Derailment= East Palestine Ohio

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/25/us/ohio- ... index.html

Let me summarize. Hot Box Detectors didn't prevent the derailment, but one thing could have: bearing vibration detectors and sensors.

An investigation into hot box detectors published in 2019 and funded by the Department of Transportation found that one “major shortcoming” of these detectors is that they can’t distinguish between healthy and defective bearings, and temperature alone is not a good indicator of bearing health.

“Temperature is reactive in nature, meaning by the time you’re sensing a high temperature in a bearing, it’s too late, the bearing is already in its final stages of failure,” Constantine Tarawneh, director of the University Transportation Center for Railways Safety (UTCRS) and lead investigator of the study, told CNN.

As part of the investigation, the UTCRS researchers developed a new system to better detect a bearing issue long before a catastrophic failure. The key: measuring the bearing’s vibration in addition to its temperature and load.

The vibration of a failing bearing, Tarawneh says, often begins intensifying thousands of miles before a catastrophic failure. So his team created sensors that can be placed on board each rail car, near the bearing, to continuously monitor its vibration throughout its travels.

“If you put an accelerometer on a bearing and you’re monitoring the vibration levels, the minute a defect happens in the bearing, the accelerometer will sense an increase in vibration, and that could be, in many cases, up to 100,000 miles before the bearing actually fails,” he said.

Before you go off on a "It costs too much" tirade, keep reading:

But Steve Ditmeyer, a former Federal Railroad Administration official, says equipping every rail car with on board sensors may not be financially feasible.

“What they’re proposing will work, but it’s very, very expensive,” Ditmeyer told CNN. “And one does have to take cost into consideration.”

It would take more than 12 million on board sensors, according to Tarawneh, to fully equip the roughly 1.6 million rail cars in service across North America.

Ditmeyer says railroads should invest more heavily in wayside acoustic bearing detectors, which sit along the tracks – much like hot box detectors – and monitor the sound of passing trains. They listen for noise that indicates a bearing failure well before a potential catastrophe.

As of 2019, only 39 acoustic bearing detectors were in use across North America compared to more than 6,000 hot box detectors, according to a 2019 DOT report.

“They are the only way that I can think of that would have prevented the accident by having caught a failing bearing earlier,” Ditmeyer said.

NS is told to stop shipping contaminated soil/water until a destination is found.

So it's another Fukushima Daiichi situation: where to put it all?

https://www.livemint.com/Politics/LKbqO ... -leak.html

NPR NATIONAL
Contaminated waste shipments from Ohio derailment will resume
February 26, 20239:47 PM ET
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Shipment of contaminated waste from the site of a fiery train derailment earlier this month in eastern Ohio will resume on Monday to two approved sites in Ohio, according to federal environmental authorities.

The announcement came a day after the Environmental Protection Agency ordered Norfolk Southern to "pause" shipments from the site of the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine to allow additional oversight measures about where waste was shipped. Some liquid and solid waste had already been taken to sites in Michigan and Texas.

Some of the liquid waste will be sent to a facility in Vickery, Ohio, for disposal in an underground injection well, Shore said. Norfolk Southern will also begin shipping solid waste to an incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio, and additional solid waste disposal locations were being sought, she said.

Friends,

It's encouraging to see the discussion is trending toward "actionable" solutions, such as the replacement of infra-red HBD sensors to acoustic technology, an alternative of proven benefit that's in use today.

I also recommend an article (Possible Paths to New-Tech Safety Improvements) in Railway Age, co-authored by Jim Blaze (a former associate at Conrail). In this article Jim aptly describes the present "network" of HBDs as "silos", none of which presently communicate with their adjacent HBDs.

As this article points out, the readings are typically sent to a central location, from which it's entirely possible to re-arrange the data to flag temperature readings of any bearings that show progressive elevation through successive HBDs.

Further, this article also describes the capabilities of rear-end devices and Distributed Power to initiate emergency braking, with the significant and effective reduction of in-train buff forces resulting from head-end emergency brake applications.

farecard wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 10:39 pm NS is told to stop shipping contaminated soil/water until a destination is found.

So it's another Fukushima Daiichi situation: where to put it all?

https://www.livemint.com/Politics/LKbqO ... -leak.html

More likely they simply instructed NS to follow existing RCRA hazardous waste regulations.

