Firelock76 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.
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.
On my carrier mid-level managers were encouraged (company picked up the tab) to go through the Dale Carnegie training on public speaking.
With UP being UP, I doubt that anyone other than a company PR Officer is allowed to give a breifing such as this. Too many things can be said by a non PR educated individual that could put increased liability upon UP.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I assume that the U.P. spokesperson was intentionally selected to evoke sympathy on her behalf in order to soften the harsh criticism that they know is headed their way as a result of this derailment.
As a Marine lieutenant part of the training I recieved was in delivering "off-the-cuff" remarks on whatever subject the instructor threw at you. Some were good at it, some weren't. I think I was good at it, usually getting some laughs from the audience of my fellow trainees and a bit of a smile from that very stern instructor.
It's an aquired skill, no doubt about it. I did have the advantage of having taken an "Oral Interpretation of Literature" class in college which served me in good stead. The reason I took the course was to overcome shyness and to get some poise in front of a group. It was fun too!
Again, I'd cut that young lady some slack. It can't be easy facing a hostile audience, and we can be sure the press is downright hostile when it comes to the subject of oil trains.
She does a much better job when she is not reading off a script. What do you all think?
Overmod She does a much better job when she is not reading off a script. What do you all think?
Much better than the previous!
How did the derailment damage the water and sewer utilities in Mosier?
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/05/oregon-oil-train-spill-mosier-water-sewer-damage
“Authorities said on Sunday an oil-train derailment and fire has damaged essential city services in a small Oregon town.
The Mosier waste water treatment plant and sewer system are not operational as a result of the spectacular derailment on Friday of 16 of the 96 tank cars on a Union Pacific train.”
Are they damaged, or just inaccessible due to being in the evacuation zone?
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
zugmannAre they damaged, or just inaccessible due to being in the evacuation zone?
I don't know. A couple artciles say the derailment caused damage to the sewer and water utilities and the are shut down indefinitely pending repair. Residents are said to have no sewer or water.
Associated Press, Jun. 5
http://komonews.com/news/local/oil-train-derailment-fire-damaged-oregon-city-water-system-06-05-2016
A failure of the fastener between the railroad tie and the line was likely the problem, but more investigation will be required before railroad officials know for sure, Raquel Espinoza said Sunday.
Euclid zugmann I don't know. A couple artciles say the derailment caused damage to the sewer and water utilities and the are shut down indefinitely pending repair. Residents are said to have no sewer or water.
zugmann
Here is the notice of the Mosier community meeting tonight
SAMUEL C WALKER [snipped - PDN] . . . 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.
SAMUEL C WALKER 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)?
- Paul North.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/1a5f10da18094e4696914d7f25fffe4d/oil-train-derailment-fire-damaged-oregon-city-water-system
Here is a news nugget from the spokesperson. Apparently, the derailment directly damaged the sewer system buried under the tracks:
"Our priority here is bringing people home. Nothing else matters," she added. Repairs to a water treatment system, which runs under the tracks, would need to be completed before people could return to their homes, the railroad said.”
The article also says this, thus clarifying the lack of water:
“The Mosier waste water treatment plant and sewer system were not operational Sunday. Residents were told not to flush their toilets and advised to boil any water before they drank it or cooked with it. Mosier exhausted its water reserves fighting the fire and cooling the trains. Burns said the aquifers were completely depleted.”
Paul,
Who is Samuel C. Walker and how do his comments relate to this U.P. derailment? I recall somebody here on the forum saying something similar or identical to the quotes by Mr. Walker, but that was not his name.
Euclid -
I don't know who Mr. Walker is, but the post (apparently of 6 so far since he joined in Dec. 2015) from which I quoted an excerpt is about 1/3 of the way down on Page 1 of this thread, and is captioned as: "Posted by SAMUEL C WALKER on Saturday, June 04, 2016 6:46 PM".
BaltACD Overmod She does a much better job when she is not reading off a script. What do you all think? Much better than the previous!
Yes, quite an improvement. Well done young lady!
Now let me indulge my inner Italian grandfather...
"Watsa matter? She's young, she's good-lookin', she's smart, how come she's a-no married yet?"
I DID pay close attention to her left hand.
