Now this is a really strange and pregnant detail to emerge from the constantly stumbling explanation of what happened to this train. After the engineer left his train for the night, the locomotive caught fire, and the fire department was called to deal with it.
QUOTE FROM THE LINK:
Lauzon, the fire chief, said that firefighters in a nearby community were called to a locomotive blaze on the same train a few hours before the derailment. Lauzon said he could not provide additional details about that fire since it was in another jurisdiction. Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert couldn't be immediately reached, but McGonigle confirmed the fire department showed up after the first engineer tied up and went to a local hotel and after someone reported a fire.
"We know that one of our employees from our engineering department showed up at the same time to assist the fire department. Exactly what they did is being investigated so the engineer wasn't the last man to touch that train, we know that, but we're not sure what happened," McGonigle said.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/07/canadian_train_derailment_death_toll_climbs_to_5_in_lac-megantic_quebec_about_40.html
mmmmmm...it all seems a little strange...mmmm
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
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blownout cylinder mmmmmm...it all seems a little strange...mmmm
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Maybe I should clarify that the fire I was referring to above (and the article refers to) was not the big fire where the tank cars piled up. No, the fire mentioned above happened before the train ran away.
So the engineer/conductor parked the train, set the brakes, and checked into a hotel for the night. Next thing you know someone sees that his locomotive is on fire and they call the fire department and they show up along with another employee from the railroad’s engineering department. Whatever they did about the fire on the locomotive, the train rolled away shortly afterward.
Irving Oil has released a statement confirming they were to be the recipient of the oil at their Saint John, NB refinery.
http://irvingoil.com/newsroom/news_releases/declaration_sure_la_tragedies_de_lac_megantic/
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
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Someone help me understand - how could shutting down the engine, or decoupling it, release the brakes on the tank cars? Wouldn't they all apply fully without any air pressure in the line?
Everything I've read about this makes no sense whatsoever.
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A cut of freightcars, standing alone, will not hold air pressure in its brake cylinders forever. Air leaks off gradually, and after about 2-1/2 hours, the brakes will start to release. Sooner under some weather and humidity conditions. That is why a standing cut of cars needs its handbrakes set. The number of cars requiring handbrakes set out of the total in the cut depends on the grade situaiion. With a severe grade, all cars need handbakes set. On level ground, one in five.
Around here on BNSF when a dispatcher or yardmaster tells a road crew to "tie her down" it refers to the crew setting the air brakes, applying a certain number of car hand brakes behind the power (the exact number depends on the length of the train in number of cars), centering the reverser on "idle" and removing the reverser and locking the cab door(s). If all/most of these same things were done on this train we're talking about then something is "amiss" for sure and makes me suspect foul play even more than before. Time and investigation results should reveal the cause sooner or later.
So far no one seems to have noticed that Nantes is WEST of Lac Megantic and New Brunswick (the train's destination) is EAST of there. If the cars left Nantes without the locomotives then the locomotives had to have been cut off and moved to a track that wasn't in the way of the cars that got loose. Google maps shows single track at Nantes itself witha siding just east of the town center.
Many buildings in the US Northeast and Eastern Canada have large propane tanks near them. It's quite possible the derailed cars sheared off valves or pipes.
Joe McGonigle, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic's vice president of marketing, said that whatever the engineer did in regard to securing the train, he was not the last man to touch the train.
McGonigle said that people from the fire department and an employee from the railroad’s engineering department were summoned to extinguish a small fire on the locomotive sometime after the engineer had secured the train and gone to bed.
It seems to me that a fire on the locomotive and people doing things in the course of extinguishing it pose lots of possibilities for inadvertently releasing the brakes.
Just for example, a fire on the locomotive of a flammable train might be a reason to cut the locomotive off of the train. I get the impression that the MM&A knows a lot more about what happened than they are telling us.
Their explanation sounds speculative, and yet one of their employees was at the scene when a fire was found and extinguished shortly before the train ran away. Whey don't they ask that employee what happened?
rcdryef the cars left Nantes without the locomotives then the locomotives had to have been cut off and moved to a track that wasn't in the way of the cars that got loose. Google maps shows single track at Nantes itself witha siding just east of the town center.
