http://www.utu.org/worksite/detail_news.cfm?ArticleID=37605
LAS VEGAS - The mayor never wants to be blindsided by a runaway car again, the KLAS Web site reports.
Reaction and the fallout from Wednesday's runaway railcar containing the deadly chemical chlorine has come from just about everywhere. From changes the city of Las Vegas will make, to how the Clark County HAZMAT team could respond to a chlorine leak.
The railcar coasted freely from south of Blue Diamond to North Las Vegas. The scariest thing for HAZMAT experts who looked at this incident is how close the railcar came to a lot of people.
The track took it right behind the Mirage, Treasure Island, Fashion Show Mall, and Circus Circus. The runaway car went as fast as 55 miles-per-hour past the Clark County Government Center and downtown Las Vegas.
That's FLAT CRAZY.
Someone with a penny could have gassed half of VEGAS.
Sure that car was dangerous, we all grasp that. Someone forgot to do something, and that allowed a potentially dangerous situation to develop. I think the mayor is over-reacting a tad, but I can understand his anger. From the article, the Clark County Haz-Mat guys had a "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt" attitude, in other words, if a situation did develop, they were confident in their ability to minimize the situation.
[rant]
The part of the article that angered me was Senator Harry Reid and his big "Let me force my agenda into an unrelated event, so I can get some air time" attitude. His actions are the reason I absolutely detest politicians. None of them, on both sides of the aisle are worth half a handful of sun-dried pony pucks.
[/rant]
Anyway, was any reason given for the car's escape? The article was kind of thin on those details.
The car's escape story?
You need to give the Roadmaster and everyone above a few days to complete the *** chewing and firings of those reponsible.
How did this news get out? I thought it was "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
By the way, anybody catch the odds? I figure some action on the car gets through town without hitting anything pays some good bucks.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
jeaton wrote:How did this news get out? I thought it was "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."By the way, anybody catch the odds? I figure some action on the car gets through town without hitting anything pays some good bucks.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
blhanel wrote: jeaton wrote: How did this news get out? I thought it was "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."By the way, anybody catch the odds? I figure some action on the car gets through town without hitting anything pays some good bucks.
jeaton wrote: How did this news get out? I thought it was "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."By the way, anybody catch the odds? I figure some action on the car gets through town without hitting anything pays some good bucks.
!!! Only problem was, before the books could announce the action, it was over.
Hizzonner is VERY sensitive about anything that might harm, or even frighten, visitors and potential visitors to Sin City - which is no secret to the inhabitants of Clark County.
Likewise, the propensity of The Honorable() Senior Senator from Nevada to twist ANY event to suit his own agenda is equally well known. The fact that nuclear waste would be handled much more carefully than chlorine, even though it is far less hazardous, simply doesn't enter his equation.
(If chlorine was handled like nuclear waste, that chlorine car would have had tank walls a yard and a half thick, and a capacity of about 100 gallons.)
I LIKE Mayor Goodman. I cannot say the same for Senator Reid.
Chuck (North Las Vegas resident)
Roadmaster??? (methinks SafetyValve needs some re-edjumakayshun and a railroad glossary)
Maybe the trainmaster/trainman, vandal or the industry ... Car rolled out of a sidetrack unattended at Arden. Something smells fishy. (Car shoulda been on the ground before ever reaching the main)
Who (1) uncoupled and bled the air, (2) knocked off the handbrake and (3) knocked off the derail?
Krazykat112079 wrote:Hmm, what did they ship the other way while everyone was looking at the runaway car?
SHHHHH.
We don't want them to know about the 50 cars of cyanide that went the other way..........
solzrules wrote: Krazykat112079 wrote:Hmm, what did they ship the other way while everyone was looking at the runaway car? SHHHHH.We don't want them to know about the 50 cars of cyanide that went the other way..........
Is that code for white boxcars?
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
ericsp wrote: solzrules wrote: Krazykat112079 wrote:Hmm, what did they ship the other way while everyone was looking at the runaway car? SHHHHH.We don't want them to know about the 50 cars of cyanide that went the other way..........Is that code for white boxcars?
....................with shackles.................
mudchicken wrote: Roadmaster??? (methinks SafetyValve needs some re-edjumakayshun and a railroad glossary)Maybe the trainmaster/trainman, vandal or the industry ... Car rolled out of a sidetrack unattended at Arden. Something smells fishy. (Car shoulda been on the ground before ever reaching the main)Who (1) uncoupled and bled the air, (2) knocked off the handbrake and (3) knocked off the derail?
Hmmm. Perhaps someone within the plant needed to move the car a bit? It just got away...
If I had a dollar for every time that happens...
LC
Wouldn't be the first time a car climbed over a hoptoad and kept going either
Mayor Goodman wants municipal legislation compelling notification about each movement of a hazmat car? What does he believe, that railroads will only schedule a runaway after filing the appropriate paperwork?
I sujggest he go stand trackside and take notice of any manifest train that comes by. I think it is highly probable it is going to contain some hazmat. He might have to create an "Office of Railroad Paperwork" to properly receive and file such notifications.
Additionally, it seems probable to me he is going to run into federal preemption of railroad regulation, but I am not an expert in that area.
A few more good ideas and this guy could qualify to join Senator Reid.
