Train derailment

1Michel

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Apr 25, 2008
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Location
Saint Joseph du lac, Québec
The cause of the accident was believed to be a runaway train, the railway's operator said. The president and CEO of Rail World Inc., the parent company of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, said the train had been parked uphill of Lac-Megantic. The tanker cars then sped downhill into the town before derailing.

"If brakes aren't properly applied on a train, it's going to run away," said Edward Burkhardt. "But we think the brakes were properly applied on this train."

Burkhardt, who was mystified by the disaster, said the train was parked because the engineer had finished his run.

"We've had a very good safety record for these 10 years," he said of the decade-old railroad. "Well, I think we've blown it here."

BUT this morning, on the news they said that this company did not have such a great safety report.

They had a 30000 liters oil spill last month plus a lot of the equipement were judged in insatisfactory and the wagons are often in a neglegted state.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/07/07/lac-megantic-explosions-fire_n_3556584.html
 
I think it's islam, terrorists.....seriously.....

someone released the cars/brakes......:shocking:
 
I think it's islam, terrorists.....seriously.....

someone released the cars/brakes......:shocking:

Could've been anybody Gene,
Yesterday, a local newscaster found a few wagons at a train station, place was unlocked and they were able to get inside.

wagons full of oil were left inatended in an mt station.
 
I think it's islam, terrorists.....seriously.....

someone released the cars/brakes......:shocking:

Could've been anybody Gene,
Yesterday, a local newscaster found a few wagons at a train station, place was unlocked and they were able to get inside.

wagons full of oil were left inatended in an mt station.

:hissyfit:

I dunno man, just seems to be a HELL of a lotta bad shit going on these daze, massive fires, explosions, all sorts of crap....parson my hair/aware raising, but something is going on.....:shocking:
 
Reports today suggest there was an earlier small fire somewhere on the train put out successfully by the local fire department. During the emergency the FD had asked the driver to turn off the engine. Immediate problems solved, everyone went home. In the hubbub no safety was applied. With the engine off, the air brakes were without backup and eventually everything went downhill. The blame game is just beginning.
 
Oh the irony!

Check the promotional video of a lac Megantic downtown bar that got entirely destroyed by the explosion.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU_cJV4xj9k[/ame]
 
Reports today suggest there was an earlier small fire somewhere on the train put out successfully by the local fire department. During the emergency the FD had asked the driver to turn off the engine. Immediate problems solved, everyone went home. In the hubbub no safety was applied. With the engine off, the air brakes were without backup and eventually everything went downhill. The blame game is just beginning.

A friend of mine has fammily there, they are ok.
And for a few years now, I heard stories about wagons that will get down the hill from the Tafisa wood cutting factory who is located few miles from downtown up a hill.

The wagon would just barrel down the hill, go thru town on the track where the tragedy happened, climb part of the hill on the other side of town and swing back.
The runaway wagon would do this a few times until they could stop it.

No damages since they never hit anybody and loaded with wood.

But it was only a matter of time that a fuel convoy would do this kind of damages.

they deregulated the train transporting ssytem, now any cowboy can run a train company and do business.

Safety and maintenance are the first item to be neglegted.

This is the result.
 
the latest blurb was it was caused by firemen... good lord, I hope not - but the scuttlebut goes like this: There was a fire on one of the locomotives. The firemen turned the power off - presumtively one of the locomotives was still running to power the brakes - to put out the fire - and the train rolled back down the hill into the town.

the other version is the same story - but in that story (this doesn't make a lot of sense to me) the firemen turned the engine off (when I say turned the engine off in either case, they probably cut something important), put out the fire, left, then the train rolled down the hill and killed everyone.
 
the latest blurb was it was caused by firemen... good lord, I hope not - but the scuttlebut goes like this: There was a fire on one of the locomotives. The firemen turned the power off - presumtively one of the locomotives was still running to power the brakes - to put out the fire - and the train rolled back down the hill into the town.

the other version is the same story - but in that story (this doesn't make a lot of sense to me) the firemen turned the engine off (when I say turned the engine off in either case, they probably cut something important), put out the fire, left, then the train rolled down the hill and killed everyone.

I dont know nothing about trains but is there a safety system similar to trucks?

when we run out of air on the air brakes, or if the air system goes bellow 60 pounds of air the emergency goes on automaticly.
truck wont move.
 
I dont know nothing about trains but is there a safety system similar to trucks?

when we run out of air on the air brakes, or if the air system goes bellow 60 pounds of air the emergency goes on automaticly.
truck wont move.

Interesting question. I'll bet trains don't have spring brakes like trucks. I think they are off without air so they can easily move a car around without hooking up air.

I just got a message- trains do have to have air to release the brakes.
 
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the latest blurb was it was caused by firemen... good lord, I hope not - but the scuttlebut goes like this: There was a fire on one of the locomotives. The firemen turned the power off - presumtively one of the locomotives was still running to power the brakes - to put out the fire - and the train rolled back down the hill into the town.

the other version is the same story - but in that story (this doesn't make a lot of sense to me) the firemen turned the engine off (when I say turned the engine off in either case, they probably cut something important), put out the fire, left, then the train rolled down the hill and killed everyone.

I dont know nothing about trains but is there a safety system similar to trucks?

when we run out of air on the air brakes, or if the air system goes bellow 60 pounds of air the emergency goes on automaticly.
truck wont move.

it's just the opposite for trains
"In the Lac-Megantic disaster, the engineer whose shift was over left one engine running to keep the pressure up in the brake system, and went off to his hotel. Somehow this engine caught fire, and it was turned off by the Nantes fire department before they put the fire out. The Chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, Ed Burkhardt told the Toronto Star:

If the operating locomotive is shut down, there's nothing left to keep the brakes charged up, and the brake pressure will drop finally to the point where they can't be held in place any longer."


I imagine the problem with train brakes, as opposed to truck brakes, is if they fail in the on position, pressure loss down the train would result in the brakes dragging until someone noticed - add a few sparks from the dragging brakes and you'd have a fire from the point it started sparking until it was noticed (train created brush fires happen a lot)

(funny aside, my Brother in law works for a locomotive company, RR took delivery of a new train and pulled it as part of a 5 locomotive package to the central US.... they left the brakes on on the locomotive - no one noticed until the train had traveled 1000 miles... then it traveled back to be rebuilt)
 
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