Correct. So if a train was to be laid up there for the night, they would have parked the train in the siding, would have detached the locomotives and would ride them back to Nantes, and then tie them up at the west end of the siding near the motel where the were staying. Not that it looks like that there is much of a motel in Nantes, I'd rather tie up in Lac Megantic, but maybe the siding was not long enough for them there.
LOOKS like to LION that they detached the engines to get back to a motel, and did not set enough brakes on the oil drums.
ROAR
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A report on CNN from officials in Canada says the locomotives were 1/2 mile further down the track than where the tank cars derailed, so they were apparently still attached.
There's also indication of a fire at the location where the train was tied down and the local fire department responded along with someone from the railroad. There's also hints that the person from the railroad may have shut down the one locomotive that had been left running to retain brake air pressure.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-train-20130706,0,5046014.story
The death toll will probably increase with 40 missing. And the fire department had attended to one of the engines when parked.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
If the train ran away because the air brakes released, as the article theorizes, there must have not been any handbrakes set.
Leaving a locomotive running is only going to maintain main reservoir pressure if the brakes are set - it's still possible for the brakes to bleed off on the cars. It does happen.
On the other hand, loss of main res pressure would mean no independent brakes.
Of course, pretty much everything is speculation at this point, at least on our part.
Someone may have released the brakes on the consist, including the firefighters or the railroad employee. If the independent was still applied, it may well have held the train. If the one running locomotive was shut down, then eventual loss of pressure in the main res might have eliminated the one thing still holding the train - the independent.
Depending on the age of the locomotives, the handbrakes on the locomotive may only set one truck.
That does potentially assume that it may have been (informal) practice to not set any brakes on the consist. Per NORAC, a seventy car train should have a minimum of seven handbrakes set. Given the apparent grade, more would be appropriate. I would opine that an insufficient number of brakes may have been set, which together with the loss of the independent allowed the train to roll.
I would opine that with enough grade and an insufficient number of brakes set (for whatever reason), there may have been enough weight to push even the loaded cars with brakes set down the tracks. The sliding wheels may have contributed to the derailment.
Too, there's setting brakes, and there's setting brakes. Simply turning the brake wheel (or pulling the handle) until one meets resistance may not be enough to hold a car - I've seen that happen in person. Sometimes you need that one more "click."
All of which means the engineer may have done everything "right" before he left the train, but that either he didn't do things "right" enough, or something happened after he left to negate some portion of his effort.
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...
Just a little speculation here. My guess is that the engines were left attached to the train when the crew tied up for rest. This is to maintain air in the trainline so that a class 1 brake test would not have to be performed on the cars after being off air for more than four hours. This is a common and safe practice as it keeps the brake system charged and avoids a time consuming walking inspection of the entire train prior to the next departure. Hand brakes were likely set on the locomotives and cars, sufficient to hold the train. All is good. Sometime later a fire was observed on one of the units. Naturally, the proper thing to do is to cut the power away from the train, move the engines a safe distance away from the oil cars and extinguish the flames. So far so good. My guess is that the people doing this never thought to check if the brakes on the cars would be sufficient to hold the train after the power was detached. Locomotive hand brakes tend to be pretty good, hand brakes on cars in unit train service, maybe not as good. Even so, I can't see the brakes leaking off a big cut of cars after being dumped (brakes going into emergency after hoses are separated when making the cut) in such a short time. I'm guessing that who ever made the cut to separate the engines away closed BOTH angle cocks, the one on the engines (proper) and the angle cock on the cars (a definite no-no!). This creates a condition called "bottling the air". Even if the air is dumped on these cars, once the angle cock is closed, if an air reservoir leaks into the train line, sufficient to raise the pressure 2 pounds, this will initiate a chain reaction, signaling the brake valves on succeeding cars to release air from their reservoirs, causing an undesired release of the brakes on the entire train. If the hand brakes set on the cars is not sufficient to hold with the air brakes released, gravity takes over. This is why you always leave an angle cock, on one end of a cut of cars, open to atmosphere. This ensures that if you have a leaking triple valve (archaic term), the air will simply vent to the big world and not cause an undesired release of brakes. Been there, done that!
I realize the cause is most likely different from the incident I'm about to mention, but the scenes from Quebec remind me of the Weyauwega derailment from 1996. Propane and LNG cars derailed and burned for 18 days causing 1700 people to be evacuated for about two weeks.
