Oil train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Québec 07-06-2013

All I can say is "WOW!" I'm with MEC407 as far as interest as to how this detailed knowledge is known.......that
is, if you are able to elaborate further. Much of this makes a lot of sense, and I also thank you for your info.

Charlie

I don't believe the propane car involvement angle either. There WAS a crematorium business located at 3800 Rue du Québec-Central, which appears to be one of the destroyed businesses. That business could have even been the consignee of the propane cars witnessed earlier. My guess is the propane storage facility of the business was what blew up and gave off the mushroom fireball. I don't think any propane tank cars were actually there at the time of the incident.

Here's a photo of the accident train just out of Farnham earlier on Friday, taken by local railfan Richard Deuso, showing 5 engines plus RCO. Notable is the white spacer car that was later seen derailed on its side. Sun angle looks to be around high noon, so when the train tied up at Nantes, engineer Harding had to have been near his 12 hours.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 1178_o.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My earlier post in this topic on Thu Jul 11, 2013 11:32 am gives slightly different details, with sources, about the rear cars being pulled away.
There are also conflicting reports about where the engineer's motel was. The railroad president criticized the fire department for not waking the engineer at his "Nantes" motel, but other new reports say the taxi took him to a motel in Lac-Mégantic, which may not have been in the Nantes fire department's jurisdiction.

Jim, it makes you wonder if the company [read: dispatcher / crew caller (those reachable by Company phone numbers)] knew the full scope of what was happening while the FD was at the engine. Pursuant to Canada HoS rules, I would err on the side of caution that a locomotive fire, per se, is not an "Emergency" to recall the employee to be in violation of his HoS.

"Emergency" means a sudden or unforeseen situation where injury or harm has been sustained, or could reasonably be sustained to employee(s), passenger(s), the public or the environment such as those involving a casualty or unavoidable accident, an Act of God, severe storms, major earthquakes, washouts, derailments or where there has been a delay resulting from a cause not known to the railway company at the time employees leave the terminal and which could not have been foreseen.

Except as outlined above, normal operating problems that are inherent in railway operations that do not constitute an "Emergency", include but are not limited to:

a) crew shortages;
b) broken draw bars;
c) locomotive malfunctions;
d) equipment failure;
e) broken rails;
f) hot boxes;
g) switching;
h) doubling hills;
i) meeting trains
j) train length.
It is incumbent upon railway companies to establish that excess service could not have been avoided. When an emergency situation does occur, railway companies must exercise due diligence to avoid or limit such excess service.

Disclaimer: is not well versed nor performs T&E service under Canadian HoS.

MEC407 wrote:Mr. Cameron, thank you for your post. In the interest of clarity, can you elaborate on whether the information you posted is from personal observations, or has it been gathered from news sources, internet discussions, etc.? We just want to be clear on what the sources are. Some of the details in your post are in dispute or have been revised by some of the parties involved (the fire department, the railway, et al.).

Everything that I have posted has come from reporters who had been beating the bushes for people to talk to. It is mostly from early in the tragedy reports. Also from media internet sites when the all day coverage ended.

Carroll wrote:There were 4 units on the head end. Between the lead unit # 5017 and the second unit was a remote control Van (caboose). I think that's where the idea that the train had no driver and was operated remotely came from.

MEC407 wrote:Per Mr. Kevin Burkholder of Eastern Railroad News, the consist was as follows:
MMA C30-7 #5017
Remote Caboose #VB-4
MMA C30-7 #5026
CITX SD40-2 #3053
MMA C30-7 #5023
CEFX SD40-2 #3166

I suspect that there have indeed been misunderstandings among folks who aren't familiar with MMA railway operations when they saw the caboose with the words "REMOTE CONTROL" on it. Very easy to conjure up images of someone in some far-away location controlling the train. Indeed, many of the earliest news reports used wording that made it seem like that was the case.

Again, originally there were only 4 units reported. It was 3 days after before anything was mentioned about the units. Then the TSB leader said the engines came through town and they were found about 3/4m/1km to the east of town. I never caught that there were 5 engines until yesterday. I do remember in the first days, and this could be why I missed the fact that there were 5 units, there was a lot of confusion about an engine that was still at Nantes with some crude cars. A reporter was told by someone that they thought it was a pusher and then speculation started as to why it didn't come down too. That I didn't believe and later on it was found to be wrong. Those first days were terrible for misinformation and mixing up facts coming from reporters but, they did get it straightened out once they talked to one another comparing notes.

Carroll wrote:It is believed that the explosions were from 4 LNG tank cars which were seen in the yard on Friday.

MEC407 wrote:Personally I would classify this as alleged, not believed. Also, the tank cars are alleged to be propane (LPG), not natural gas (LNG). MMA has denied having any LPG cars in the yard, although they didn't rule out the possibility that some of the oil tank cars may have crashed into small LPG tanks that may have been attached to buildings in the immediate vicinity (i.e. fuel for stoves, hot water heaters, furnaces, etc).

