A stalled train happened in Barrington and delayed the fire deparment https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180716/barringtons-perfect-storm-stalled-train-on-ejampe-blocks-ambulances Thoughts? Is Barrington beeing NIMBY? Thanks
Well, there's maybe a little bit of NIMBY there, but I get their concern.
Apparently they've been working toward a solution, reference the funding they've already secured. Hopefully work will begin on that sooner rather than later.
As was noted in the article, traffic is far different than it had been pre-CN. However, the stalled train was mostly the luck of the draw.
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...
They (Barrington) have had 10 years to fund and build their solution - additionally within the 10 years they SHOULD have developed a game plan for all crossings being blocked at the same time - THEY KNOW IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN - THEY KNOW IT HAS HAPPENED - THEY KNOW IT WILL CONTINUE TO HAPPEN.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
A perfect storm!
Great timing too, literally the day after the town lost their appeal of a lawsuit trying to get CN to pay more towards grade separations.
Agree that they knew this could happen, and have not done enough to prevent it. A railroad is a railroad, and even when the EJ&E was independent there was nothing stopping them from running numerous long trains every day.
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SD70DudeA railroad is a railroad, and even when the EJ&E was independent there was nothing stopping them from running numerous long trains every day.
But it didn't prior to CN. Once CN took over, things changed. Some communities did force CN to make some changes as a condition of the takeover, as I recall.
charlie hebdo SD70Dude A railroad is a railroad, and even when the EJ&E was independent there was nothing stopping them from running numerous long trains every day. But it didn't prior to CN. Once CN took over, things changed. Some communities did force CN to make some changes as a condition of the takeover, as I recall.
SD70Dude A railroad is a railroad, and even when the EJ&E was independent there was nothing stopping them from running numerous long trains every day.
Yes, operations changed. But the rules that would have allowed them to run long trains did not, which was why CN did not have to jump over the moon to close the EJ&E deal.
Obviously there are also rules governing how long trains may block crossings. I don't know the American regulations, but in Canada a through train is not allowed to stop on a crossing for more than 5 minutes before starting a move to clear said crossing. Of course, if one interprets our rules directly then there is no time limit as long as the train is moving.
We are also supposed to clear the crossing as quickly as possible when emergency vehicles require passage. But a problem such as a broken air hose makes it physically impossible to move the train until it is repaired. And if a large traffic jam develops or the train is strung out around a curve the emergency vehicles may not be visible to the train crew.
1 hour to fix a busted air hose sounds about right to me.
SD70Dude1 hour to fix a busted air hose sounds about right to me.
About a hour per mile of train length is about right. Remember any inspection must originate from the head end to the rear end and then back to the head end. So a one mile long train is a two mile stroll for the Conductor. A two mile long train is a four mile walk for the Conductor.
When you hear 4 MPH being 'walking speed' it is - on a hard surface without many slip, trip and fall obsticals. Railroad rights of way are not hard surface walkways and have many slip, trip and fall situations to protect against.
Yep, will have the train moving in 5 minutes. [/sarcasm]
This one must have been near the head end.
Additional factors to consider include the Conductor's physical fitness and pre-planning, is he already packing a spare hose and wrench?
I got tired long ago of explaining to Trainmasters that there is no such thing as a "5-minute move".
One way ballast is graded is by the slope it will hold. Track on an embankment may have ballast (and fill) at a 45 degree angle (or steeper) right next to the track. Getting through that involves hanging on to the cars for dear life, hoping you don't lose your grip when your feet go out from under you...
While you're carrying that hose and wrench.
And we're not necessarily talking embankments of tens of feet. A six footer is just as miserable.
SD70DudeThis one must have been near the head end. Additional factors to consider include the Conductor's physical fitness and pre-planning, is he already packing a spare hose and wrench? I got tired long ago of explaining to Trainmasters that there is no such thing as a "5-minute move".
Does CN have any rules about insuring that HAZMAT is on the rail when performing the inspection for a UnDesired Emergency brake applicaion? CSX does (or at least did when I was working). While you may find the problem in the first 10 cars of a 12000 foot train - if HAZMAT is in the rear portions of the train - those cars must be visually verified as being on the rail before proceeding.
