edblysard What about the swimsuit issue? Ya think they need someone to get hands on experience and then report on it? I volunteer, just to keep Zug out of trouble!
What about the swimsuit issue?
Ya think they need someone to get hands on experience and then report on it?
I volunteer, just to keep Zug out of trouble!
That's good. I think you'd look better in a swimsuit than I.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
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mudchicken CSSHEGEWISCH I don't know how much of an issue that this really is, but I can't see running a solid HAZMAT train on the Moffat Route because of a certain five-mile long tunnel on that route. They run-em (carefully).....As much as DRGW UP and BNSF were obsessive about their power, there are always the BN and SP camps out there running clapped-out junk.
CSSHEGEWISCH I don't know how much of an issue that this really is, but I can't see running a solid HAZMAT train on the Moffat Route because of a certain five-mile long tunnel on that route.
I don't know how much of an issue that this really is, but I can't see running a solid HAZMAT train on the Moffat Route because of a certain five-mile long tunnel on that route.
I think the SP camp is winning.
Jeff
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I respect your opinion. However, I simply argue the case on its merits and not on personalities. If the idea appeals to one important railroad executive, and I am reasonably certain some DO read Trains, then it may be presented to all seven Class I's and may have a chance for implementation. Or it may suggest allternative approaches. It is simply meant as a contribution. I have read all the objections to the idea and I to me my answers are satisfactory. Differences of opinion make the Forum worthwhile and I don't deny anyone's right to disagree witih me.
daveklepper Fred may write for a railfan magazine, but TRAINS is respected as serious stuff, and Fred has had hands-on experience.
Fred may write for a railfan magazine, but TRAINS is respected as serious stuff, and Fred has had hands-on experience.
LOL.
I guess using that logic every writer for Sports Illustrated that covers football can start writing plays for his/her favorite team. Even more so if they once played peewee football. After all, SI is a respected magazine, and they would have hands-on experience playing the game in their youth......
Also, in my years railroading I have never seen a copy of Trains in any office. Railway Age and Progressive Railroading are the ones I have seen most often. THOSE are the magazines that are respected as "serious stuff" in the industry.
An "expensive model collector"
Again, it is Fred Frailey'ss idea, and I think it is a good one. The tunnel is single track. Indeed, the whole route is single track but with decently long passing sidings. Fred has not mandated that the hazmat train stop or the train it is passing stop, just one of the two. This provides the great risk reduction. Two hazmat trains meet, and one stops while the other roles by. You have a problem with that?
The nature of the track construction in the Moffat Tunal today is such that a derailment inside the tunnel is very very unlikely. Also, it is of concrete, not wood construction. It is a very safe tunnel for handliing hazmat trains.
At one time rail handled a lot of money and secuirties. Now all of it is on Brinks trucks. Key Transportation (or whatever the seven decide to call it) should have the same reputation for safety that Brinks has for security and Pullman had for comfort and service.
Murphy Siding A crude oil train meets an ethanol train, and both stop?
A crude oil train meets an ethanol train, and both stop?
And neither can move until the other has departed.
Norm
daveklepper And meets between a stopped train and a moving train do reduce chances for a problem to develope by more than 50% as compared to meets between two moving trains. The danger in the second case may be infinitessemal,, but lets make it infinitessimally-infinitessimal.
And meets between a stopped train and a moving train do reduce chances for a problem to develope by more than 50% as compared to meets between two moving trains. The danger in the second case may be infinitessemal,, but lets make it infinitessimally-infinitessimal.
You could just stop running trains completely, that would reduce danger by 100%.
On the Moffat in particular, D&RGW NEVER deliberately maxed trains out, and I presume UP adheres to that rule today. This included coal trains off the Craig branch. There was always enough power to insure reliable operation under adverse cicumstances, and in the end this means that if all goes well better utilization of equipment and crews are the results.
I again make analogy to how Pullman handled first-class passengers. Not all Pullman passsengers rode all-Pullman trains. But still uniform and good standards were observed, regardless of what comfort standards the coach passengers faced. I am proposing the same kind of thinking now be applied to SAFETY regarding hazmat shipments.
zugmann So we have an oil train and a general slop train going pass each other on a 2% continuous grade. Who do we stop? The slop train with a kicker going downhill, or the oil train with the engine that isn't loading right and probably won't be able to start again?