Roscoe P. Coaltrain wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 9:45 am If you read the reply by 'randgust' on this thread,

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/ ... ?1,5633168

he mention another accident that was investigated by NTSB where part of the blame was laid at the feet of transmission gaps between head end and read end devices. An angle cock was closed in the trainline, front end put into emergency by the crew, but rear Fred did not dump the air on the rear half in quick enough time to avoid the runaway.

This 32N was 9300+ feet and 17,000+ tons. Was there transmission gaps that kept the DPU shoving? As randgust mentions, there were some software incompatibilities between DPU equipped units on NS (involving the DC traction gevos) that created a few spectacular derailments that were NOT investigated by NTSB where the DPU kept shoving. One of those DPU-aggravated derailments was on the Southern Tier line near Dalton, NY.

I still think 9300 feet and 17000 tons is too large for trains carrying some of these forever-damaging chemicals. You simply cannot build a tank car durable enough to counterbalance these train weights.

Everyone - I will second RPC above and note the positive discussion about ways to prevent something such as what occurred in EP from ever happening again quoting the NTSB. Something we ALL agree on...

I noted some thoughts in Mr. Coaltrain's post that I quoted about communication between the head end and DPU need to be further probed to see if there was any way that the DPU may have kept shoving the consist to derail in the manner that it did after the initial 23rd car had broken away from the front of the train.

The sentence directly above my post is what really made me stop and quote this post which was the train's length being the better part of two miles long with the 17000 tons of weight being too large for tank cars on trains that are carrying "Forever-Damaging Chemicals" - YES. Trains carrying potentially dangerous hazmat need to be shorter and able to allow more scrutiny from the train crew and all others responsible to operate safely instead of ending up with what we all saw with the disposal problems in the EP derailment aftermath.

Another thought remembering that vinyl chloride used in manufacture of some plastics was involved: Should we all be looking into reducing the use of plastics of all types? This Yahoo article stood out to me - https://yahoo.com/news/ohio-train-derai ... 41856.html
The low recycling rate overall of plastic waste needs to be increased as one example...MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote:
I noted some thoughts in Mr. Coaltrain's post that I quoted about communication between the head end and
DPU need to be further probed to see if there was any way that the DPU may have kept shoving the consist to
derail in the manner that it did after the initial 23rd car had broken away from the front of the train.

Snipet from the NTSB Prelim Report:

'Train 32N was operating with a dynamic brake application as the train passed a wayside defect detector on the east side of Palestine, Ohio, at milepost (MP) 49.81. [4] The wayside defect detector, or hot bearing detector (HBD), transmitted a critical audible alarm message instructing the crew to slow and stop the train to inspect a hot axle. The train engineer increased the dynamic brake application to further slow and stop the train. During this deceleration, an automatic emergency brake application initiated, and train 32N came to a stop.'

Not sure of how DPU works completely but, at worst I would think it would have been in idle, at best, assisting in the dynamic braking effort.

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 12:19 pm Another thought remembering that vinyl chloride used in manufacture of some plastics was involved: Should we all be looking into reducing the use of plastics of all types? This Yahoo article stood out to me - https://yahoo.com/news/ohio-train-derai ... 41856.html
The low recycling rate overall of plastic waste needs to be increased as one example...MACTRAXX

This comment strikes me as shifting of the blame for the accident onto the materials being transported. DOT requires materials such as vinyl chloride to be shipped only by rail because historically railroads are the safest mode of transport and NS is solely responsible for the proper operation of their railroad.

"When the explosions ended and the fires died, when the chlorine was transloaded into trucks and the evacuees returned, the air was angry with accusation and question and frustration. For instance: Why didn't a hotbox detector catch the overheated journal? Who's liable?

...No matter what the lawmakers decide, legislation is unlikely to repeal or prevent the basics of the transport of hazardous materials. ....[this incident} is a signal that operating department strategies must be re-examined in terms of how hazardous materials are handled in terms of consist separation, train inspection, speed and routing."

Source of those quotes? TRAINS magazine, February 1980, regarding the derailment of Canadian Pacific train 54 in Mississauga ON.

CRB: In what manner was I trying to blame "Vinyl Chloride" or any other hazmat involved in the EP derailment?
Were you referring to the news link that I posted about debate over the transport of hazardous chemicals?

