July 8, 2013 -- Aftermath of Lac-Mégantic Train Derailment

[gvidas]

Early Saturday, a locomotive pulling a 72-car freight train full of crude oil from North Dakota was parked for the night 11 km west of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, the engineer checking into a nearby hotel. Sometime shortly after, the unattended train began to roll away, toward Lac-Megantic -- investigators are still looking for the cause. The crude oil cars, rolling downhill, broke free of the locomotives and picked up speed, derailing at a curve in the center of Lac-Megantic, a lakeside town of about 6,000 people. Six massive explosions followed, sending up huge fireballs and setting dozens of buildings ablaze. Thousands were evacuated, and so far, five deaths have been confirmed. Authorities worry the toll will climb much higher, as more than 40 residents are still listed as missing.

A few dozen more photos are available at The Atlantic's photojournalism blog, In Focus, which is where these + the above quoted text are from.

Of particularly horrifying beauty are the melted traffic light lenses.

[Undertoad]

WOW WOW holy hell on Earth

Thanks for posting it, gvid, it's breath-taking. For all the most horrible reasons, but breath-taking nonetheless!

[orthodoc]

This was absolutely horrifying. It could have been due to sheer carelessness or stupidity, but I have to wonder if it was sabotage.

[Griff]

Pic from
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...3%A9gantic.jpg

shows what it should look like. Unbelievable.

[glatt]

It's all horrible.

Check out that one waterfront home, almost a mansion, four blocks from the train tracks. I bet they never thought they were ever going to be burned to the ground by a train accident. Their neighbors were all untouched, including some that were closer to the tracks, but the fire burned in just the wrong direction for them.

I don't mean to single them out like they are more special than those blocks that were closer and burned to the ground, but just look at that burn path. That could happen to any one of us.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by glatt

It's all horrible.

Check out that one waterfront home, almost a mansion, four blocks from the train tracks. I bet they never thought they were ever going to be burned to the ground by a train accident. Their neighbors were all untouched, including some that were closer to the tracks, but the fire burned in just the wrong direction for them.

I don't mean to single them out like they are more special than those blocks that were closer and burned to the ground, but just look at that burn path. That could happen to any one of us.

I imagine that is because the liquid oil, burning or otherwise, flowed downhill along the path of burnt, down to the water, eating that house in the process.

[ZenGum]

Some answers are beginning to emerge (via: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-0...brakes/4807576)

It has now been confirmed that earlier on the night of the deadly blast, firefighters were called to extinguish a blaze in the train's motor.

The train had been stopped at the neighbouring town of Nantes at the time.

Nantes fire chief Patrick Lambert told Reuters the crew switched off the engine as they extinguished a "good-sized" fire in the engine, probably caused by a fuel or oil line break in the engine.

Fire officials say they were following protocols.

But Ed Burkhardt, the chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, says the engine had been left on by the train's engineer to maintain pressure in the air brakes.

He says as the pressure gradually "leaked off", the air brakes failed and the train began to slide downhill.

The train derailed 12 kilometres away in Lac-Megantic.

The we-said-they-said is well underway:

Mr Lambert says fire crews told a company dispatcher what they did at the time, but says there was no discussion of the brakes.

"We were there for the train fire. As for the inspection of the train after the fact, that was up to them," he said.

It is not immediately clear what the dispatcher did after speaking with the fire service.

Mr Burkhardt says the fire service should have also tried to contact the train's operator, who was staying at a nearby hotel.

"If the engine was shut off, someone should have made a report to the local railroad about that," he said.

This looks like a job for .... CAPTAIN HINDSIGHT!

[ZenGum]

Here's my first Captain Hindsight moment:

Why do train brakes work that way?

Truck brakes (also called Bendix brakes) work the opposite way: you have to put pressure in the system to release the brakes, not to activate them. That way, if there is a leak and the system fails, all brakes slam fully on immediately. This is why you occasionally see massive 22-wheel skid marks down the highway.

Why the bleep do trains have brakes that release when the system fails?

[BigV]

still burning as of 8 am GMT +8.

[Diaphone Jim]

Train air-brakes do operate on the same principle as truck brakes.
It is unreasonable to expect the Chairman of the railway to know this.
What a terrible scene.

[Lamplighter]

We've all seen it in the movies
... lighting the covered wagon on fire and rolling it downhill to burn out the bad guys holed up in the canyon,
... lighting the relic ship on fire and sailing it into the pirate fleet,

This was just the townspeople of Nantes settling their tiff with Lac-Megantic



Oh I forgot, insert "What if I told you ... " above that.