So we have an oil train and a general slop train going pass each other on a 2% continuous grade. Who do we stop? The slop train with a kicker going downhill, or the oil train with the engine that isn't loading right and probably won't be able to start again?
Dave, where does Zugmann say the oil train only has one engine? He just says one engine isn't working properly and if it stops, good luck starting again. There are places where maxed out trains can have problems starting with all engines working properly.
Zug, I think you should stop the junk train with the dynamiter and go for the two-fer. When it goes into emergency, the slack comes in and pops a car off, blocking the other track. That means the oil train has to stop also.
Although I suppose there's better chance of media coverage if we stop the oil train. That way when the junk train sets air because dynamics aren't enough, the dynamiter could pop that car into the oil train.
People proposing solutions like there is only one HAZMAT train operating on a line segment. First off, almost all Merchandise trains contain some HAZMAT, but not in a high enough quantity to be considered a Key Train. Outside of designated Ethanol and Crude Oil trains, most main lines will have more than one Key Train, merchandise trains that have a number of HAZMAT shipments above the lower limit for what defines a Key Train (yesterday my territory had 3 sections of one train ID that were all Key Trains).
A number of years ago a city on my territory wanted to be notified 'whenever' a HAZMAT was either destined to terminate in the city or pass through the city. The company complied with their wishes, after a week of several hundred notifications a day, the city decided it didn't really want to know as they had no manpower to process the information. There is a lot of HAZMAT moving today and there will be more moving tomorrow; not only on the rails but on the highways, waterways and pipelines. Today world is run on the back of HAZMAT in myriad of manufacturing processes.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I can also return to the North Dakota derailment. If the oil train had been stopped, there may have been time to bring the grain train to a stop before any blows to the oil tank cars were received, and if such blows were received, their strength would be lower, possibly half the strength, and the possibility exists that fewer or no tankcars would have been breached. It would have been a safer situation. If the grain train had been stopped the accident would not have occured
The fact that the cars struck initially were being pushed as well as pulled may have contributed to the severitiy of the accident, but this would not have occured if the oil train was not moving. Indeed the grain car door and load would probably just have pushed several tank cars off the track without catastrophic damage. I am sure an historical search of such accidents with the recipient train stopped as compared with those moving will show the damage far less with the recipient train stopped.
I doubt that any oil train headed to or from a 2% grade is going to be assigned one unit unless it is very short. I don't see the case cited in the last post as a possibility. In any case, I admit that I was basing my proposal on Fred's suggestions. If his suggestions don't make sense, then possibly my idea doesn't make sense. But in any case, we have problem that should involve all seven Class I's working together to minimize risk. That is the basic idea I wish to promolgate, and I am absolutely certain it is an excellent and unchallangeable idea.
If having lots of 120 mph meetings is more safe than rerouting to implelment Fred's ideas, then I stand corrected, but the decision will be made by the railroads in anyy case, not by us on this Forum.
daveklepper that having one train stopped when a hazmat train and another train pass reduces the admiinttadly tiny risk
that having one train stopped when a hazmat train and another train pass reduces the admiinttadly tiny risk
Tiny risk is where this conversation should end. The end does not justify the means. Lets take the recent BN derailment in ND. The grain train derailed into the oil train. So if the dispatcher had the oil train stop to follow Fred's "rules" we would still have had a collision. In fact, had the oil train been stopped, the collision would have been closer to the head end of the train, putting its crew in greater danger.
daveklepper So Fred's suggesstions make sense
So Fred's suggesstions make sense
Fred's suggestions sound exactly like they came from someone that does not work for a railroad. They do not make sense at all to someone who does this for a living. Writing for a fan magazine does not make one an expert on safety.
I disagree with your evaluation of safety but agree with your comment on the Feds. On the Moffat you can run your Hazmat train on the Moffat at a steady 40 mph, stop it when it is meeting the one BNSF manifest train each way each day, stop the coal trains to let it go by, and not gum up operations. On Sherman Hill you have to keep running at 60mph, pass trains going at the same speed for a combined passing velocity of 120mph, and this difference does far more than compensate for the safety advantages, which I admit are also real, that you mentioned.
