http://katu.com/news/local/train-catches-fire-outside-mosier-in-the-columbia-river-gorge-oil-smoke-hood-river
Big fire, big mess - no injuries reported. Just saw the report on local TV news.
So now all the anti-big oil folks will drive in from near and far to protest. In the process, they'll probably burn more petroleum than the fire. Meanwhile, how many fuel and hazmat rubber-wheelers will be involved in accidents today...
Chuck
No offense chuck, don't understand what your trying to say.
It sounds like he is saying it's no big deal.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3625325/The-Latest-Fire-evacuation-remains-derailment.html
the tank cars that derailed were newer model CPC-1232s
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
The train must not have been equipped with the new ECP brake systems called for in the recent mandate.
schlimm It sounds like he is saying it's no big deal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3625325/The-Latest-Fire-evacuation-remains-derailment.html the tank cars that derailed were newer model CPC-1232s
Got it in one. As an aircraft type (combat aircraft) the big difference is the greater duration of the fire when heavy oil is involved. At least the responders don't have to worry about four Mk82s and a Vulcan-load of 20mm ammunition.
During this same time frame we lost a Blue Angels FA18 and pilot, plus a Thunderbird F16 with a successful ejection. The Thunderbird didn't burn, the Blue Angel did.
I've also seen an 8,000 gallon fuel trailer erupt like Mount St Helens when it lost a right-of-way argument to a train at a grade crossing. The USAF driver thought the ground man was signalling him to cross, when in fact that Nihon Kokutetsu employee was signaling for the steam loco on the far end of the cut to come ahead...
Big, nasty-looking fires that are contained are no big thing. I learned how to fight shipboard oil fires as a cadet. OTOH, a wildfire fueled by dry grass and brush, blown along by the usual desert wind...
Chuck (desert dwelling ex Merchant Marine cadet)
Euclid The train must not have been equipped with the new ECP brake systems called for in the recent mandate.
The Red Herring surfaces again.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
And?
An "expensive model collector"
"The Red Herring surfaces again."
Yes, but.....
Actually, once a car leaves the track and the train goes into emergency ECP brakes are moot.
Norm
Norm48327 "The Red Herring surfaces again." Yes, but..... Actually, once a car leaves the track and the train goes into emergency ECP brakes are moot.
That is not true.
n012944 Euclid The train must not have been equipped with the new ECP brake systems called for in the recent mandate. And?
And it would be interesting to know the details of the train operation when the derailment occurred, but I don’t expect that will be revealed. I did read that the train was traveling quite slowly when the derailment occurred.
Euclid n012944 Euclid The train must not have been equipped with the new ECP brake systems called for in the recent mandate. And? And it would be interesting to know the details of the train operation when the derailment occurred, but I don’t expect that will be revealed. I did read that the train was traveling quite slowly when the derailment occurred.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
I think it has been about a year since the last Bakken oilfield crude oil train derailment. It appears that the State of North Dakota's requirement to process and condition the Bakken crude before shipment was successful. The question becomes, what was the nature and / or origin of the Bakken crude in the Morison, Oregon derailment? Was the derailed train in Oregon loaded with properly processed Bakken crude oil from North Dakota? Or, as some news reports lead one to believe that the Bakken crude came from the Bakken oilfield in Montana, was the crude not processed as it originated in Montana?Inherent to transporting Bakken crude in railroad tank cars is that the tank cars do not have the ability to express what is going on in the tank car. Without instrumentation, the tank car is stupid. This is true whether it is a 111 or 1232 tank car.Instrumentation on a tank car should address the ongoing slosh in the tank car container. The weight of crude oil is such that a 30,000 gallon tank car is loaded to 28,000 tons. That creates an empty space inside that is equivalent is about the same as 36 drums of 55 gallon capacity. That is quite of bit of empty space for slosh to be set up and occur. Without instrumentation no one knows what the factor of sloshing of Bakken crude is. What are the fluid dynamics of a liquid such as Bakken crude? Does the distributed inertia and viscosity of Bakken crude contribute to unstable wheel dynamics and rail /wheel interaction? Does slosh set the stage for a boiling liquid expanding vapor event (explosion)?
Euclid http://katu.com/news/local/train-catches-fire-outside-mosier-in-the-columbia-river-gorge-oil-smoke-hood-river
Murphy Siding Euclid And it would be interesting to know the details of the train operation when the derailment occurred, but I don’t expect that will be revealed. I did read that the train was traveling quite slowly when the derailment occurred. And you believe that?
Euclid And it would be interesting to know the details of the train operation when the derailment occurred, but I don’t expect that will be revealed. I did read that the train was traveling quite slowly when the derailment occurred.
And you believe that?
Believe that the train was moving slowly? I have no way of knowing, but it seems plausible. I don't know how slow the reference meant.
I noticed that derailment pileup did not seem to have reached the high energy (high speed) derailment stage. Most of the accordioned cars were kind of loosely strung out rather than being violently jammed together. The relatively small number of cars in the pileup suggests a slower speed.
I would think that you could get the pileup seen in this derailment if the train were moving only 25 mph.
