SD70DudeAnd from the Classic Canadian Pacific facebook group (photographer Henry Niznik), here is Irricana, AB in 1969:
Thank you, thank you!
I've waited over 50 years to see pictures like that.
My station!
On the left is the Section Foreman's house, and his tool and speeder shed.
To the right of the switch to the backtrack was the Roadmaster's house. to the right of the siding switch was the site of the water tower. In the top photo Henry is standing about where the coal dock would have been, on his left. The picture is looking due north. The wye to the Irricana Sub. is just past the grade crossing indicated by the whistle signal. This is the Langdon Sub.
The last summer we were there, 1964, Henry, his brother Arthur, my brother and I rode in the cupola of the caboose on the mixed north from Irricana to Beiseker, 5 miles. He had the first HO train set I ever saw. I last saw Henry at a train show in Calgary about 1972. Dad gave him a reference and arranged for him to be hired by the CPR in the late '70's. He worked for a long time as an Operator at Brooks, AB.
Thank You, thank you.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Your friend posted those himself, still alive and kicking. Here's another one:
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
My that image was taken at a very specific point in time. They have taken down the train order semeaphore, but not yet ripped out the platform. Running a wayfreight instead of the mixed train.
The cement blocks in the foreground were used as the base for the water tower. It was a very long time before they were removed, long after the tracks had been pulled up.
Maybe it is because I know what I am looking for, but I think I can make out the post with the crossbucks for the grade crossing near the back of the train. It is on the crossing.
Boy, the yard went bad after we left. Funny though, it looks like they got more rain than some of the years I remember.
Thank you very much.
Way to go Dude! Superb find. Made Bruce's day that's for sure. Amazing.
NDGString Lining?
Quite plausible. Those are the undersides of autoracks, which are both long and very light, and the leg of the wye that accesses Sarcee Yard has fairly tight curvature. The ingredients are there. The direction of travel is not mentioned.
(Added) There were also strong gusty winds at the time, at least in my part of Calgary.
NDG FYI. Gas Pipeline Rupture, Kentucky. Rupture point after Time 4:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7ag-BfFvac Note Rwy. RoW. ties smoking . Thank You.
Amazing, what got incenerated and what didn't. I am also surprised at the depth of the crater under the level of the gas pipe.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
WOW. They definitely found the weak spot in the pipe.
Pipe lines are safer than trains until they are not.
Electroliner 1935WOW. They definitely found the weak spot in the pipe. Pipe lines are safer than trains until they are not.
Everything is safer than something else - until it isn't.
Anyone notice those (what look like) chunks and slabs of concrete in and around the crater?
Any ideas of what was there? Some kind of monitoring station? A line pressurizing unit?
Enbridge Tetco pipeline.
https://www.enbridge.com/map#map:infrastructure
As far as I know no recompressor at this point, and pipe buried deep. Accident site said to be a 'trailer park' subdivision.
Would you believe the initial explosion showed up on weather radar?
Some more still pictures of the accident site were here.
Electroliner 1935They definitely found the weak spot in the pipe.
Saw video, etc, a few years ago where I believe a farmer managed to get to a pipeline - the details escape me. Not sure what he was doing deep enough in his field to do so. As I recall, he succumbed in the ensuing blow torch. It was in a field, so no other damage.
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...
I'm not sure if 'dude ever had occasion to work the Three Hills Sub., but I thought I would post a bit of additional information.
The CN line ran parallel to the CP line to the west, or left in this photo. Or at least I always thought they did until the invention of Google Maps, when I dicovered the lines are very slightly closer together at the north end of town than they are coming in from the south.
The Section House is about one third of the distance from the CP line to the CN line. The CN station was due west from the CP station on the west side of the CN line.
The CN station was one of the standard GTP type stations. The freight shed was on the north end of the station. For the benefit of our American readers, small town GTP stations were about as uniform in shape as the marbles you had as children. Looking at a station, the only variation you could see was is the freight shed on the left, or right of the office.
'dude, thanks again for posting these photos.
Mod-man, if that explosion was big enough to destroy everything within what looks like a 200 yard radius I'm not surprised it showed up on weather radar.
Must have packed the punch of a World War Two blockbuster.
NDGDerailment, Evacuation, TCH Closed, Hazmat.
21.7 miles east of Medicine Hat. No word yet on what type of material or if it has leaked.
NDGWhat would the pressure be in a pipeline of the size in the rupture shown above?
I don't know the specific pressure used for the now-Enbridge TETCO lines, or indeed whether it was reduced when the failures in the particular 'accident' line began to occur. I suspect it was at the high end of the industry range of pressures for these trunk lines, which is given as up to 1500psi. I think Midland Mike knows much more about the specifics, and probably has better reference sources or industry connections, than I do.
How far apart would the shut off valves be?
They are more frequent than recompression stations (which, themselves, are more frequent along the line than I would have suspected). Industry sources have them 5 to 20 miles apart; I have no firsthand knowledge how they are actuated when a failure is detected, or how fast it is safe for them to act.
There's somewhat more involved in recompressing and cooling gas in some of these lines that I think most people realize. One of the principal trunks parallels the New Jersey Turnpike and has a station that is visible to the west side of the road, as I recall around the Raritan River crossing area. This involved large gas-turbine-driven compressors and it was sobering to observe the sheer amount of heat released (in visibly shimmering waves, slightly but visibly browned with what I suspect was thermally-induced NOx)
NDGHow far apart would the shut off valves be?