Anyway, I would not be the one makiing these decisionsI. Experiences and knowledgable railroaders in Key Transportation or whatever office or entity combines the expertise of all Class I's will make such decisions.
The higher operating costs are part of the price for increased safety and shoujld be reflected in the tarrifs.
daveklepper First, alternativfe routes do exist. Hazmat trains on the UP should be routed throughh the Moffat, not through Shermann Hill. On the Mofffat, opposing movements are far fewers and Fred Frailey's suggestions can be implemented. As for the Transcon, BNSF should consider reviving the Chief's route specifically for Hazmat operations. One incident avoided and the extra expense is worthwhile.
First, alternativfe routes do exist. Hazmat trains on the UP should be routed throughh the Moffat, not through Shermann Hill. On the Mofffat, opposing movements are far fewers and Fred Frailey's suggestions can be implemented. As for the Transcon, BNSF should consider reviving the Chief's route specifically for Hazmat operations. One incident avoided and the extra expense is worthwhile.
Dave.
Lets talk about Moffat vs Sherman Hill. Common points are Julesburg NE (IIRC) and Ogden UT. Sherman is less mileage, lower ruling grade, lower operating cost, higher capacity, and LESS population exposure. I would never propose the Moffat route if my objective was to reduce risk. Risk is a function of miles, of grades, and of population exposure. To protect Cheyene and Rawlins you would route traffic through Denver and Salt Lake City? You can not be serious.
The same kinds of things rear their ugly heads via Raton Pass, first you introduce two sets of mountain grade, one of 3%, and then you have to rebuild a marginal line to support through traffic.Bad, bad, bad.
I would lobby the feds to do nothing because anything the do regarding operations will either gum up the operation, that is destroy capacity, or force the kind of idiocy you are proposing here. Even during the 112/114 problems no one suggested slowing hazmat trains down or stopping them for meets. I would do what the AAR has done, which is to lobby for "better" tank cars, but there are costs associated with headshields as well.
I would not buy into the political assumption that we "have to do something" because the something often ends up worse than doing nothing.
Mac
Fred Frailey knows all these points, and he started the ball rolling. I simply tried to figure out how to get his basic ideas implemented without gumming up the rest of railroaoding, and this new corporation and its mehtods was my solution. I've already transferred some of these ideas to commennts on his blog, and I think he can take it from there.
Mac Half a dozen photos and a catchy title, and you darn near have a Trains Magazine article written.
Second, at present the railroads are forced to undercharge for carrying Hamat. It is exactly analagous to having forced railroads to provide sleeping accomodations at coach fares during the Classic period. Which did not happen. Once this railroad corporation is established, you can be confident that the Supreme Court would uphold the extra charges for extra supervision and diversions and liability insurance, because the safety of many people will be greatly enhanced. Anything else would amount to siezure of property.
It will take a long time to replace and/or modify the existing tank-car fleet. You saw one pair of shields on one car. What immediate measures are you proposing to improve safety that railroads themselves can implement without involving Government orders to them to do something?
There was a time when RPO and Express cars carried cash and securities. Now Brinks has this business, not only throughout the USA, but even overseas, including Israel. They have a virtual monopoly, and very little of any of this business goes by rail. I am not suggesting it should. But Brinks has a reputation for securitiy. I am suggesting an approach that should allow the raiilroads to retain the business and give both a public impression and also a real effect of increased security. What plan do you have?
Obviously I am referring to lower densisty routes that still have good track maintenance or would be justified in restoring good maintenance before the Hazmat traffic is shifted to them. Routes with 5 - 30 trains a day instead of 60 - 100.
There wiill always continue to be the need to carry hazmat in manifest trains, but the proportion can be reduced. There may even be hazmat origine or destination points on the Transcon or Sherman Hill lines that cannot be reached by alternate routes. Any plan put into operation will be done by railroaders familiar with specific needs and be sensible, not Draconian.