On Sunday the 7th a citizen had been interviewed by a reporter who told her that they had saw 4 LNG cars in the yard on Friday. I don't remember seeing any correction to the LNG claim but reporters interchanged LNG and LPG quite frequently as they talked about the fire. Obviously somewhere in their interviewing of people, some were told LPG and others LNG. I remember Edward Burkhardt saying the cars could have slid into those small tanks but, when you look at the direction of travel the momentum of the tank cars took them through the yard and away from the buildings.

Speaking of Kevin Burkholder, he sent a photo to our RailsNB group. It is an aerial shot of the yard. This is part of his description “several of the photos that I've been privy to from the air indicate the blast site as being well away from the burning crude oil cars. There's a small yard in the location of the derailment in the blast originated there......... that definitely shows the blast site and the other railcars that were blown a good distance from where they had apparently sat in the yard area. You can see several covered hoppers and non-crude oil tank cars as well as boxcars that have been derailed next to where the blasts occurred. The blast areas are easily recognized by the area where there are craters and the rail is blown away. Also note in the photo that I am going to show that the tracks are blown to the left on the far left side.”

Photo URL http://s177.photobucket.com/user/eastra ... l.jpg.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Rather interesting photo for sure.

Second part

The link below takes you to the National Post media site. They had some geniuses (not sarcasm) put together a science and mathematical based hypothetical chronology of events and a lot of very interesting facts. In the theory part they reasoned out that the speed of the train, when it entered the yard, was 101 km/h.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/12 ... -disaster/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The confusion over the number of engines comes from the fact that the remote control caboose is counted as an engine although it is unpowered.

........"The engineer parked it as his shift was done and he being Canadian crew can't go into the US. The US crew was on it's way to Nantes and would arrive about 2 hours later. The engineer set the hand brakes on the lead engine and then manually set the brakes on 10 tank cars. He then releases the brakes on the engine and powers up. If the engine can move the train then he resets the hand brake and sets more brakes manually on more cars. However the train didn't move so he reset the hand brakes and tied them down. He also set the hand breaks on the remaining 3 units which, he had shutdown".........

FWIW I was educated in Mech engineering, though it seems like it was a long time ago, yet some things do not change. There is a saying among engineers that "more is learned from failure......then is learned from success" as until you have a failure you do not really know just how close to the brink you really are. There have been many failures of buildings, bridges, aircraft etc, and much was learned from them.....like will be learned here, eventually.

For discussion sake lets say that adequate handbrakes were set to hold the train. If so, there is no way to know if there was a surplus of braking.....or just barely enough to hold it. Along comes the fire dept to fight a "fuel fire" in one of the units. One can suppose they used foam on the fuel fire as water is not really the thing to fight oil fires with. Some of the fire was perhaps under the engine, as fuel leaking was supposedly seen on the rails, according to a witness. Suppose foam/water was sprayed, or dripped onto the rails in the process of this fire fighting attempt. Suddenly instead of dry rail......we have rail covered to some degree, perhaps, with something that is now very slippery and has nowhere the "gripping ability" that dry wheels on dry rails should have had, as when the handbrakes were "tested"!

If the handbrakes that were set, were very close to being just enough, at that moment in time, could suddenly slippery rail have had any part in this? Keep in mind the laws of physics that state a "mass in motion tends to stay in motion. If ten thousand tons started to move, even a slight bit, it takes a lot more brakes to stop it, then it did to merely keep it stationary. Once in motion it would be a bear to stop!

In any case I agree with the professionals who have stated that somebody in the cab, at Nantes, had to have purposely or accidently operated the brake release, or the train would have stayed there. If this was done, and all of a sudden the train was dependant upon the handbrakes, could slippery rail have been enough of a cause for the handbrakes, earlier tested, to suddenly been not quite enough for the job?

SRM

Do C30-7s not have an external emergency shutdown button (as do most if not all 2nd generation EMDs near the fuel fillers on the walkway side)? I looked at a few photos just now and don't see one on those photos I could find. Would someone therefore have to have entered the cab to shut the unit down?

Disclaimer, I am not an engineer, but I did just spend ten minutes reading the NS engineer training control stand orientation booklet online (couldn't find a Holiday Inn Express). From this I infer that if you were to leave the locomotive running and brakes on, you would have the automatic brake valve engaged, the reverser handle in neutral and removed, and the throttle in idle. To shut the unit down from the cab, would you just pull the throttle handle out and push forward to the "stop" postition? Is there a "stop" button in there?

It seems almost likely one might bump into the automatic brake valve handle and release the brakes while walking towards the back of the cab, especially in the dark and maybe in bulky gear. There seems to be a detent that requires effort to apply the automatic brakes, but not to release them, If I am interpreting the illustrations correctly.

In any case, the mechanical brake wheels/ratchets should still have kept the brakes applied, I would think. Unless there was slack in the train (i.e., engineer tested brakes by attempting to back up-grade) that came out when the brakes were released, causing the lead locomotive to roll onto rails made slippery by firefighting, I can't see the water/foam playing a role.

Too many questions, still.

Would it be standard procedure on MMA to use the remote contol to test the brakes while engineer/conductor was standing on the ground? (i.e., climb down with remote control in-hand, set hand brakes on X number of cars, use remote to see if they'll hold, and set more if they don't). Seems like it would save a lot of walking back and forth and climbing up and down to do it that way.

