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  • Derailment in Paulsboro

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey

Moderator: David

 #1115288  by kevikens
 
What's happening to all those rail customers south of Paulsboro? The power plant and Dupont in Carney's point and Deepwater? The SMS short line in Pureland? Is there any other rail route to access these places? i can't imagine these places going for very long without rail service.
 #1115326  by pumpers
 
Freddy wrote:I wonder also,since there was no tender,who was taking a grease gun and an oil can and crawling the length of the drive shaft in order to grease all the fittings and applying grease to the
wedges and also changing the burnt out light bulbs that the Coast Guard would require for navigation. Our wedges and fittings were looked at every few weeks and we only ran 3 trains per
day.
Given that they missed an inspection date, and with no one on site, we can imagine the lubrication was not up to snuff, possibly relating to the wedges required to lock the bridge properly not sliding into place properly... Yes, the NTSB report will be interesting, too bad it usually takes a year.
Makes you wonder how many other disasters from cutting corners are just waiting to happen. At least no one was seriously hurt or killed in this one.
JS
 #1115338  by south jersey trains
 
NOW!!... Is the time to CALL YOUR LOCAL STATE DEMOCRAT AND REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLYMEN AND SENATORS also FEDERAL and DEMAND OUR RAILROAD BRIDGES,TRACKS, AND STATIONS recieve state and federal funds to upgrade,repair and fix our very old rusting ageing equipment. Thats the way to fix it. They have to go to Trenton and Washington and get dollars to upgrade everything thats been negleded for 50 years.Call today! Write to you newspapers! Forget sports for a couple days!
 #1115341  by CarterB
 
south jersey trains wrote:NOW!!... Is the time to CALL YOUR LOCAL STATE DEMOCRAT AND REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLYMEN AND SENATORS also FEDERAL and DEMAND OUR RAILROAD BRIDGES,TRACKS, AND STATIONS recieve state and federal funds to upgrade,repair and fix our very old rusting ageing equipment. Thats the way to fix it. They have to go to Trenton and Washington and get dollars to upgrade everything thats been negleded for 50 years.Call today! Write to you newspapers! Forget sports for a couple days!
Yes, and raise property and income taxes on all segments of society to pay for it. Raise tolls on all toll roads and bridges to pay for it. Federalize all railroads. Expand the Federal DOT employment!! Hire government inspectors, supervisors, accountants.
The answer to everything is BIG Government!!
 #1115346  by SecaucusJunction
 
If that happened, I wouldn't be able to get all these emails from the AAR bragging about how the railroads spend all their own money, don't use taxpayer money, etc. I'd suspect that the big freight railroads have the money to pay for plenty of upgrades if they wanted to. Why the Government should be giving money to this (or any other) big private business is beyond me. It is the railroad's job to make sure that the tracks, bridges, etc are safe and useable at any time. Sometimes these things happen...
 #1115356  by CNWMAN
 
A major health concern for all affected by the derailment will be the impact of vinyl chloride exposure. This substance is reported to be very carcinogenic in very small exposure amounts, it is listed on the web as one of the major industrial health hazards in terms of cancer potential, with threshold limits as low as 500 ppm. I hope everyone is aware of what they have been exposed to and will follow up with a physician to get checked out. I hope first responders took precautions as well.
 #1115416  by wolfboy8171981
 
i've been a dispatcher since June of 2006. We've been encountering minor problems with this bridge since it was automated some time in 2001. Every time a train would encounter a stop siginal, even in the wintertime when the bridge is locked closed for the season, we report it. We have NO bridge indications for this bridge ( Bridgeport, and Darby too) to see if the bridge is locked or not. Our objections to talking trains by these bridges were recorded by the carrier when this process started, but we were ordered by the carrier to ask the crew if the bridge was down (closed) at the rails seated, and to talk the train by the stop siginal.

I can attest that for the last 6 years trains incountering a stop siginal at PMB was at least a weekly occurance. With that span of time, anyone would get numb to that fact, and care less and less that what ever the problem was actually a bad problem, and would get fixed. The problem here is that everyone was following the companys procedure when incountering a stop siginal at PMB. It worked fine the last 6+ years, not so much on Friday.
 #1115567  by south jersey trains
 
We spend lots on roads so why not trains.Also we spend a lot more up north for years than down south. we need repairs here now for a change.
 #1115588  by SecaucusJunction
 
Thats the beauty of railroads... no taxpayer subsidies wasted. Private corporations able to maintain infrastructure with their own money...the way it was meant to be. Unless you want to make all the railroads government run.
 #1115671  by Jersey_Mike
 
We have NO bridge indications for this bridge ( Bridgeport, and Darby too) to see if the bridge is locked or not. Our objections to talking trains by these bridges were recorded by the carrier when this process started, but we were ordered by the carrier to ask the crew if the bridge was down (closed) at the rails seated, and to talk the train by the stop siginal.
I am not sure what bridge indications would do to solve the problem here. If there is a fault with the lock detection then you'd still have to send a member of the crew out to inspect and then give 241 if the bridge is in order.
 #1115692  by south jersey trains
 
I will say the goverment pays a lot to maintain those 600 miles of passenger track in N Jersey and helps pay for upgrades in other areas that are not passenger.The fact is highways for cars have been improved for years and also airports and railroads have been laging way behind with little funding.The railroads are vital to the business sector and defense of our country.China is building them at a record pace.
 #1115698  by kevikens
 
There's an article in this mornings Courier Post on the impact of industries and businesses south of Paulsboro. It's not a pretty picture.
 #1115704  by chuchubob
 
kevikens wrote:There's an article in this mornings Courier Post on the impact of industries and businesses south of Paulsboro. It's not a pretty picture.
Here's the link.
 #1115710  by Tommy Meehan
 
Below is a link to the National Transportation Safety Board's page about the incident.

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/2012 ... ro_nj.html

Someone mentioned waiting a year for the NTSB report. The full report, yes. But NTSB is saying a preliminary report, which should contain a lot of definitive information, should be released within a week or two.
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