The use of directional running is of course an excellent solution. Possibly this new corporation will foster cooperation between CSX and NS in the East, comparible to what CN and CP in western Canada, since there are places where they are parallel. This would of course be preferable to spending tons of money to upgrade branch and secondary lines. And in California possibly there are places where it can be done with UP and BNSF, for north-south traffic.
daveklepper I have been asked to be more specific, and now I will be: By treating the entire rail network as one system and planning hazmat movements for maximum safety will probably: Reduce the number of times hazmat loads are carried on regular manifest trains and increase the number of times they move in dedicated trains. Adopt Fred Frailey's suggestions or something parallel. It is perfectly obvious that having one train stopped when a hazmat train and another train pass reduces the admiinttadly tiny risk by more than 50%. Why? Because with both trains moving either one can have a defect. A defect on either train can be a derailment. A defect on a manifest train can be loose load. Again, it is obvious that reduced speed reduces the chance of most defects. So Fred's suggesstions make sense to me and I hope they do to you. But operating people and safety people with years of experience will make the decisions, not us. Where hazmat loads and dedicated hazmat trains now are routed on high-density routes, they will tend to use lower density routes. Alternatives for the use of BNSF's Transcon and UP's Cheyenne-Green River routes for hazmat loads and trains will be found and used. Hamat loads with origins and destinations that are served by different railroads that now move in different trains will be handled more in jointly operated and preferably dedicated trains. There may be a safety officer assigned by the corporation to travel with each hazmat shipment and train. Llike the Pullman concductor when railroads hanlded Pullman cars on passenger trains.
I have been asked to be more specific, and now I will be:
By treating the entire rail network as one system and planning hazmat movements for maximum safety will probably:
Reduce the number of times hazmat loads are carried on regular manifest trains and increase the number of times they move in dedicated trains.
Adopt Fred Frailey's suggestions or something parallel. It is perfectly obvious that having one train stopped when a hazmat train and another train pass reduces the admiinttadly tiny risk by more than 50%. Why? Because with both trains moving either one can have a defect. A defect on either train can be a derailment. A defect on a manifest train can be loose load. Again, it is obvious that reduced speed reduces the chance of most defects. So Fred's suggesstions make sense to me and I hope they do to you. But operating people and safety people with years of experience will make the decisions, not us.
Where hazmat loads and dedicated hazmat trains now are routed on high-density routes, they will tend to use lower density routes. Alternatives for the use of BNSF's Transcon and UP's Cheyenne-Green River routes for hazmat loads and trains will be found and used.
Hamat loads with origins and destinations that are served by different railroads that now move in different trains will be handled more in jointly operated and preferably dedicated trains.
There may be a safety officer assigned by the corporation to travel with each hazmat shipment and train. Llike the Pullman concductor when railroads hanlded Pullman cars on passenger trains.
Dave,
I worked in the rail hazardous material control business for 13 years, 5 with the AAR Bureau of Explosives and 8 with Southern Pacific Transportation Company. I went to derailments, transfered product, dealt with FRA and NTSB people and was involved in the data gathering for, discussion of, and have a knowledge of the changes to DOT 112 and 114 spec tank cars that had by 1975 shown a too high probablility to release their contents, often in a fireball as a result of being involved in a derailment.
The historical approach to transporting bulk (tank car quantity) hazmat has been to keep the juice in the can. In the case of 112/114 cars (noninsulated pressure cars) the government mandated, after years of study funded by the carriers, the car builders, and the government, three engineering changes. One was thermal protection since history showed that intact cars exposed to fire would some times fail catastrophically. The second was "headshields" which were/are 1/2 inch steel plates that covered the bottom half of the tank head. The theory was that they would spread impact forces and reduce the probablitiy of head punctures, which accounted for about 90% of the initial releases IIRC. The third was double shelf couplers, a requirement that was soon extended to all DOT spec tank cars, that is all that were authorized to haul haz mat.
The real world results were that thermal protection and head shields worked, that is they substantially reduced the probablity of release given derailment or exposure to fire. The results for shelf couplers were not as clear. The theory was that they would reduce the probability of coupler bypass, thus preventing the coupler from becoming a spear. In fact they tended to break behind the head, so the spear was still there in half the cases and in the other half the coupler pocket could still impact the adjacent car, but the impact occurred over a wider area, a good thing.