Dakguy201 wrote: Mayor Goodman wants municipal legislation compelling notification about each movement of a hazmat car? What does he believe, that railroads will only schedule a runaway after filing the appropriate paperwork?I sujggest he go stand trackside and take notice of any manifest train that comes by. I think it is highly probable it is going to contain some hazmat. He might have to create an "Office of Railroad Paperwork" to properly receive and file such notifications.Additionally, it seems probable to me he is going to run into federal preemption of railroad regulation, but I am not an expert in that area.A few more good ideas and this guy could qualify to join Senator Reid.
I don't know. Nobody could acheive that plane of existence without a massive frontal lobotomy.
This whole thread has been quite the gas!
The mayor Fuming, the people unaware and innocent of the danger on the track and the ones responsible are being cashed out while the powers that be attempt to cap the whole sorry scene.
Maybe it SHOULD stay in Las Vegas.
Be careful of what you ask for.....You may get it.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Despite all the bombast from the political set, it is apparent that what could have been a very major incident was avoided mostly by luck. Remember the pictures from Denver a couple of months ago regarding a BNSF tank car runaway. As was brought out elsewhere, the first notification of this problem came from the general public, and apparently the UP was very late in admitting their stray car was a hazmat.
In a press release which has not as yet been included in UP's web site (so I can't give you a link), they say the following actions have been implemented:
1) "Anchor" cars are placed on the north end of every track in the Arden yard, with handbrakes applied.
2) Locomotives are used to move hazmat tank cars, and the cars secured before the loco is disconnected.
3) A review of emergency notification procedures is underway.
Actions to come include "engineering changes" to the yard, a review of safety procedures at yards across the system, and information about the cause of the incident.
All of that is well and good; but considering what might have happened, it strikes me that this incident was serious enough to directly involve the feds. I don't know if the NTSB has the authority to involve themselves in a non-accident; but if they do not have it, they should. I'd be particularly be interested in just what went wrong here because I am under the impression that much of the above is already standard practice.
Chlorine gas is two and one-half times heavier than air. In downtown Las Vegas, the RR tracks run in a trench. So wouldn't most of the gas would settle in the trench -- at least in the area around the casinos?
It being heavier than air is one of the characteristics that made it so popular for use in trench warfare during the early days of WW I.
From the Center For Disease Control's web site:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/chlorine/basics/facts.asp
PZ, I know there's a trench for the tracks in Reno, but is Vegas also so blessed?
From the sound of the precautions, primarily the "anchor" car (we call them "posts" in Proviso), it sounds like the tank car may have been kicked into a clear or underprotected track by a yard crew. The kicking of such cars is allowed, but somebody somewhere figured it would stop/be stopped, and it didn't/wasn't.
Emergency notification: If my "kicking" scenario is the correct one, it's possible that the crew that did it had no idea what had happened at the opposite end of the yard. And if nobody was on the lead or elsewhere, who would notice the car roll out, hit a derail if there were one, and run through a switch and get out onto the main line? Probably nobody, until a member of the public encountered it at a crossing. The dispatcher might get an indication that something was on the track there, and start asking questions, but he probably didn't have an answer for anyone. The car itself wasn't going to tell him who it was or where it was headed.
It's sad that some politicians are just now realizing that in a yard like that, there is always something hazardous. I guess the fact that this came as a surprise to them says a lot about how well it's usually handled.
Oh...and yes, chlorine's heavier than air (and tank cars for chlorine rarely carry more than 17,000 gallons of the stuff, under pressure). It's frequently on some of our minds what we would do if there was a rupture of a pressure tank--should we try and get out of there, or stay up above it?
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Well, on second thought, maybe not a trench -- but I thought I recalled the tracks in some locations being below street level, like at the south end of the strip. Or so they seemed when we passed over them.
I'm not sure, but tank cars for transportation of hazardous materials (or a subset thereof, such as pressurized gases) may be limited to a 263K gross rail load. I just had a look (on the computer) at the newest chlorine tank cars I could think of, and they have a 263K GRL and a capacity of around 17,350 gallons. I don't know at what pressure chlorine is transported by rail (the cars test at 500 psi, but it's probably less than that), but you're talking about a pretty big cloud of gas if one of these cars exhausts itself.
There are supposed to be new standards for hazmat cars coming out, so we'll see cars less likely to be broken open by a routine accident such as might have resulted from a collision or derailment.
edbenton wrote:Mustard gas is heavier than air Clorine gas is lighter than air and spreads very fast. If the tanker trailer I was hauling ever leaked it carried 5K gallons under pressure we had to EVACUATE A 10 MILE RADIUS AREA IN 30 mins or those people were DEAD. Chlorine gas is very dangerous and considering that tank car carried maybe 40K or more in gallons you would had to evac 40 square miles in less than an hour then decontaminate the whole area. Chlorine gas is the same stuff that was leaked in Grantville SC the conductor and engineer of the train that hit the tanker had no chance at all. That accident in a sparsly populated rural area still killed 6 and kept people out of their houses for weeks now imagine the same thing in downtown Vegas or Chicago or DC.
Ed -
With due respect chlorine gas is heavier than air. Also, the NS engineer at Graniteville died (I knew him, R.I.P. Chris Seeling), the conductor survived, although he was exposed to chlorine. Eight others also died.
Evacs are a way of life anymore with RR incidents if there is even a chance of a chlorine spill.
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