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

The we-said-they-said is well underway: <snip> This looks like a job for .... CAPTAIN HINDSIGHT!

Mr Lambert says fire crews told a company dispatcher what they did at the time, but says there was no discussion of the brakes.

"We were there for the train fire. As for the inspection of the train after the fact, that was up to them," he said.

Sounds reasonable to me.

It is not immediately clear what the dispatcher did after speaking with the fire service.

Mr Burkhardt says the fire service should have also tried to contact the train's operator, who was staying at a nearby hotel.

"If the engine was shut off, someone should have made a report to the local railroad about that," he said.

Didn't they attempt to do that when they contacted the dispatcher?

Plus, earlier it says:

Ed Burkhardt, the chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, says the engine had been left on by the train's engineer to maintain pressure in the air brakes.

He says as the pressure gradually "leaked off", the air brakes failed and the train began to slide downhill.

That implies that the engineer knew about the fire and knew that the firefighters turned the engine off since it clearly says the engineer left the engine on. He must have turned it back on after the firefighters were finished, right?

Sounds like the engineer was trying to follow protocol.

From the information presented here, I say the engineer is at fault for not inspecting the engine and making sure that the problem was fixed since the operation of the engine was vital to the operation of the brakes. He knows the machine better than anyone and he knew there had been a fire from some type of problem with a fuel or oil line leak.

It was up to him to fully inspect and make sure his engine was safe for operation. If that fuel or oil line leaked again, it may have caused the engine to be unable to maintain the pressure in the brakes . . .

Although, it could be a case of the company not keeping their equipment up-to-date and in good working order because they wanted the bottom line to look good at all times.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Diaphone Jim

Train air-brakes do operate on the same principle as truck brakes.
It is unreasonable to expect the Chairman of the railway to know this.

"unreasonable"? I do expect them to know this, even when there hasn't just been a disaster, and when there has been a brake-related disaster, I'd expect them to learn the facts before speaking publicly.

Perhaps I am a tad naive.

But if you're right about the brakes (and I suspect you are) then ... how did this all happen again?

Originally Posted by CaliforniaMama

Mr Lambert says fire crews told a company dispatcher what they did at the time, but says there was no discussion of the brakes.

"We were there for the train fire. As for the inspection of the train after the fact, that was up to them," he said.

Sounds reasonable to me.

It is not immediately clear what the dispatcher did after speaking with the fire service.

Mr Burkhardt says the fire service should have also tried to contact the train's operator, who was staying at a nearby hotel.

"If the engine was shut off, someone should have made a report to the local railroad about that," he said.

Didn't they attempt to do that when they contacted the dispatcher?

This was my reading at first, but I think "company dispatcher" refers to the emergency operator (dispatcher) of the fire "company", not the train company.

Plus, earlier it says:

Ed Burkhardt, the chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, says the engine had been left on by the train's engineer to maintain pressure in the air brakes.

He says as the pressure gradually "leaked off", the air brakes failed and the train began to slide downhill.

That implies that the engineer knew about the fire and knew that the firefighters turned the engine off since it clearly says the engineer left the engine on. He must have turned it back on after the firefighters were finished, right?

Sounds like the engineer was trying to follow protocol.

From the information presented here, I say the engineer is at fault for not inspecting the engine and making sure that the problem was fixed since the operation of the engine was vital to the operation of the brakes. He knows the machine better than anyone and he knew there had been a fire from some type of problem with a fuel or oil line leak.

It was up to him to fully inspect and make sure his engine was safe for operation. If that fuel or oil line leaked again, it may have caused the engine to be unable to maintain the pressure in the brakes . . .

Again, my reading is that the engineer stopped the train, left the engine and handbrake on, and went off to the hotel to sleep the night. (what, trains can't run at night in Canada???) The fire occurred, the fire crew put it out and turned off the engine. The train driver was - I think - never informed of the fire or the engine shut-down.

If Nantes is the same sort of whistlestop town as Lac Megantic, they might just have a small or even volunteer-only fire brigade, and between them and an undertrained dispatcher, I could well imagine them getting this minor (but important) detail wrong. "Fire's out, leave it til morning to survey the damage" seems reasonable.

Although, it could be a case of the company not keeping their equipment up-to-date and in good working order because they wanted the bottom line to look good at all times.

Well, that was my first suspicion.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I wonder how the tank cars became detached from the engines, after the whole train began to roll.

[BigV]

it was a train of all tank cars, as I understand. I reckon they became detached when the train derailed going around a curve too fast.