However, if the train was moving away from the camera in most of those nearly indentical shots, the head end cars appear to be a half mile beyond the pileup. That might suggest a speed more like 40 mph.
One of the articles mentioned the history of inspections on the line in Oregon, and passing all of those inspections.
I wonder if there is a grade at the site, and if so, the direction of the grade.
I understand that this was a 98 car train.
Euclid Norm48327 "The Red Herring surfaces again." Yes, but..... Actually, once a car leaves the track and the train goes into emergency ECP brakes are moot. That is not true.
Then, given your experience, please tell us what is true.
Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. Compared to Lac Megantic, it was a small incident. To the 100 or so people forced to leave their homes, I imagine that they consider it a "Big Deal". To the THOUSANDS, that use I-84 every day, the highway being COMPLETELY CLOSED, in both directions for about 11 hours, again, I would imagine that they considered it a "Big Deal". I myself went through that very stretch of I-84 West Bound about 3 hours before the derailment occurred. Washington SR 14, which paralells I-84 on the other side of the river, is a poor detour route, just a 2 lane road, and where it was used as a detour passes through Bingen, WA as the Main street through town, with reduced speed (25MPH, IIRC), definitely NOT a desireable detour route for a BUSY Interstate HWY. Two of my Sister-In-Laws were caught in that mess trying to go pick up a new Dog in Pasco,WA, they can attest to the inadequacey of SR-14 as an I-84 detour route, they ended up detouring over MT. Hood coming home, and stayed the night at our new home near Brightwood, OR. What should have been less than an 8 hour trip, went over night, so again I imagine that it was a "Big Deal" to them. It all depends on your perspective.
It was very fortunate that there were no serious injuries or deaths, and that there was relatively little property damage, considering the forces involved.
I believe that one report said that the train was moving at about 30 MPH.
If there is any grade at all where this happened, it would be very minor, and of relatively short length.
Doug
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
Not only 30K gallon tank cars catch on fire
challenger3980 schlimm It sounds like he is saying it's no big deal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3625325/The-Latest-Fire-evacuation-remains-derailment.html the tank cars that derailed were newer model CPC-1232s Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. Compared to Lac Megantic, it was a small incident. To the 100 or so people forced to leave their homes, I imagine that they consider it a "Big Deal". To the THOUSANDS, that use I-84 every day, the highway being COMPLETELY CLOSED, in both directions for about 11 hours, again, I would imagine that they considered it a "Big Deal". I myself went through that very stretch of I-84 West Bound about 3 hours before the derailment occurred. Washington SR 14, which paralells I-84 on the other side of the river, is a poor detour route, just a 2 lane road, and where it was used as a detour passes through Bingen, WA as the Main street through town, with reduced speed (25MPH, IIRC), definitely NOT a desireable detour route for a BUSY Interstate HWY. Two of my Sister-In-Laws were caught in that mess trying to go pick up a new Dog in Pasco,WA, they can attest to the inadequacey of SR-14 as an I-84 detour route, they ended up detouring over MT. Hood coming home, and stayed the night at our new home near Brightwood, OR. What should have been less than an 8 hour trip, went over night, so again I imagine that it was a "Big Deal" to them. It all depends on your perspective. It was very fortunate that there were no serious injuries or deaths, and that there was relatively little property damage, considering the forces involved. I believe that one report said that the train was moving at about 30 MPH. If there is any grade at all where this happened, it would be very minor, and of relatively short length. Doug
I was being sarcastic. It is a big deal, of course, but not to many forum members. I doubt if the motorcycle fire burned 12+ hours and shut down a major highway.
Euclid Norm48327 Actually, once a car leaves the track and the train goes into emergency ECP brakes are moot. That is not true.
Norm48327 Actually, once a car leaves the track and the train goes into emergency ECP brakes are moot.
He's talking about the 'mandated' kind of ECP brake system, not an improved one that does differential braking. The difference in emergency performance, net of full setup time, is on the order of of a maximum 3%, which is almost immaterial in an accident like this one, particularly if the brakes went into emergency only when the trainline first parted, and I suspect an ECP power/data cable would almost immediately thereafter have parted. I think it is highly unlikely that sophisticated braking of any kind would have reacted in time to prevent the 'part' of this derailment that broke up and ignited the cars that are burning. But I'm waiting for better reports, perhaps for the NTSB's analysis, to decide 'for real'.
Overmod Euclid Norm48327 That is not true. He's talking about the 'mandated' kind of ECP brake system, not an improved one that does differential braking. The difference in emergency performance, net of full setup time, is on the order of of a maximum 3%, which is almost immaterial in an accident like this one, particularly if the brakes went into emergency only when the trainline first parted, and I suspect an ECP power/data cable would almost immediately thereafter have parted. I think it is highly unlikely that sophisticated braking of any kind would have reacted in time to prevent the 'part' of this derailment that broke up and ignited the cars that are burning. But I'm waiting for better reports, perhaps for the NTSB's analysis, to decide 'for real'.
Euclid Norm48327 That is not true.