Dan
rfpjohn I'm guessing that who ever made the cut to separate the engines away closed BOTH angle cocks, the one on the engines (proper) and the angle cock on the cars (a definite no-no!). This creates a condition called "bottling the air". Even if the air is dumped on these cars, once the angle cock is closed, if an air reservoir leaks into the train line, sufficient to raise the pressure 2 pounds, this will initiate a chain reaction, signaling the brake valves on succeeding cars to release air from their reservoirs, causing an undesired release of the brakes on the entire train. If the hand brakes set on the cars is not sufficient to hold with the air brakes released, gravity takes over. This is why you always leave an angle cock, on one end of a cut of cars, open to atmosphere. This ensures that if you have a leaking triple valve (archaic term), the air will simply vent to the big world and not cause an undesired release of brakes. Been there, done that!
I'm guessing that who ever made the cut to separate the engines away closed BOTH angle cocks, the one on the engines (proper) and the angle cock on the cars (a definite no-no!). This creates a condition called "bottling the air".
Even if the air is dumped on these cars, once the angle cock is closed, if an air reservoir leaks into the train line, sufficient to raise the pressure 2 pounds, this will initiate a chain reaction, signaling the brake valves on succeeding cars to release air from their reservoirs, causing an undesired release of the brakes on the entire train.
If the hand brakes set on the cars is not sufficient to hold with the air brakes released, gravity takes over. This is why you always leave an angle cock, on one end of a cut of cars, open to atmosphere. This ensures that if you have a leaking triple valve (archaic term), the air will simply vent to the big world and not cause an undesired release of brakes. Been there, done that!
That is a very interesting and convincing theory about the possibility of someone “bottling the air” on the train, and the effect this may have had by causing the brakes to release on the entire train.
Speculation on the derailment itself. It appears that the engines proceeded the oil cans themselves down the hill. If either the engine was attached or was just pushed down the hill raises the question of why the cars derailed but not the engines. The center of gravity of the locomotives may have been low enough for them to remain on the track. Any observation of tank cars makes one realize that their center of gravity is high probably just a few inches below the center of the tank when it is full. That may have enabled the locos to go thru the curve but not the tank cars. Anyone able to do the calculations ??
blue streak 1 UH OH The law of unintended consequences might have come to light. The folowing media posting says that the train was a run away. According to the following report the MM&A crew had gotten off the train waiting for a relief crew and the train left on its own. Unintended consequence ? Requiring a crew that has gone illegal on haz mat train to leave any train un- attended with the possibility of just this type of incident happening. http://news.yahoo.com/train-carrying-petroleum-derails-catches-fire-canadas-quebec-121417580.html This problem needs probably addressed in very detail. in a separate thread.
UH OH The law of unintended consequences might have come to light. The folowing media posting says that the train was a run away. According to the following report the MM&A crew had gotten off the train waiting for a relief crew and the train left on its own.
Unintended consequence ? Requiring a crew that has gone illegal on haz mat train to leave any train un- attended with the possibility of just this type of incident happening.
http://news.yahoo.com/train-carrying-petroleum-derails-catches-fire-canadas-quebec-121417580.html
This problem needs probably addressed in very detail. in a separate thread.
http://www.utu265.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,print,0&cntnt01articleid=8&cntnt01showtemplate=false&cntnt01returnid=37
If only part of the speculation I've been reading about "human error" being a causative factor in this disaster then it matters not whether the derailed cars were full of crude oil, methane, LNG or any other of dozens of hazardous materials which could have caused a similar result. If it turns out to be human error then we should not blame the type of cargo one little bit. As they say..."S _ _ T HAPPENS" and this sort of thing would have happened sooner or later so let's learn from the mistakes made and move on.
Bucyrus Maybe I should clarify that the fire I was referring to above (and the article refers to) was not the big fire where the tank cars piled up. No, the fire mentioned above happened before the train ran away. So the engineer/conductor parked the train, set the brakes, and checked into a hotel for the night. Next thing you know someone sees that his locomotive is on fire and they call the fire department and they show up along with another employee from the railroad’s engineering department. Whatever they did about the fire on the locomotive, the train rolled away shortly afterward.
