Crude oil train derailment Lynchburg VA 4/30/14

Happened about 1.5 hours ago. Some oil in the river; some cars off the tracks. Fire and smoke, but pretty well subsided now. Might be hard getting to / through Lynchburg by train for a while. I'm quite sure this incident is going to get big play in the media in light of concerns transporting oil by rail. Let's hope I'm wrong.

http://www.wset.com/story/25392359/trai ... -lynchburg

Lynchburg, Va - Lynchburg emergency officials have confirmed that a train has gone off the tracks in downtown Lynchburg around 1:45 Wednesday afternoon.

Between 12 and 14 CSX tankers carrying crude oil were involved in the train derailment, according to city officials. A witness on the scene says he saw the rail under the train give way. That is, the dirt and stone beneath the train gave way and according to that witness, the train then toppled over.

Between three and six cars caught fire and the smoke can be seen throughout much of Lynchburg.

According to officials, three railway cars are in the river and the product that was in the tankers is spilling into the river.

Witnesses report seeing flames 80 feet high.

Here's Yahoo's version

http://news.yahoo.com/derailed-train-vi ... nance.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Welp..........

Charlie

Rockingham Racer wrote:I'm quite sure this incident is going to get big play in the media in light of concerns transporting oil by rail. Let's hope I'm wrong.

Considering the increasing frequency of these oil train derailments/explosions, I think those concerns are becoming more and more justified.

I'm as pro-rail as anyone you'll ever meet, but I find this trend very disturbing. Something has to be done about it. The bad P.R. alone could have a big impact on the gains made by freight railroads over the past 10 years. It's already making it just about impossible for any new hazmat rail projects to be approved. People are terrified of having a "Lac-Mégantic" happen in their city or town. Who can blame them? No sane person wants to be incinerated.

MEC407 wrote:

Rockingham Racer wrote:I'm quite sure this incident is going to get big play in the media in light of concerns transporting oil by rail. Let's hope I'm wrong.

Considering the increasing frequency of these oil train derailments/explosions, I think those concerns are becoming more and more justified.

This story was on the evening news in New York. They highlighted the fact that the same trains operate in the tri-state area. Fortunately it look like nobody is injured, but this will certainly stir up the nation debate about rail transport of crude oil (as well as debate about the Keystone pipeline).

I believe there is a big crude by rail conference in Arlington, VA in May like 2 weeks away. Timing is everything in life, this event happening a lot closer to DC's back yard is probably going to garner a lot of attention. I do agree that something is going to have to be done with all these incidents on different railroads.

Considering the rain that has inundated the Eastern portion of the country for the past several weeks as well as the near continuous rain since Monday and the lines proximity to a river - I suspect the cause may be a washout or failure of the track structure under traffic account of the saturated nature of the ground or a combination of the two.

Even if it were a washout or weakened ground & not neglect to the tracks, oil tank cars should be built to withstand derailments. This way if there is a incident, any leaks etc would be relegated to cars going into things like concrete walls vs just bumping into each other or rolling over.... Just my 2 cent.

Figure on MASSIVE tank car orders in the near future,Transport Canada has settled on a design,USDOT/FRA along with
the major US RR's have come up with a new standard,BNSF was the 1st to start replacing the current DOT standard
along with Irving Oil's fleet of tank cars in the New England area.