The research process took about 15 years. Shortly after the rulemaking on 112/114 cars the DOT required headshilds on new 105 cars, which were/are insulated pressure cars.
Before I left the Bureau, we convinced the AAR Tank Car Committee to require skid protection of bottom outlets of nonpressure cars and to phase it in on a commodity basis that protected the highest economic risk materials first and extended to all cars over time. Adding the protection to new cars was relatively low cost. Modifying many cars in a short time would have been both very expensive and disruptive to commerce. Allowing a longer time for modifications allowed the work to be done when the cars were otherwise in the shop reducing both cost and disruption. I understand that AAR and DOT investigated protection for top fittings after I left the business, but I have no knowledge what has been done in this much lower risk (lower probablilty of event) area.
You have still not addressed whatever corporate changes you envision, so you are basically talking about two things; routing and concentrating hazmat traffic into "pure" trains.
As a practical matter, even if we imagine a single corporation able to control routing without considering corporate desire to control the traffic and revenue, alternate routings either do not exist, or are worse in terms of track quality, transit time, or excessive mileage.
You particularly call out the BNSF transcon and the UP Cheyenne-Green River routes as lines that you think traffic could/should be routed away from. First, traffic to or from an intermediate point on any line segment MUST move on that line segment, so you are talking end to end or utilizing existing junctions.
The transcon is Los Angeles to Chicago. It is not a big hazmat route, but lets say there was traffic that could be diverted. Where would it go? The only credible routes are UP to Ogden and then to Chicago or UP to El Paso then either the old SP-Cottonbelt to East St Louis and Chicago or the old MP thru Fort Worth to East St Louis and Chicago, or up to Kansas City and then Chicago. How are you going to choose between them?
Cheyenne-Green River is even worse in terms of alternatives. There are none. If your concern is avoiding population exposure this segment is about as low as you can go.
Lets be more realistic. A substantial portiion of hazmat traffic originates on the Texas Gulf Coast. Think Houston, Beaumont, and Lake Charles LA. Much of it flows to Northern New Jersey, some to the Southeast, and some to California. The origin is served by UP and BNSF, with UP in the dominant position. This is carload traffic, some here, some there, typically in single cars to perhaps 4-5 to a single destination customer on a single day. From my SP days I can tell you that traffic to the Northeast is predominately interchanged at East St, Louis. Historically this moved SP-SSW or MP to eastern connections. Since the UP-SP merger, UP has imposed directional running on the more or less parallel MP and SP lines, which eliminates most train meets. UP dominates this traffic and there are few if any practical alternatives, except to change interchange points.
Interchange at Chicago would add both miles and population exposure. Memphis could work but introduces a need to move the traffic northward along the densely populated eastern seaboard. We could interchange at New Orleans, but we still have the eastern seaboard problem. The cure seems worse than the disease.
Another poster proposed a combination of cast off lines between Chicago and New Jersey. The fact that they are cast off implies substantial investment, several hundred million to a billion or two, to bring them up to standard in terms of track quality and PTC. Assuming that poster is correct, I would count this as possible but not a good idea under the current circumstances. I would not want to explain to the local folks that their town will see all the hazmat between Chicago and New Jersey because there are fewer of them than via alternative route. There is no political upside to telling that tale.
Your second concept is to concentrate hazmat traffic as opposed to letting it flow as it does now in the normal course of business. If I were to be argumentative I would claim that unit trains of hazmat are the problem, since two of the three accidents that started this conversation involved unit trains, but I will not do that.
The nature of carload, or manifest, traffic is that it moves from a single origin to a single destination. Operationally carriers gather up traffic from many shippers at a yard, classify it by destinatiion, and operate selected blocks in designated trains to a designated terminal, often setting out and picking up blocks enroute. This system is designed to move the traffic through the yards, which are the choke points, with as little total switching effort as possible.