Paul_D_North_JrPaul_D_North_Jr wrote the following post 31 minutes ago: SAMUEL C WALKER [snipped - PDN] . . . 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. That weight looks to be a little much . . . And the "28" part doesn't make sense, either. If it was meant to be 280,000 lbs., then 60,000 lbs. of car tare weight would total 340,000 lbs. = 170 tons, at least 25,000 lbs. / 12.5 tons over any maximum accepted in regular interchange. If it was meant to be gross weight, the next 'step' is 285,000 lbs. instead.
I'm not sure where the interpretive rocket science is needed. Pretty clear to me that Walker mistyped "tons" for "gallons" and simplified the result of dividing the empty space -- measured as 2000 gallons -- by a nominal 55 gallons per drum to get 36 instead of a little more. Why he did not understand how crude oil is measured and say 'a bit under 48 barrels' I don't know -- but there isn't anything particularly head-scratching to understand.
I continue to agree that even for 'gassy' Bakken crude the effect of normal slosh isn't likely to cause problems. But I also still wonder if very fast deceleration or shock, as in an accident like this, might still cause some observable effect. On second thought, no, let's leave the horse carcass alone.
If a flamable liquid finds a sewer grate and gets into a sewer, it's a very dangerous situation. Also I wonder why they did not draw their fire pumper water from the river, rather than deplete the town water supply.
Okay, I see the post. I had missed it yesterday. I believe he has posted that before here in the past sloshing thread, and possibly somewhere else.
wanswheel Associated Press, Jun. 5 http://komonews.com/news/local/oil-train-derailment-fire-damaged-oregon-city-water-system-06-05-2016 A failure of the fastener between the railroad tie and the line was likely the problem, but more investigation will be required before railroad officials know for sure, Raquel Espinoza said Sunday.
I sure would like to know more about the fastener between the tie and the line, and why that was likely the problem (even though more invetigation will required before railroad officials know for sure).
Very vague statement - I have heard a Sun Kink poisted by someone who is not involved in the investigation.
Welded Rail is a technology that has yet to be 100% MASTERED by the rail industry. Mom Nature get in a good lick every now and again - heat lengthens steel - cold contracts it. The forces that get built up in the track structure get tested every time a train passes over the areas under stress - sometimes the stresses overcome the forces that have been intended to hold those stresses in check.
It was brought up yesterday, that ND requires field processing of Bakken crude to remove some of the gassier components of the oil. While it helps to reduce the high flammability of Bakken, it certainly does not make it non-flammable. Looking at some of the video of the fire, it seemed tame compared to the Castleton, ND video of 2(?) years ago where fireballs rose several hundred feet into the air.
MidlandMike Also I wonder why they did not draw their fire pumper water from the river, rather than deplete the town water supply.
Looking at satellite imagery of the area, it may have been an access issue. There doesn't appear to be any easy access to the riverbank in that area.
I could be wrong.
There is also the question of a major breach, leaking thousands of gallons of burning oil into the river. That would make drafting out of the river risky at best.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
BaltACD wanswheel Associated Press, Jun. 5 http://komonews.com/news/local/oil-train-derailment-fire-damaged-oregon-city-water-system-06-05-2016 A failure of the fastener between the railroad tie and the line was likely the problem, but more investigation will be required before railroad officials know for sure, Raquel Espinoza said Sunday. Very vague statement - I have heard a Sun Kink poisted by someone who is not involved in the investigation. Welded Rail is a technology that has yet to be 100% MASTERED by the rail industry. Mom Nature get in a good lick every now and again - heat lengthens steel - cold contracts it. The forces that get built up in the track structure get tested every time a train passes over the areas under stress - sometimes the stresses overcome the forces that have been intended to hold those stresses in check.
A sun kink seems plausible. They are having temperatures over 100 degrees lately out there. Maybe that is what Ms. Espinoza is referring to without fully understanding what she is describing.
Raquel is fluent in Spanish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES1w5S67FSk&t=25s
tree68 MidlandMike Also I wonder why they did not draw their fire pumper water from the river, rather than deplete the town water supply. Looking at satellite imagery of the area, it may have been an access issue. There doesn't appear to be any easy access to the riverbank in that area. I could be wrong. There is also the question of a major breach, leaking thousands of gallons of burning oil into the river. That would make drafting out of the river risky at best.
When you mention access, it made me realize that you might need ridgid siphon line all the way to the river, and I am guessing that would be no easy task if you could not pull the pumper right up to the river.
