BaltACDThe REQUIREMENT was to secure the train - the train rolled away and was thereby NOT SECURED. If the formula was followed or not is irrelevent, the REQUIREMENT was not met.
As Don Oltmannd has pointed out, there is never be a guarantee that the requirement will be met. The TSB of Canada believes that the chances of the reqirement being met are better with the foumula than they are with employee discretion through a push-pull test.
Also, you mention that whether or not the formula was followed is irrelevant because the requirement would not have been met either way. if the foumula was not followed, it would not be irrelevant. That would be operator error calling for discipline.
Bucyrus BaltACDThe REQUIREMENT was to secure the train - the train rolled away and was thereby NOT SECURED. If the formula was followed or not is irrelevent, the REQUIREMENT was not met. As Don Oltmannd has pointed out, there is never be a guarantee that the requirement will be met. The TSB of Canada believes that the chances of the reqirement being met are better with the foumula than they are with employee discretion through a push-pull test. Also, you mention that whether or not the formula was followed is irrelevant because the requirement would not have been met either way. if the foumula was not followed, it would not be irrelevant. That would be operator error calling for discipline.
Employee(s) did not SECURE train - discipline assessed. A formula is just a red herring argument point - the train was not secured.
Now, if the train did not roll away, but the weed weasels came out and checked it and the formula had not been followed, that would be a E-test failure and discipline would be assessed.
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CSSHEGEWISCHRio Tinto is not a common carrier and has several advantages as a result. It does not interchange cars with other roads, handles only one commodity and has a relatively homogeneous fleet of rolling stock.
I realize that Rio Tinto is different than North American common carrier railroads, but I would not conclude that what they do with testing and research would not have application to our common carriers. Their handbrake work would have universal application, except that common carrier handbrakes might have to be brought up to a higher standard of performance and maintenance. This would be costly, but dramatic failures of existing practice are what propel dramatic improvements.
Clearly the Lac-Megantic disaster has set the stage for “reinventing the wheel” of train handbrake securement. The TSB of Canada is calling for this change and seeking the elimination of the discretional push-pull test, and replacing it with a formula that everybody follows to get the same result.
The oil train runaway highlights a general problem area that needs attention, so the time has come. Here is an interesting article:
http://www.vnews.com/news/nation/world/7469774-95/brake-failures-plague-trains
From the article:
In the past 10 years through the end of April, as many as 893 accidents were reported to the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration as being caused by human errors related to train brakes, according to the agency’s safety database. The most common brake-related accident cause was railroad employees failing to secure the hand brakes. The regulator requires accidents that meet a certain dollar amount threshold to be reported.
In 2012, 247 train derailments were caused by human actions, including the failure to properly secure the train and use equipment properly, up from 234 in 2011, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Montreal, Maine & Atlantic has had accident rates that exceeded the national average in all except one of the past 10 years, according to the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration.
Over the last nine years, 33 percent of all train accidents in Canada involved a runaway train, according to data from TSB.
Happy August First! The LION is back home from his vacation to Pennsylvania with excursions into New York City.
LION has read the thread, and so now will deliver himself of these comments.
Testing hand brakes with the engine: my friend in New York explained that when the hand brakes are set a compression pressure is applied to the wheel. Should you attempt to move that car "to test it" you break that compression hold and are now depending on a friction hold on surfaces that have been "smoothed" by the attempted turning of the wheels. In other words, you just broke the best grip on that wheel that you were going to have.
Now, suppose you have set the hand brakes perfectly: the axle will not turn. It is the same as if you had poked a stick through a spoke in your bicycle wheel and it locked against the fork. It will NOT TURN. As far as hand brakes are concerned, that is as good as it is going to get. So now instead of having friction against a good portion of the wheel and a close fitting wheel pad, all you are left with is the steel on steel friction (fiction?) wheel on the rail, where the point of contact is probably less than 1/16" of an inch....: NOW something as simple and as common as a drop in temperature by just a few degrees will be enough to break that friction bond and allow the wheel to SLIDE. The brakes can do nothing: they are probably the problem.
NOW the LION will propose (in addition to the train-line system set up by using transit type couplers -- And using the train line to apply all parking brakes on the entire train) the use of Trolley Brakes better known as track brakes. New York City Transit does not use them, even though I *have* suggested it to them, but the Chicago Transit Authority does use them. The ride above the rail between the wheels of each truck and press downward onto the rails. Used as a brake to stop a moving train applies heavy wear on the rails, apparently the CTA does not mind this, but used as a parking brake it will transmit a decent percentage of the car's weight directly on the rail instead of on the wheel. Not enough to jack up a train and replace a wheel set, but enough to hold a parked train in place under almost all circumstances.
The LION is not an engineer or a conductor, him knows not if it will work or not. But him thinks that this is a reasonable solution for new unit train equipments. The LION will not EAT you for your valued opinions as long as the zookeeper keeps the rare wildebeests coming.
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The only thing that is abundantly clear in all this is this: The systems that have been relied upon to secure stopped, unattended freight trains has had much too high a failure rate. A better system needs to be used, whether based on an empirically-derived formula or entirely new equipment.
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I think that is the basic take away point. A dubious system might be fine for preventing the financial loss of equipment destroyed in a runaway, but when you interject trainload quantities of explosive fuels as cargo, the old school “good enough” paradigm is not enough. It is time to reinvent the wheel.
Bucyrus It is time to reinvent the wheel.
Pardon me... I thought we were reinventing the brake.
Bucyrus I think that is the basic take away point. A dubious system might be fine for preventing the financial loss of equipment destroyed in a runaway, but when you interject trainload quantities of explosive fuels as cargo, the old school “good enough” paradigm is not enough. It is time to reinvent the wheel.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
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Is it Windex, or an ancient Chinese secret?
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BucyrusI don’t expect this system to be universally applied to all rolling stock. I see it only as a requirement for oil unit trains, along with many other improvements in things such as crashworthiness.
Why not unit ethanol trains? Or trains like the "acid train" that used to run out of Canada down the line near me?
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...
tree68 BucyrusI don’t expect this system to be universally applied to all rolling stock. I see it only as a requirement for oil unit trains, along with many other improvements in things such as crashworthiness. Why not unit ethanol trains? Or trains like the "acid train" that used to run out of Canada down the line near me?
Yes, I could see this type of powered brake lock being used on hazardous material trains of all types. But the main requirement would be that they are unit trains, and unit trains with cars that always run in unit trains. That is because the cars would need a second air line. So if the system were to protect against hazardous material runaways in mixed consist trains, then entire fleet of rolling stock would have to be converted to carry the brake lock and its extra air line. The cost of that much of a conversion would be an impediment to moving forward at all.
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