And this was 5-4 years after the Barrington had a dispute with the Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District, this forced them to basically become two seperate FD's. Before 2013-2014 Barrington had more stations so if something like this happened things like this wouldn't happen as frequentley. Yes Barrington has it's priatories streight sarcasm off.
wilmette2210Also https://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/First-Responders-Delayed-by-Blocked-Rail-Crossings-487960341.html
Nevertheless, CN runs much longer trains that often block crossings for more than the legal time limit.
Darch said the trains have gotten longer and slower since Canadian National purchased the EJ&E railroad tracks in 2008. She said the village has argued for ten years that CN should pay a portion of the $73.5 million grade separation project at Route 14 to prevent future incidents.“It’s a cost of doing business to bring freight through a town and completely block it up,” Darch said. “There should be a greater amount of money spent to mitigate that impact.”
Perhaps it is time to regulate train lengths?
BTW, for those who like to say in regards to responsibility "the railroad was there first" it's not true in this case. Barrington goes back to 1834, while the Waukegan and Southwestern (absurbed by the EJ&E) to 1890.
If the village just ponied up the ~ $3.6M they want CN to pay, they'd have had the project done five years ago...
I do get that they want CN to pay part of the cost, but if they're going to wait for CN, it'll be another ten years - unless they get someone to force CN to pay up. Of course, just the work to get a bridge in place under a working rail line should be interesting...
The Illinois Commerce Commission is the final arbiter of who pays for what and you aren't hearing much about the ICC opinions up until now. Apparently the Section 400 funding has gone elsewhere in the state as a funding priority....and they have taken all that railroad tax money from the state (Paid to the state under the watchfull eyes of the feds and disbursed semi-annually to the locals) thank you, thank you very much, ..... of course the newsworkers don't see that side of the story.
Barrington's lack of planning and growth over decades helped contribute to the mess. Sorry it happened, but..... (and fortunately there was no major issues to the ambulance users as a result). Not NIMBYs per se, but rather generations of bad local government.
mudchicken wrote the following post[in part]: "...Barrington's lack of planning and growth over decades helped contribute to the mess. Sorry it happened, but..... (and fortunately there was no major issues to the ambulance users as a result). Not NIMBYs per se, but rather generations of bad local government..."
This seems to be a prople all over this country, in many places, as towns and cities have 'grown up' around railroads and traffic volumes have swelled also. Politicians seem to have universally, adopted the 'head in the sand' approach to obovious problems; they seem to wait for clamities, or the problem to get so great the citizenry get up in arms. then their fall-back position is look for someone else to foist their problem on. Its' called the 'buying time, til I get out of office approach[ie; The let 'George'do it ploy.. Not an uncomon approach in political circles. Not to mention, any report on Illinois, and Chicago politics seems seems to 'fall' on the argument that the State is Billions in the 'RED" and is dancing on the edge of bankruptcy... I think Barrington's chances are probably going to happen; when that snowball survives a trip to perdition,and back?
Doesn't Barrington belong to a district or county emergency dispatching center? If so, or even if not, there has to be some way in this day and age for a quick request for mutual aid to get to the scene from the other direction.
Note: I was unable to open the article so I'm not aware of the particulars. But that is how an emergency response would normally be handled. No train delays in our area but we have had road closures due to accidents or weather that had other units respond or, if ambulances with patients, rerouted to other hospitals.
alphas Doesn't Barrington belong to a district or county emergency dispatching center? If so, or even if not, there has to be some way in this day and age for a quick request for mutual aid to get to the scene from the other direction. Note: I was unable to open the article so I'm not aware of the particulars. But that is how an emergency response would normally be handled. No train delays in our area but we have had road closures due to accidents or weather that had other units respond or, if ambulances with patients, rerouted to other hospitals.
The fire department does have mutual aid pacts with surrounding departments, and that general area is well-known for their Mutual Aid Box Alarm System.
The case cited in the article involved ambulances enroute to hospitals. There must be other routes to said hospitals - Barrington is hardly an "island."
The Mudchicken is right about poor decisions by the local government. The village board reflects the attitudes of the residents, most of whom are rather prosperous and are quite resentful when the rest of the world invades their special corner of Gehenna.
alphasDoesn't Barrington belong to a district or county emergency dispatching center? If so, or even if not, there has to be some way in this day and age for a quick request for mutual aid to get to the scene from the other direction.
