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Village evacuated after Quebec train derailment

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[quote user="edblysard"] By two account published in the local and national media, the engineer returned to his train after the runaway, and using his locomotives, he pulled several cars, (no specific number was given) away from the fire. If that is true, then I would expect the Canadian version of the NTSB would find much less than the 11 handbrakes originally tied, as the engineer would have walked the head cut popping hand brakes till he got to a point that either his own prudence or the heat from the fire prevented him from going further, at that point, he would have looked for a coupling that had enough slack to allow him to “pull the pin” and reaching in, closing the anglecock on the car, walk back to his locomotives, pull the cut away to a distance he felt was safe, tie a few hand brakes to hold that cut in place, and cut his engines away, moving them to an even farther distance to ensure they were not damaged. [/quote] Ed, The story that I have seen about the engineer saving some of the tank cars says he used a piece of heavy equipment, and not the train’s locomotives.  As I understand it, the locomotive separated from the train during the wreck and continued about ½-mile further down the track before stopping.  What is not clear is from which end of the train the engineer pulled cars.  In the incredible fire video taken from behind the train, you can see maybe 10 cars still coupled and on the rails with the EOT flashing.  I do not know if any cars were still coupled and on the rails ahead of the wreck.  I assume that if he pulled cars from the hind end of the train, there would have been no hand brakes to release if hand brakes had been set on the train.  But the condition of the wreck on the head end raises a question about hand brakes.  If there were say ten cars coupled and on the rails ahead of the wreck, one would expect hand brakes to still be set, if they were set at the top of the hill.  However, if all the head end cars are in that jumbled heap, I do not know how one can inspect them and conclude whether or not hand brakes were set at the top of the hill.
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