I am also guessing that if oil got into the river, fighting fire with fire, is not a preferred option.
tree68 The river was about 1000 feet away down a paved road, easy access. Oil on water, no problem, the engine drafts from below the surface. It is quite posible that a rural dept had no 5 inch hose as they would never need it except in a case like this. It would behoove the carriers to maintain firefighting eqipment along these routes to assist the local depts. A couple thousand feet of 5 inch hose, adaptors, an engine that could draft 2000 gpm and 500 gallons of AFFF concentrate should have made this a piece of cake. MidlandMike Also I wonder why they did not draw their fire pumper water from the river, rather than deplete the town water supply. Looking at satellite imagery of the area, it may have been an access issue. There doesn't appear to be any easy access to the riverbank in that area. I could be wrong. There is also the question of a major breach, leaking thousands of gallons of burning oil into the river. That would make drafting out of the river risky at best.
The river was about 1000 feet away down a paved road, easy access. Oil on water, no problem, the engine drafts from below the surface. It is quite posible that a rural dept had no 5 inch hose as they would never need it except in a case like this. It would behoove the carriers to maintain firefighting eqipment along these routes to assist the local depts. A couple thousand feet of 5 inch hose, adaptors, an engine that could draft 2000 gpm and 500 gallons of AFFF concentrate should have made this a piece of cake.
tdmidgetThe river was about 1000 feet away down a paved road, easy access. Oil on water, no problem, the engine drafts from below the surface. It is quite posible that a rural dept had no 5 inch hose as they would never need it except in a case like this. It would behoove the carriers to maintain firefighting eqipment along these routes to assist the local depts. A couple thousand feet of 5 inch hose, adaptors, an engine that could draft 2000 gpm and 500 gallons of AFFF concentrate should have made this a piece of cake.
According to news reports, some fifteen fire departments responded to the incident - given access to the river, they certainly could have cobbled together enough hose. I found one spot where one could park a pumper within range of the 20-30 feet of suction hose most trucks carry, and it's at least 1000', if not a lot more, from the scene. Then the problem becomes the several thousand feet of LDH (multiple lays) necessary to get sufficient water to the scene.
I agree that stuff like foam should be stockpiled - Mosier FD reportedly only keeps about 40 gallons on hand, and may lack to equipment to generate the thousands of gallons of foam per minute necessary for an incident like this.
Mosier FD has one full time employee and 18-20 volunteers, running out of three stations and serving a population of just 1500.
The danger with the oil in the river would not be the oil, as such. It would be if that oil was burning. That potential draft site I found is downstream from the incident. The oil booms would be next to useless in that situation.
As for LDH - I'm in a rural department with a similar run volume to Mosier - and I can have a mile of 5" hose on scene in under 15 minutes between the 1000' we carry and surrounding mutual aid departments. But many places still do not carry it.
When several cars in a long train derail, especially if they are deep in the train, how does the engineer know that part of his or her train has derailed. I am assuming that the engineer cannot see the whole train?
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
JPS1,
If the derailment causes the train to separate, that will part the air hoses and put the train brakes into an "Emergency" application, stopping the train.
If say just one car derails and drags, it may not cause the train to separate, so the air hoses remain intact. In that case, the derailed car can drag for miles without anyone knowing it. About a year ago, in Tennessee, CSX dragged a derailed car for nine miles.
A little birdy tells me---Sheared track screws. The "fastener" in question is a series of track screws. apparently, this section was relaid from the ballast up a few years ago, then some time later UPRR had "issues" with that particular type of screws that had been installed elsewhere and issued a directive to use anothe "preferred" type of screw, but listed the type used here as an "acceptable alternative.
Euclid BaltACD wanswheel Associated Press, Jun. 5 http://komonews.com/news/local/oil-train-derailment-fire-damaged-oregon-city-water-system-06-05-2016 A failure of the fastener between the railroad tie and the line was likely the problem, but more investigation will be required before railroad officials know for sure, Raquel Espinoza said Sunday. Very vague statement - I have heard a Sun Kink poisted by someone who is not involved in the investigation. Welded Rail is a technology that has yet to be 100% MASTERED by the rail industry. Mom Nature get in a good lick every now and again - heat lengthens steel - cold contracts it. The forces that get built up in the track structure get tested every time a train passes over the areas under stress - sometimes the stresses overcome the forces that have been intended to hold those stresses in check. A sun kink seems plausible. They are having temperatures over 100 degrees lately out there. Maybe that is what Ms. Espinoza is referring to without fully understanding what she is describing.
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