I got the distinct impression from the story that the 'injuries' were known to be minor, and very likely no special effort was made (or considered necessary) to contact the crew to split the consist.
Of course when the issue of 'emergency crews were held up!' gets to the political level, this gets lost in the sauce.
What IS important is to find out how easy and direct it would be to get an ambulance across an occupied crossing in case of bona fide medical emergency. (Or find a direct re-routing to an open crossing or existing split ASAP).
OvermodI got the distinct impression from the story that the 'injuries' were known to be minor, and very likely no special effort was made (or considered necessary) to contact the crew to split the consist.
How can you split a train with an air hose failure?
As I read the article the paramedics found a way around but it took them at least 20 minutes longer. In case of an heart attack that can be the difference between life and death.Regards, Volker
VOLKER LANDWEHRHow can you split a train with an air hose failure?
Simple. You move some portion of the train between the air compressors and the failed hose. Shut an angle cock so you can pump the air up on that section; tie down the portion "behind" so you can safely separate the consist as needed.
Or tie down handbrakes on the portion of the train behind the failed hose down to just past the crossing in question, let off the air on that section, and drag or move as needed until a satisfactory distance clear of the crossing.
(Of course it takes time to do these things, and then more time to undo them, and if there is an accident or medical emergency in that time there will still be problems... it's not precision scheduled crossing opening.)
As I read the article the paramedics found a way around but it took them at least 20 minutes longer. In case of an heart attack that can be the difference between life and death.
Had this been a heart attack. But it was not, and more significantly known to be not.
In any case the 'time lost is muscle lost' metric for myocardial infarctions at least is being significantly disproved for a statistically significant number of cases. However, since this argues in favor of faster and more directed first response, it is difficult to assess whether the 'right' answer is to have the necessary methods available on the response vehicles in the first place (which is where it would be most effective to apply them) or to reduce absolute transport time.
As I noted, the question is whether the train could have been quickly split at a crossing if first responders required it. And secondarily, if there is some method for coordinating the split with route recognition to prevent confusion and delay.
The issue here goes beyond Barrington. Railroads are supposed to be good corporate citizens. That means cooperation with the areas they traverse, not just deflecting and blaming any problems on the citizens and politicians. The EJ&E and barrington cooperated for over 100 years, given the level of traffic and train lengths it operated, with gradual increases. Once CN took over, the character of operations changed dramatically. Years ago, railroads were quite willing to modify their operations to meet changing demands while at the same time taking steps to mitigate the impact. For example, in the Chicago area, the Burlington paid for elevating its existing tracks through Aurora around 1920. https://books.google.com/books?id=5Lo5AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA25&lpg=RA1-PA25&dq=burlington+track+elevation+in+Aurora&source=bl&ots=yisZ4QV569&sig=Ft5psaeCne7mc8SCMdWHNqAYKzU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT15be6q3cAhVMiqwKHWvOBX4Q6AEITzAG#v=onepage&q=burlington%20track%20elevation%20in%20Aurora&f=false
Wilmette said that Barrington used to have more fire stations. If they did have stations on both sides of the track which bisects the town, that would help get paramedics to a victim more quickly. But if the victim needed to be transported to a Level 1 or 2 trauma center on the other side of the tracks, SOL, as there are only 4 crossings, all of which were blocked. Long detours and delays can make the difference between life and death in many medical emergencies.
Overmod(Of course it takes time to do these things, and then more time to undo them, and if there is an accident or medical emergency in that time there will still be problems... it's not precision scheduled crossing opening.)
Doesn't sound very practicable too in 20 minutes time frame.
OvermodSimple. You move some portion of the train between the air compressors and the failed hose.
What when the failed air hose is between head end and first possible crossing?
OvermodHad this been a heart attack. But it was not, and more significantly known to be not.
They were just lucky. Next time it could be a heart attack and matter.
OvermodHowever, since this argues in favor of faster and more directed first response, it is difficult to assess whether the 'right' answer is to have the necessary methods available on the response vehicles in the first place (which is where it would be most effective to apply them) or to reduce absolute transport time.
The answer differs from country to country I think. In Germany in case of a heart attack additionally to the paramedics an emergency medical physician is sent. Each ambulance is equipped accordingly defibrillator, ECG etc.). But the best they can usually do is to stabilize the patient for transport.Regards, Volker
Yes the railroad should minimize blocking crossings, not saying that they shouldn't.
