I thought I'd read the article wrong.

Yahoo! News Canada - Latest News & Headlines

There was no operator on board the train, it is being reported as being operated remotely.

Descriptions of damage likely indicate fatalities, it will be a miracle if dozens or more people haven't been killed.

Unfortunately, it takes incidents like this to highlight what our governments allow major companies to get away with - all should be sued, with extreme prejudice.

That won't bring the dead back to life, but CorporateGovernment won't pay attention to anything but the bottom line.

And to think, the airline industry is lobbying for drone freight aircraft.....

:thumbdown:

Sad day in Quebec, my thoughts are with the families.

Rgds, D.

 

[bcp]

Not remotely operated, but a runaway:

Train carrying crude oil rolls away then derails, explodes in Lac Mégantic

Joseph R. McGonigle confirmed to The Gazette early Saturday afternoon that shortly before midnight, the train's conductor stopped in nearby Nantes, locked the brakes and checked to ensure that the rail cars carrying thousands of litres of crude oil were all securely attached.

He then checked into a nearby Lac Mégantic hotel for the night. Another conductor was reportedly expected to take over driving the train within a few hours.

"Sometime after (the first conductor left), the train got loose," said McGonigle, who is vice president of marketing for The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway. "It travelled under its own inertia to the centre of the town."

The locomotive portion of the 73-car train actually detached half a mile outside of the small town, he added, but the cars carrying the oil kept right on rolling. McGonigle said there are security mechanisms in place to prevent anyone from tampering with the train, and the proper checks were done by the conductor before he left the vehicle. No one except him or another employee of the company should have been able to set it in motion.

"That's what confuses us. How did this happen?" McGonigle said. "There are many fail-safe modes. How this happened is just beyond us."

 

[TomSeller]

No operator? Probably to save a few bucks. I wonder how that worked out for the company.

 

[3930dave]

Thanks bcp. I have no faith in Yahoo's reporting, but CBC gets it right most of the time.

Hard to picture freight trains parked like that, today, instead of running. I would expect the "parking-brake" to have mulitple redundancies..... I wonder what went wrong.

Rgds, D.

 

[Scooby074]

My sympathies to those who lost loved ones, and the injured.

But there is so much wrong with that statement.. A train, carrying hazardous goods, not in a train yard, on an incline, left alone with no one abort? Is that proper procedure?

And the greenies and Government think its a good idea to ship crude by train, vs a pipline or tanker?:thumbdown:

 

[Don87]

My sympathies to those who lost loved ones, and the injured.

But there is so much wrong with that statement.. A train, carrying hazardous goods, not in a train yard, on an incline, left alone with no one abort? Is that proper procedure?

And the greenies and Government think its a good idea to ship crude by train, vs a pipline or tanker?:thumbdown:

Always follow the money. Who owns the trains that will transport the oil???

 

[Soundguy]

wonder how the brakes failed. seemed there would be a fail safe lock down. ie.. locked under spring pressure untill unlocked via air or similar. like on a Semi trailer brake setup..

 

[Don87]

wonder how the brakes failed. seemed there would be a fail safe lock down. ie.. locked under spring pressure untill unlocked via air or similar. like on a Semi trailer brake setup..

I'm fairly certain that they are setup that way. I do know for certain that the trains I've seen have air brakes, and all the cars have brakes on them.

There's only 2 explanations I can think of, 1) the engineer didn't set the brakes. or 2) someone gained access and released them.(this is where the 'greenies' could be entered into the equation as posted above) (or it could be an act of terrorism).

Maybe the investigation will reveal something.

 

[TCJatko]

wonder how the brakes failed. seemed there would be a fail safe lock down. ie.. locked under spring pressure untill unlocked via air or similar. like on a Semi trailer brake setup..

Exactly. I suspect someone trying to "save" the environment from "disaster" by causing another disaster.

 

[Scooby074]

Apparently the train in question had an engine fire earlier in the day. This could prove significant.

Responding to a reporter’s question during Saturday’s news conference, Lac-Megantic’s fire chief confirmed that firefighters in a nearby community were called to a locomotive blaze on the same train a couple of hours before the derailment. Denis Lauzon said he could not provide additional details about that fire since it was in another jurisdiction.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/1140329-at-least-one-dead-many-missing-in-quebec-train-blast