A large part of the problem is the sheer volume in the pipes, along with the degree of compression.
I don't know what size that pipe is/was. Based on the aerial images I saw, a foot in diameter would be underestimating it.
Lacking that info, I'll use what I do know - fire hose. We use "large diameter hose" (LDH), usually 4" or 5" in diameter. My department uses 5" LDH.
In order to just fill the 1,000' of LDH we carry on our pumper, it takes about 1,000 gallons of water.
That's around 133 cubic feet.
When a rupture occurs in, say, a natural gas line, all of the gas in the line between control points (pump stations and valves) will still be available to burn. At pressures such as the 1500 PSI mentioned, that's a lot of fuel for the blowtorch, even if the control points could be closed at the moment of rupture.
This is why it may take a while for such a fire to burn out.
tree68When a rupture occurs in, say, a natural gas line, all of the gas in the line between control points (pump stations and valves) will still be available to burn. At pressures such as the 1500 PSI mentioned, that's a lot of fuel for the blowtorch, even if the control points could be closed at the moment of rupture. This is why it may take a while for such a fire to burn out.
Analagous to disappating the kenitic engergy of a moving train when it derails.
The thing that concerns me is by the time the cause of the explosion is determined the "news cycle" will have moved on, and we'll never hear of it.
Possibly not the "news cycle" of that area in Kentucky, however. So, if any posters on this Forum live out that way please keep us informed if you learn anything. I'm sure we'd all like to know.
tree68I don't know what size that pipe is/was. Based on the aerial images I saw, a foot in diameter would be underestimating it.
One source I found says it was 30". I didn't find much else.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
NDGDerailment, Evacuation, TCH Closed, Hazmat
Hazmat was styreme. Fire is out using foam. Everyone is home. Media was impressed with cleanup operation, although they must not have used their spellchecker-they called it Dunbar, not Dunmore.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/irving-derailment-spill-update-1.5235783
It was 35º C at the time of the wreck, so I suspect heat will be a factor as a cause. Pretty warm for us folk.
OS.
Thank You!
At least it was not a whole train of the stuff! The empty oil trains really ROLL thru here as downgrade.
Years ago, at the Crow, the Telegrapher could plug in the separate DS Wires, East and West, on his desk.
At night, the wires were all cut through, and he could listen to the OSs, NSs, SDRs Copy 3s or 5s, etc. from Dunmore to Penticton.
Some of the Office Call Letters in the Time Tables did NOT match the Station Names AT ALL!
As I recall, there once was a Staff System of Operation btwn Dunmore and Medicine Hat ( The Hat. )
Those old photos really hit home as to the way things used to be, seemed to all really go to Hell once CP Rail and the Multi Mark arrived.
Miss Youth and the Past.
Thank You.
FYI.
Tender Oil Tanks.
When CPR Converted a coal-burning locomotive to Oil Firing, a Wedgish-shaped tank with a flat top and a round filling hatch and cover was constructed and inserted in the coal space in the tender.
As these tanks were new when the Diesels came and could easily be removed w a crane, the tanks would have the round hatch opening plated over and welded shut, and the tank rotated bottom side up with the flat-top Pyramid once-bottom now as top.
These tanks were placed at Stations for furnace fuel oil, Brocket, Alberta had one.
Other of the flat top pyramid tanks were placed on flat cars and used for Fire Service.
NDGAs said the Volume per mile inside a 48 inch pipe would be amazing, and the power require to force same over a several thousand foot summit would be considerable.
It surely is, but keep in mind that the pipe over a summit constitutes an inverted siphon, so the mass going down counterbalances some of the mass up. Same is true to a greater extent in 'sags' where vacuum effects don't apply and some of the volatiles in the pipeline don't 'flash' to vapor at the reduced pressure. Even small air leaks, though, can cause difficulties.
I believe there are accounts of the first pipeline from western Pennsylvania across to tidewater (that was so doggedly fought by the railroads) -- heavy pumping was required at each sequential upgrade to fill the line. It can be fun to realize just how many tons are represented by the fluid in a filled pipeline and how much displacement per second is involved in forcing it to nominal psi to get fluid flow to move 'at the far end'.
As I recall, the gasoline pipeline at Duffy Street in 1989 (the double accident you remember) ran at 150psi, and when it first ruptured it took a strikingly long time to actually catch fire -- not as dramatically long as at Bellingham, where a couple of the victims died of vapor asphyxiation, not fire, but still far from immediately. Read some of the accounts of how the backhoe in question was operated, despite great care supposedly being taken to protect the buried line.
Carry on with these stories! I love to hear them.
AgentKid NDG Derailment, Evacuation, TCH Closed, Hazmat Hazmat was styreme. Fire is out using foam. Everyone is home. Media was impressed with cleanup operation, although they must not have used their spellchecker-they called it Dunbar, not Dunmore. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/irving-derailment-spill-update-1.5235783 It was 35º C at the time of the wreck, so I suspect heat will be a factor as a cause. Pretty warm for us folk. Bruce
NDG Derailment, Evacuation, TCH Closed, Hazmat
Johnny
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.