There are limitations to that because things do happen.
The ambulance should have radio communication with a police or hospital center and they should have communications with a railroad emergency center, those exist today. If the ambulance is stopped by a stopped train, they should immediately contact their communications center, who will contact the railroad, who can contact the train and find out what the situation is.
If the train is having any kind of problem, especially a mechanical problem then the ambulance should automatically go to a "plan B" and assume that the train will not move. The key to that is the railroad being able to tell the ambulance which crossings they have blocked so the ambulance knows which alternate route to take.
Unless the railroad KNOWS the train can move in 2-5 min, then the ambulance just needs to go to plan B.
Alternative situation, since this is know to be politically sensitive, if a train has a problem in the area, they call the dispatch office, who calls the railroad emergency center, who calls the local emergency center and lets them know there is a problem. Then the local emergency center can tell their emergency responders the track is blocked when they are initially despatched, so they can go to "plan B" right from the get go.
Unless the ambulance is at the nearest crossing to the engine, cutting the crossing could still take more time than going on an alternate route. The train crew would have to know which crossing the ambulance was at, they would have to walk back to that crossing. Assuming the air problem was not between that crossing and the engines, they would have to secure the rear of the train, uncouple the train, cut the crossing. That means that all crossings behind that will be blocked for more than an hour (at least).
In any case its not going to be quick and its going to cause huge amounts of congestion.
Unless they can get an engine on the rear of the cut, to finally move the train, the train will have to recouple, the air hoses connected, that air pumped up, the rest of the train walked to find the defect (if its an air problem, you have to have air on the train to find the defect), the problem fixed an then the train moved. While they are doing all that all the crossings are blocked.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Most paramedics these days can do just about anything the ER doc is going to do - in some cases including thrombolytics. No caths in the field, though, yet.
When I was an advanced life support EMT I had a defibrillator and a monitor at my disposal, with a pretty good collection of the appropriate meds available as well. I could even send an EKG to the hospital for a doc to further interpret (if the rhythm was something beyond those I was trained to read).
If you take a look at the Barrington area, it's a suburban area, with plenty of roads. Maybe all of the crossings within Barrington were blocked, but crossings in neighboring cities were not. I'm surprised it took an ambulance 20 minutes to find a way around. I'm betting a portion of that was spent sitting at a crossing wondering if the train was going to move.
And I wonder, too, if that was what I refer to as the "ubiquitous twenty minutes." If you ask someone how long it took for the fire department or ambulance to get to their emergency, the answer will often be "20 minutes," even if records later show it was only five...
My experience says WHENEVER I see a train stop in front of me, or I come upon a train that is already stopped - I make the decision right then and there that under the BEST OF CIRCUMSTANCE - that crossing will be blocked for a MINIMUM of one hour and likely more. I plan my exit strategy accordingly.
IF Barrington Police, Fire and EMT's don't have a plan to circumvent the crossings being blocked and implement it AS SOON AS the train stops, they are not qualified to operate the departments they do. There are relatively few places where stopped trains block off all access to a community. The Barrington community is not one of those places.
dehusmanThe ambulance should have radio communication with a police or hospital center and they should have communications with a railroad emergency center,
Years ago (the last time I was up there) on the WC, north of Fond du Lac, WI, the police had the railroad frequencies on their radios; many times I've heard two-way communication between the cops and the trains.
Barrington is small in size (about 4 sq. mi.). Most of it is south of the CN ROW, which cuts it off from the closest Level II trauma center (Good Shepherd), about 4.5 mi. to the NW. Alternate routings increase the time and distance. An alternative is the Level II at Northwest Community Hospital, about 13 miles away to the SE.
Time does matter. So does level of care. Relying on EMS for care is not the same care as that in a Level I or II trauma center. And there is an NIH study that shows transport to a trauma center is faster by non-EMS transport (28 vs 15 minutes) for critically injured victims and another showing better outcomes for the non-EMS transported critical victims [ controlling for confounding factors, the adjusted mortality among patients with Injury Severity Score (ISS) greater than 15 was 28.2% for the EMS group and 17.9% for the non-EMS group .]
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