MMA Crude Train Derails and Explodes

[CSX_CO]

The 10 % rule should apply here. 1 hand brake for every 10 cars. More in you are on a hill or heavy cars. BUT, even if you tie down the head end of the train it doesn't stop someone from pulling the pin on the rear and bleeding them off. Maybe they had to cut a crossing up the hill ? That crude oil is heavy and once you knock off the brakes watch out! Only the official investigation will tell us what happened.

Rarely there are rules that come out that 'make sense', but CSX has a rule now that you must 'test' the handbrakes on a cut. The 'preferred method' is to release the brakes on the train, release the brakes on the cars, and wait one minute. If the pressure is restored on the rear, the brakes are released, if the handbrakes can hold the cars for a continuous minute after the brakes have released, then the cars are 'secured'. just verifies that with the number of brakes tied, then the hand brakes will be sufficient to hold the cut.

Also, the "10% rule" isn't universal. There are other locations where you need 20%, some places only 1 brake, etc. Avon Yard is 1 car = 1 brake, 2 car = 2 brake, 3 car = 3 brake, 3 or more = 3+ sufficient number to hold the cut. You have 150 hoppers, you may only need 3 brakes if it passes the brake test. I would wager the FRA simply has a rule that states "sufficient number of brakes to hold the cut".

It will be interesting to see what happens, but I don't think sabotage played a role necessarily. Train was tied down, and crew had left. There is some question as to wither the engines were shut down properly. If the engines shut down, then the compressors are shut down. If they don't restart to maintain the air, eventually the air is going to bleed off. Air bleeds off enough, the brakes on the train are going to release, and its going to start rolling. Hence the locomotives being a mile 'up hill' from the derailment site, and a couple miles from where they were left.

Practice Safe CSX

[railohio]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 ... uebec-town

[Scooterb]

Airbrakes that would have prevented the Quebec train disaster failed because they were powered by an engine that was shut down by firefighters as they dealt with a fire shortly before the calamity occurred, the head of the railway that operated the train said on Monday.

The train had been parked at a siding on a slope near the town of Nantes, which is 12 km (8 miles) west of Lac-Megantic. The volunteer Nantes fire service was called out late on Friday night to deal with an engine fire on one of the train's locomotives.

Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert told Reuters the crew had switched off the engine as they extinguished a "good-sized" blaze in the engine, probably caused by a fuel or oil line break in the engine.

The problem was that the engine had been left on by the train's engineer to maintain pressure in the air brakes, Ed Burkhardt, chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), said in an interview. As the pressure gradually "leaked off", the air brakes failed and the train began to slide downhill, he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/five-die-40-missi ... 09883.html

[railroadchoad]

It looks as though there is enough blame to go around in this one. How many engines were in the consist? I haven't seen that question answered. If the fire fighters shut down only the engine that was on fire, there shouldn't have been a problem as other units should have maintained pressure. However, if the engine that was on fire was the only power on the train...we have a problem. I know from experience that a train that has locomotives shut down can lose air in a hurry. If there is a grade involved, all kinds of embarrassing things can happen.
It seems as though it would behoove the railroad to get someone out to a locomotive fire ASAP to secure the assets and determine what damage had been done. Perhaps that was in the works but it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.
I can't help but wonder where all of the missing people went. Were they incinerated? Perhaps the scene is still too hot to fully explore.
Edit: I saw above that there were 5 engines on the train but it would seem that the engines did not go down the hill with the cars. Also, I must wonder why all five engines were shut down due to the fire. I wonder if a fireman may have inadvertently pulled a cut lever when they were on the scene for the locomotive fire.

[bctrainfan]

Obviously this is very early in the investigation, but there seems to be some odd circumstances here. Like most disasters, it appears that a series of unfortunate events/mistakes combined to contribute to this one. Were any of the engines involved in the runaway? Were all the cars involved or just a portion of them? Why did the Fire Dept leave the original engine fire without waiting for someone from MMA to arrive and take responsibility for their property? In my experience, that seems quite unusual. A fire in a locomotive, even if small and easily extinguished, is not a minor incident, especially when its attached to dozens of HazMat filled tank cars. Maybe the MMA dispatcher told them that they did not need to stand by? Wouldn't the RR be real anxious to get someone to the scene?

And what is probably another noob question...why didnt the brakes hold? My understanding is that air pressure holds the brakes "open" and that loss of pressure applies the brakes, so something like a seperation or line failure causes the brakes to lock up. I must be missing something about how this works.

And, yeah, that was a major, very hot-burning fire that was going for quite a long time, including a pretty big explosion according to the reports, so recovery of victims is going to take a while. Its actually pretty rare for bodies to be completely incinerated in a fire, but might be possible in this case.

[Saturnalia]

Looking at ariels, I counted 30 or 40 cars piled up yesterday. It was either 30 or 40, can't remember. But either way, the whole 70+ car train is not there...

[railohio]

Looking at ariels

Aerial is overhead; Ariel is a mermaid.

[Saturnalia]

Looking at ariels

Aerial is overhead; Ariel is a mermaid.