In this matter I fully agree that rail is the safest way to transport such cargo - but after the tremendous amount
of negative media coverage try telling that to those affected from the EP wreck and past tragedies...

BR&P: Interesting mention from 43 years ago about the November 10, 1979 Mississauga, Ontario derailment...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Miss ... derailment
The cause was a friction bearing failure - Friction bearings were mostly phased out of use by the late 1970s.
That was big news in both the US and Canada back then - Mississauga, ON is just west of Toronto...

Everyone: A pet peeve that I have is the now commonly-used term "Train Car(s)" which I strongly dislike.
"Rail Car" sounds better - and "Freight Car" offers an initial generic definition for the variety of car types.

From looking up and down the various RR.Net Forums I do not know where a discussion about the use of definitions and commonly-used terms for rail equipment would be placed to debate this subject - I know that it is NOT here and want to remain on topic...MACTRAXX
(Reason for editing: Text change and link addition)

Volks, how could an, albeit serious, train derailment in which only damage to railroad property occurred (this ain't a Megantic or Weyauwega), become such a circus for media, politicians, and of course "Glen Lerner is the lawyer for you"?

Enquiring mind, now home from his Florida road trip, wants to know.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Volks, how could an, albeit serious, train derailment in which only damage to railroad property occurred (this ain't a Megantic or Weyauwega), become such a circus for media, politicians, and of course "Glen Lerner is the lawyer for you"?

Enquiring mind, now home from his Florida road trip, wants to know.

Actually I'd draw a pretty sharp contrast between Lac Megantic and Weyauwega. The first involved terrible loss of life. Weyauwega saw loss of some nearby businesses, and secondary damage to many homes due to frozen pipes during the long evacuation, but there were no deaths and if I recall, not even any injuries from the wreck.

But you are correct, we now are in such volatile times that anything and everything is seized to make political hay.

https://www.railwayage.com/freight/a-ve ... ys-future/

A Veteran Railroader’s Perspective on East Palestine and the Rail Industry’s Future

As a long-retired railroad president and current rail and transportation aficionado—but certainly not an expert—I was encouraged by a friend to offer my perspective on the Norfolk Southern freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

Much criticism has been directed at Norfolk Southern. While it is understandable that the locals are very concerned, the media has had a field day quoting misinformed and agenda-advancing “experts” on rail safety, “corporate greed” and environmental degradation.

Let me say from the outset that I have never been to East Palestine, nor am I familiar with NS operations at that location, But I do know a little bit about the rail industry and its recent history, including train operations. While my days of hands-on rail operations are long gone, some principles are timeless. Here in Richmond, Va., I observe NS operations and maintenance, and I have every reason to believe that the quality of maintenance and operation on that Ohio line segment was exceptionally high.

First, I shall speculate on the origins of the suspected ill-fated railcar bearing/wheelset assembly that apparently failed on Feb. 3. The loads of vinyl chloride originated a long distance from where NS picked up the train at interchange, destined undoubtedly to a PVC or other plastics manufacturer in the Northeast for ultimate consumption and conversion into a finished product for U.S. consumers. Thus, we all have a stake in the process of transporting vinyl chloride and other related chemical products classified as hazardous materials (hazmat). Such chemical products are used in the manufacture of thousands of products eagerly purchased and consumed by the general public.
...

ABC news is reporting that NS has refused to join the Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS).

It's parallel to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. Both are run by NASA to be separate from the regulatory agencies involved, and provide a way for employees to report safety issues without retaliation. NS isn't alone, it seems, as no major rail carrier has joined.

I'd never heard of C3RS, but know ASRS changed the whole tenor of aviation safety. Crew became able to report near-misses without fear, and did so. Thus the underlying issues behind the close call got attention. Both general aviation and Part 91 pilots I've asked called it the biggest safety improvement in their careers.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-train-de ... d=97510854

Im curious what the average temperature of a roller bearing should be on a fully loaded plastic pellet hopper that has been rolling track speed for 3+ hours? A lot of hay has been made of the differential in bearing temps reported by consecutive defect detectors. But is the jump from 38 to 103 really an issue if the normal rolling temp is 90 degrees for that type of loaded car running 45 mph?