Norm48327
Bucky's version of ECP does not follow the laws of physics - his ECP stops the entire train at the instant the brakes are applied - 12K tons 40MPH to Zero in 0.0001 seconds.
BaltACDBucky's version of ECP does not follow the laws of physics - his ECP stops the entire train at the instant the brakes are applied - 12K tons 40MPH to Zero in 0.0001 seconds.
He said no such thing, and to my knowledge never has.
I think it is an acceptable topic to look at whether the 'mandated' system of ECP brakes that Sarah Feinberg likes would actually have reduced (to a meaningful extent) either the propensity of this derailment to proceed to heavy damage or the extent of the damage itself. While I think Euclid could have raised this in a more careful way, given the Pavlovian response a mention of the subject of ECP by him evokes in many Forum posters, I don't think that calls for straw-man arguments that are little more than personal attack.
A better reply to him might have been something along the lines of "No, the better performance of the FRA-mandated ECP approach would not have mattered here, and the reasons why include..." That would have allowed you to go on -- pre-emptively if you wanted -- to dismiss the idea that Euclid's differential-braking version of ECP would have affected the outcome of this accident, or much of its kinetics, had it been in use.
Yes, that would probably get us into extended 'yes, but', and I can hear Shari's friends starting to sing in the background, and I'm not going to start up that timeless topic here again. The point, though, is that even if you feel exhausted by the prospect of more Euclidean Talmudic logic, and even though 'confidence is high' that it will be coming in usual measure, no amount of "likelihood" justifies making fun of him with a statement he has not made, would not make, and clearly knows better than to ever make.
I realize that Norm was referring to ECP without my idea of differential braking. ECP alone is also what I was referring to.
I only brought up ECP because we now have a mandate for it to be added to oil trains, and this is the first high profile oil train derailment well after the mandate. So it is possible that this train would have been equipped with ECP brakes. Going further, I note that the point of the mandate was to prevent oil train derailments. So, based on that full reasoning, I concluded that the U.P. train must not have been equipped with ECP brakes. I was trying to be just a touch sarcastic without going overboard.
To be fair to Norm, when he said the effect of ECP would have been moot, I don't think he is far off. But moot is 100%, and that would have to mean zero difference in stopping time. An ECP advantage of 3% less stopping time is 3%, so it can’t be moot. And it may be 5-7% depending on how the matter is considered.
But there are a few other factors to consider. For all we know, the derailment could have resulted from a slack run-in that ECP would have prevented 100%. The derailment could have also been caused by a slack run-out that pulled a drawbar and dropped it on the track. ECP might have prevented that.
Even the 3% stopping time advantage of ECP may have made a significant difference in the outcome considering how little time it took to complete the pileup. Having the brakes apply simultaneously to the hind end cars rather than sequentially from the point of derailment might have resulted in a smaller, less violent pileup.
Dynamic braking may have also played a role in causing this derailment or the pileup. I would be open to considering all possibilities rather than finding some to be moot at this point. Certainly the U.P. will take the opportunity of this wreck to find out precisely why and how it happened, considering what is at stake.
Two high profile weapons in the fight against oil train disasters are increased inspections and stronger tank cars. I find it interesting that both failed in the case of this derailment. Particularly interesting is the failure of the stronger tank cars even at a relatively slower speed at which the stronger cars were said to be effective.
As I mentioned above, I was not referring at all to my concept of differential braking, which would be used in conjunction with ECP and derailment sensors. And of course, I have never advocated stopping trains instantly as a way to prevent derailments. In fact, differential braking would actually increase the stopping time somewhat compared to conventional air braking or ECP without differential braking.
In the case of this derailment, differential braking may have easily prevented the pileup, breaching, and fire.
I would only add that the derailment and release of oil may have had nothing to do with any form of braking if its cause was faulty trackwork: summer? kinks? or loose spikes/broken ties, etc.
wanswheel
Sounds like this is the first briefing the girl has given - everybody has to start somewhere.
EuclidI only brought up ECP because we now have a mandate for it to be added to oil trains, and this is the first high profile oil train derailment well after the mandate. So it is possible that this train would have been equipped with ECP brakes.
The mandate does not apply until 2022, and application may be annulled or given waivers past that date. I certainly wouldn't expect any actual ECP operation until full trains are converted, and except for testing I really wouldn't expect to see it for years to come.
That might change with effective marketing or systems development, as we have some very good examples (notably in Australia) where ECP has been adopted without any particular government carrot or stick, for fundamental business reasons by companies that appreciate its advantages and are willing to implement it properly even at present cost.
But I suspect use on oil trains, the economics of oil use being what they are now, might not be at all cost-justified, and in the absence of a real push or threat to enforce an active mandate or provision, I wouldn't expect, for example, diversion of resources from PTC to providing ECP or any particular thing associated with its adoption like preliminary training.
BaltACD wanswheel ounds like this is the first briefing the girl has given - everybody has to start somewhere.
I'd cut her a little slack, we're all "boots" at one time or another.
And who knows? She may not be a spokesperson at all. Possibly she's a mid-level manager or administrator who got stuck with the gig and just had to do the best she could.
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