Carroll wrote:Not sure if this is the proper place to post this but here it is.

The train arrived at Nantes with one crew member , the engineer. There were 4 units on the head end. Between the lead unit # 5017 and the second unit was a remote control Van (caboose). I think that's where the idea that the train had no driver and was operated remotely came from.

The engineer parked it as his shift was done and he being Canadian crew can't go into the US.
The US crew was on it's way to Nantes and would arrive about 2 hours later.
The engineer set the hand brakes on the lead engine and then manually set the brakes on 10 tank cars.
He then releases the brakes on the engine and powers up.
If the engine can move the train then he resets the hand brake and sets more brakes manually on more cars.
However the train didn't move so he reset the hand brakes and tied them down.
He also set the hand breaks on the remaining 3 units which, he had shutdown.
Called his taxi and left.

Carroll, can you clarify this paragraph for me? I put each sentence on it's own line for clarity. If the train didn't move, why would he reset the hand brakes? Would the engineer apply the handbrakes on the unit he's pulling with, along with the cars, or just on the freight cars, in order to test the handbrakes? When you say "He releases the brakes on the engine and powers up.", does that mean the Independent brake for that unit? Or does that mean he released the loco handbrake, which he set first before heading back to set the car brakes and then released before performing the test?

Reading all this is so sad....seeing the faces of those who lost their lives in photographs....
I've never believed in one man crews....It brings back the railroaders saying that I heard way back in my teens regarding the company that took their line over: "Uphill slow, downhill fast, tonnage first, safety last"....And that was back when the crew sizes were four or five with cabooses were just starting to be cut! ....Profits measured in dollars, the price paid in blood....
My condolences to all of those who lost loved ones in this tragedy.




XC

JimBoylan wrote:The railroad president criticized the fire department for not waking the engineer at his "Nantes" motel, but other new reports say the taxi took him to a motel in Lac-Mégantic, which may not have been in the Nantes fire department's jurisdiction.

It is never the fire department's responsibility to notify any SPECIFIC railroad employees, it is the fire department's responsibility to notify THE RAILROAD and it is THE RAILROAD'S responsibility to notify the CORRECT EMPLOYEE. Any employee who is dead on federal HoS should never be the first "go to guy" to deal with any post-fire mechanical/inspection needs anyway.

Management is in full-out ass-saving mode, and its words cannot be trusted.

He would have released the brakes on the engine, so he could power up the locos to see if the handbrakes that he set on the cars were enough to hold the train. Apparently he did that, released the train brakes, drew power on the locomotives (so there would be nothing to hold back the power of the locos other than the handbrakes set on the cars) and the train did not move. Then he would have applied the hand brakes on all the locomotives. Because in theory, if the train didn't move under power of the locos with just the hand brakes applied on the cars, then it definitely wouldn't move with those hand brakes on the cars applied as well as the handbrakes on each of the locomotives.

I too am curious if the brake stand was left cut in, but the brakes applied, meaning bled all the way down to 0psi (but the brake valve still cut in). Im not sure of any company special instructions, or even canadian rules, and what "actually' goes on on a daily basis on the railroad, but leaving the brake stand cut in, but bled down to 0psi, and loco running to keep an air compressor working might not require the new crew to do a full brake test ("on and off" from the hind end, to ensure brake pipe continuity) that wouldn't really be possible (or safe - nothing like walking a whole train with the brakes released to make sure the brakes are released on the hind end...) with a one man crew Id imagine.

That graphic is for lack of a better word, amazing - the amount of detail and info going into it, is second to none, and they did an EXCELLENT job describing what things are and how they work. That graphic is probably the best account of the accident and the time before and after it, I have seen.

As for the slippery rail....thats very interesting actually. The hand brakes MIGHT have held if: (and there could be a bunch of reasons) - 1) - the rail wasn't slippery 2) the brake shoes and wheels on locomotives didnt' get soaked from fire trucks 3) the loco stayed running - might have only needed a slight bump say (maybe one cars brakes released on the hind end from sitting there with no more air from shut down loco) to cause the train to move that fraction of an inch to get to wet/slippery rail or wheel surface, for example.

Id be curious if they will do a reenactment with those same locomotives and identical cars at the location where the train first started to roll. Do exactly what was shown on the black box of the loco. See if it would have rolled, or what could make it roll. However, the locos were "missing" for such a long period of time and there was so much confusion with the disaster scene, that the railroad could have done some kind of modifications to the locos before the authorities quarantined the locos (im assuming they are quarantined by someone). Not that they would do anything like that...........but.......lets be realistic.

One final thing - what is an MMA track supervisor going to know about the state of the locomotives? Its not the FD's responsibility to know the position of the representative of the company, and it would be expected that the railroad would send someone knowledgeable and appropriate to the scene.....maybe the track supervisor wore two hats and was a mechanical supervisor as well, but in my years of working on the railroad (not this railroad however), it was probably just someone who was near by with an appropriate company safety vest and hard hat, and nothing much else.........