When I was with the SP we ran a train called the SRASK, Strang to Alton & Southern K train. Yes, SP invented the "K" train which got modified into the "Key Train". Strang is a yard on the south side of the Houston Ship Channel. It serves many petrochemical plants that make all sorts of hazardous materials and the SRASK hauled them all to the Alton & Southern yard in East St. Louis. The A&S put the traffic in various trains for Conrail and perhaps the NS. The SRASK ran to about 90 cars, and most days 80 of them were hazmat. It had five cars of plastic pellets on the head end and five on the rear with the middle being about the nastiest brew of hazmats that American Industry is capable of producing. About once a year the SRASK, or its predecessor, derailed spectacularly. Fortnately the Texas portion ran thru lightly populated piney woods country. The point here is that since the SRASK was virtually a hazmat unit train there was no question that the consequences would be bad, they only question was "how bad".
The other day a saw an eastward manifest train on the NS just east of Memphis. The train obviously came off the UP and probably 30 of 100 or so cars were hazmat. You propose that these cars be held somewhere and gathered up into a "pure" hazmat train. Separating hazmat into dedicated trains will certainly delay the traffic since it will take three or four trains worth of business to make your hazmat train. That will tend to congest the yards where that activity takes place, and I think tend to make whatever accidents do occur worse than the current system. It was entirely possible to derail the train I saw without involving any hazmat. If hazmat was involved some would have been away from other hazmat cars, and some would not, basically the luck of the draw. There currently a seldom enforced rule that prohibits unusual or excessive delay of hazmat shipments. That rule would have to be changed to legalise your program.
When I was with SP we had 10 Hazardous Material Control Officers system wide (14,000 miles of line) We did respond to hazardous material releases and accidents. I can tell you from living it that simply having someone ride along will accomplish nothing except run costs up.
My prediction for what will happen is that we will see headshields on nonpressure (spec 111) tank cars. In fact I saw one on that NS train of the other day. Keeping the juice in the can is the right strategy. Slowing trains down is not.
Murphy Siding ... Trying not to be cynical, but..... Wouldn't hazmat be best shipped on the high-density routes? Those routes are probably built for heavier cars, and maintained the best of any lines. They are typically the shortest route between pointA abd point B. They serve more of the important origination and destination pairs. What would we gain, by having a trainload of hazmat from Houston to New Jersey move over the DM&E, even though DM&E is low density and misses every southern and eastern population center? Wouldn't having a babysitter on each hazmat shipment blow the cost through the roof? As I understand it, railroads cannot charge higher rates for hazmat material (?) Who will pay for what must be a huge increase in shipping costs? If it is mandated that railroads must spend lots of money, to haul freight at a loss, how is that much different than 1970's passenger trains? Where is the incentive for railroads not to put a hazmat train into a siding and leave it there, while other, profit making traffic rolls by?
... Trying not to be cynical, but..... Wouldn't hazmat be best shipped on the high-density routes? Those routes are probably built for heavier cars, and maintained the best of any lines. They are typically the shortest route between pointA abd point B. They serve more of the important origination and destination pairs. What would we gain, by having a trainload of hazmat from Houston to New Jersey move over the DM&E, even though DM&E is low density and misses every southern and eastern population center? Wouldn't having a babysitter on each hazmat shipment blow the cost through the roof? As I understand it, railroads cannot charge higher rates for hazmat material (?) Who will pay for what must be a huge increase in shipping costs? If it is mandated that railroads must spend lots of money, to haul freight at a loss, how is that much different than 1970's passenger trains? Where is the incentive for railroads not to put a hazmat train into a siding and leave it there, while other, profit making traffic rolls by?
Johnny
First, I expect that safety and operating people of the new corporation will fine-tune any suggestions I or others may have, may come up with alternative or better methods, or additional methods.
But treating the entire rail network as one system and planning hazmat movements for maximum safety will probably:
Whre hazmat loads and dedicated hazmat trains now are routed on high-density routes, they will tend to use lower density routes. Alternatives for the use of BNSF's Transcon and UP's Cheyenne-Green River routes for hazmat loads and trains will be found and used.
Hamat loads with origines and destinations that are served by different railroads that now move in different trains will be handled more in jointly operated and preferably dedicated trains.
Thee may be a safety officer assigned by the corporation to travel with each hazmat shipment and train. Llike the Pullman concductor when railroads hanlded Pullman cars on passenger trains.
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