Autocorrect changed it to the wrong one

[mikekmac]

I've been following this one pretty closely through Canadian media and through blogs and tweets of people at or close to the scene. At this point it seems to have played out this way:

-- 11 p.m. (per TSB) - Veteran engineer Tom Hayden, who has worked this job three times a week for a long time, ties down the eastbound train at the Nantes siding but on the main, which is adjacent to Rt 161 here. There are "five" locos, with 5017 in the lead. I say "five" because the second one is an RCO unit in a converted caboose. The others are all C30-7s. He shuts down all but 5017. Only he knows how many hand brakes he set and whether he performed a securement test. The siding has a 30-ft drop in elevation from west to east. There is no split rail derailer. Hayden takes his regular taxi to his regular motel in Lac-Megantic, L'Eau Berge. The motel is at the southeast end of downtown. The rail crossing is at the northwest end of downtown.

-- about 11:45 - a neighbor calls the FD reporting 5017 on fire. FD is there in under 10 minutes. They find this (video from a passing motorist): http://fr.video.canoe.tv/video/en-vedet ... 0685510001 The FD shuts down 5017 and spends about 45 minutes on scene, putting out the fire etc. They were trained in how to do this by MM&A and have responded to 4 previous loco fires in 8 years.

-- 11:50 p.m. (per TSB) - MM&A dispatcher is notified. At some point at least one MM&A 'representative' shows up--from engineering ("track man") not operations.

-- Midnight - 5017 is shut down.

-- 12:56 a.m. (per TSB) - train starts to move down the ~1% incline to Lac-Megantic. A witness said it started moving 'five minutes' after the fire department (and presumably the MM&A rep) left. He thinks its strange that it's completely dark. He does not report it. Other witnesses see the train along the winding 7.8 mile track to the 10mph Rue Frontenant crossing in town. They say there were sparks coming from the wheels. The final straightway before downtown runs through a grassy median in front of a row of houses. Witnesses here say they knew the train is going too fast and warned friends to run the other way.

-- 1:14 a.m. (per TSB) - Train is traveling 63mph. Somehow locos and buffer car make it through the crossing and the curve without derailing. Then ~60 tank cars derail, most bunching up like cordwood just past the crossing. Several cars end up scattered deep in the little railyard behind main street. There is fire by the time the cars come to rest; the first of several massive explosions (FAE or BLEVE) comes within a few minutes.

Sometime later a fire fighter uses a Trackmobile to pull 9 undamaged tank cars back west away from the fire. (The company claims it was their engineer who did this.)

The company says the locomotives come to a stop 800 meters past the accident. They do not appear in any photo I have seen.

[JStryker722]

Does it really matter who drove the trackmobile if your trying to make sure that no more tank cars blow up? Lol

[mikekmac]

The count of the missing raised to 60 this morning, including the 15 unidentified remains already recovered.

[railohio]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/mon ... story.html

[Saturnalia]

Saturday was not a good day as far as human error goes.

[AARR]

The president and CEO of the railway's parent company, Edward Burkhardt, says an employee failed to properly set the brakes of the train that crashed into a town in Quebec, killing at least 15 people.
http://news.msn.com/world/rail-chief-bl ... rain-crash

[redcrumbox]

Looking at ariels, I counted 30 or 40 cars piled up yesterday. It was either 30 or 40, can't remember. But either way, the whole 70+ car train is not there...

This video shows the fred flashing. Several of the rear cars managed to stay on the rails.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23260199

[redcrumbox]

How do they know that the train was a runaway ? I'll wait here.

They found the five locomotives with their brakes still set. It isn't clear to me if they found them where it had been parked 4km uphill, or somewhere intermediate. But the locomotives did not go down into town with the tank cars.



I'm really not at all clear about what happened now.

Did the locos get taken off the head end at some point before the accident? From this witnesses vantage point, right there is the Fred flashing. 00:56 into the video it gets bright enough to clearly see two roads on either side of the rails. There;s only one place in town where that video could have been taken. 45.578597,-70.888033

Unedited video.
http://youtu.be/mRb3JHsiqfA

[CSX_CO]

Saturday was not a good day as far as human error goes.

"Human Factor" derailments happen every day on the railroad. Most just don't make CNN.

Practice Safe CSX

[Standard Railfan]

Looking at ariels, I counted 30 or 40 cars piled up yesterday. It was either 30 or 40, can't remember. But either way, the whole 70+ car train is not there...

After watching some of the video of the fire in full bloom and the blast radius, the rest of the train may just be "gone".

[Saturnalia]

Saturday was not a good day as far as human error goes.

"Human Factor" derailments happen every day on the railroad. Most just don't make CNN.

Practice Safe CSX

True, but I was referring to this and the SFO 777 crash specifically.

Anyone know if some cars made it past with the loco consist? IIRC we have the locos beyond the wreck, and 9 pulled from it, there seems to be a decent chunk missing, whether it is "gone" or is with the locos...

[Saturnalia]

They're now saying all missing are presumed dead, bringing the deathtoll to 50.