I'm curious about the locomotive fire the Bucyrus talks about above. Will someone who is knowledgable about locomotives comment on what may of caused it? Why would a standing and idling locomotive suddenly catch on fire? I have been observing trains and railroads ever since I remember ( I'm 56 years old) and I do not remember ever hearing of such a thing.
overallI'm curious about the locomotive fire the Bucyrus talks about above. Will someone who is knowledgable about locomotives comment on what may of caused it? Why would a standing and idling locomotive suddenly catch on fire? I have been observing trains and railroads ever since I remember ( I'm 56 years old) and I do not remember ever hearing of such a thing.
Older locomotives are prone to leak in various and sundry locations - some lubricating oil, sometimes some Diesel. It's not inconceivable that such leakage (often being captured by "diapers") might end up with an ignition source. There's electricity all over most locomotives as well - a malfunction in the wiring, together with standing leaked fluids, might provide all the factors needed.
Carbon/oil build-up in the exhaust system might ignite as well, much the same as a chimney fire in the piping of a woodstove.
I think it was the Pennsy that turned out a movie for crews on what to do if their locomotive caught fire. IIRC, it's on YouTube.
Edit - Just ran across a news report stating that there were five locomotives, and that the crew said they tied all of them down, and a sufficient number of cars.
rcdryeSo far no one seems to have noticed that Nantes is WEST of Lac Megantic and New Brunswick (the train's destination) is EAST of there
How do you get that. The locomotives were found east of Lac Megantic, separated from the train. You can see the Fred flashing on the west end of the string that derailed in town. The derailment occurred midway in the train.
I wonder if this would have occurred anyway had to train proceeded through Lac Megantic under power.
EDIT: You may be mixing up the locations of the locomotive fire(Nantes) with the location where the engines were found the following morning.
AgentKid rcdryeSo far no one seems to have noticed that Nantes is WEST of Lac Megantic and New Brunswick (the train's destination) is EAST of there How do you get that. The locomotives were found east of Lac Megantic, separated from the train. You can see the Fred flashing on the west end of the string that derailed in town. The derailment occurred midway in the train. I wonder if this would have occurred anyway had to train proceeded through Lac Megantic under power. EDIT: You may be mixing up the locations of the locomotive fire(Nantes) with the location where the engines were found the following morning. Bruce
Now THAT makes sense, sort of....
So the whole train ran away after the small fire because somebody who thought he knew what he was doing did not know what the situation was.
If some brakes were set and others were not, the whole train would have started rolling. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the front was free wheeling and the rear still had brakes set, that would string-line the train at the curve, the front would keep going and the rear would pile up.
Your turn... Add another piece to the puzzle.
This is in from Reuters...
Apparently the train was parked by the crew who vacated it for the night.
Apparently a fire started in the engine room and the Nantes fire department came and put it out. In doing so they shut down the engine which in turn allowed brake pressure to bleed off.
The Nantes fire department contacted the railroad over the affair, there was no mention of brakes, but the FD did tell that they shut down the locomotive. It is likely (According to LION) that the railroad failed to appreciate the issue with the brakes. Maybe more hand brakes should have been set. Maybe they were, and maybe they were not. There is not indication of how far a car inspector would have to travel to get to the location to see what condition their condition was in.
In the interim... bye bye train!
Train was not under control when it entered the town with its curves and switches. There is some sort of industrial complex that is served by rail just east of Lac Megantic, there was also a wye SE of town. It entered at a speed that was not appropriate for that area.
AgentKidI wonder if this would have occurred anyway had to train proceeded through Lac Megantic under power.
It occurred to me after I wrote that, runaway trains don't respect speed limits and had the train been under full control it would have gone through town without incident. I also like the stringlining theory.
blue streak 1 Speculation on the derailment itself. It appears that the engines proceeded the oil cans themselves down the hill. If either the engine was attached or was just pushed down the hill raises the question of why the cars derailed but not the engines. The center of gravity of the locomotives may have been low enough for them to remain on the track. Any observation of tank cars makes one realize that their center of gravity is high probably just a few inches below the center of the tank when it is full. That may have enabled the locos to go thru the curve but not the tank cars. Anyone able to do the calculations ??
I think that theory is quite probable. The engines were not going fast enough to upset in the curve, and the tanks were. It must have been one big nightmare when that train came storming through town.
I understand the stringlining theory, but at that high speed, I don't think the dragging brakes could have generated enough resistence to stringline the cars ahead of them.
Turbocharger failures can also cause fires. Whatever the cause, the results are dramatic: http://www.railpictures.net/photo/442514
NW
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