Big train derailment in East Palestine OH
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'Like the Doors of Hell Were Open': East Palestine Train Disaster Casts Toxic Cloud Over Future of OH/PA Region - UNICORN RIOT
Vinyl Chloride & Byproducts like Phosgene Risk Damaging Wide Area
unicornriot.ninja
EPA isn’t involved in any decisions as the Governor of Ohio hasn’t requested federal assistance. I’m sure they’re monitoring the situation though. The Governor authorized the release and burn at the request of NS.
Earlier on Monday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he approved the operation of the "controlled release" at the site in East Palestine, Ohio. The alternative — possibly waiting until the cars break down themselves — would have been more difficult to manage, according to DeWine.
"We had to weigh different risks with no great choices," he said.
Maybe they did and it was ignored. These wayside defect detectors just have an automated voice that transmits on a railroad frequency that anyone with a scanner within range can hear. It says something like "200 axles, no defects" if it didn't detect a problem.
There’s been talk about requiring electronically actuated brakes instead of the traditional linked airbrake system. This load ended up jackknifing, possibly from the weight distribution and the braking delay. I get that there are ways of dumping the air remotely at different points, but it’s probably not as even as if they could all be simultaneously braked.
Owen Lucas
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Wow, you were one of the last brakemen of a bygone era. Pretty cool! Assuming you worked an entire career, did you start off or work with steam engine trains? Did you sleep and cook in the caboose or were these just day stints?
Anyway, supposedly the track sensors alerted the crew of a bad axle and they were trying to figure out which car it was when the wreck happened. Maybe they should have stopped the train immediately?
I don’t know what happened but there was a house nearby with a surveillance camera pointing at the tracks that had the footage reviewed and it indicated a mechanical failure.
Regardless, this is a horrible mess and all surfaces, including inside the homes, have to be wiped down. Maybe Centralia 2.0?
Video of a grain car that veered onto side tracks due to a broken axle. Of course the oncoming train could not stop, rammed the wagon, and went off the rails, appears to have stayed upright though!
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That's crazy. The companies and employees are going to get off scott while the residents have the suffer with the cleanup and mess.
I had a part time and summer job in college where I worked in the rail transportation industry. This was way back (Southern Pacific still existed and was headquartered in San Francisco at One Market), but I did assorted things include research billing, accounts payable, and tracking cars. The latter was distinctly old school, where I'd call 800 numbers and enter the container or rail car number and I'd get automated updates on the location. The one thing I found remarkable was that there was no surcharge for shipping hazardous materials. The only requirement when we sent out a shipment with hazardous materials was that it be properly described when dispatched, and with proper signage.
I guess I was, but of course when you hired out you assumed what you were experiencing was the norm. When I hired out cabooses, kerosene stoves, lanterns and hand signals were all we had. Typical crew was an engineer, conductor and two brakemen. The brakemen would ‘bail out’ at each curve in the track to be able to relay hand signals via lantern to the engineer in the locomotive. It was a unique job that I will forever cherish.
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It's really terrible.
No,
yes I’ve seen this video. At one point you can hear the engineer notify the tower that ‘we are everywhere’ meaning we’re derailed all over the place. And then the engineer advises the conductor to ‘ grab his portable’ before they bailed out of the locomotive. That’s what we used to call 2 way radios when they first came into use.
yes I’ve seen this video. At one point you can hear the engineer notify the tower that ‘we are everywhere’ meaning we’re derailed all over the place. And then the engineer advises the conductor to ‘ grab his portable’ before they bailed out of the locomotive. That’s what we used to call 2 way radios when they first came into use.
Both the state and federal EPA were at the press meetings they had.
Owen, you sound like a railroad buff. Let me tell you my time on the railroad was such a throwback in time. I hired out in May 1977. Boxcars still had the overhead foot paths where a generation of earlier brakemen walked overhead from one end to the other. We cooked on kerosene stoves. To run a train against the normal direction of travel we were delivered train orders held up by long poles to reach the passing locomotives so we didn’t have to stop. Hand brakes on each car were secured by hand spinning a spoked wheel until tight and then securing it by fitting your boot heel into a spoke and using your leg strength to cinch it tight. I could go on. Riding on a GG1 on a road trip to Baltimore. Worked many yards in New Jersey. Elizabeth port, Oak Island in Newark , Stiles Street yard in Linden servicing the General Motors assembly plant. I gotta stop. What a great job.
The swift trucking of trains! Aren't they required to stop and look when hauling hazmat like trucks are?
It counts the cars and tells you via the radio transmission (jn plain voice that any scanner can receive) the axle number that had a defect.
I would assume that they'd have a list of cars and their axle numbers in the consist. But then again, it is Norfolk Southern.
It sounds like the only legal difference between having hazmat on a train versus not, is carrying a little more paperwork.
Owen Lucas
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Yes, I am indeed a rail buff. Not to the level of filming or tracking trains, but when we were kids and heard a train coming, we ran to the tracks. The Conrail trains would sometimes stop on a siding or near a convenience store and we’d talk to the conductors, they were friendly but wouldn’t let us into the cab lol.
There is something about these monoliths on rails, almost autonomous but alive, the mechanics of it and the history. Walking on old tracks next to dilapidated telegraph lines and finding coal near the tracks from the steam era. There is a romance to it.
Those are some amazing memories you have and definitely something I’d brag about. You have a lot of material for a YouTube channel, talking about your experiences, even narrating photos, no need to be on camera. Anyway, that’s some Wild West stuff with the lanterns and caboose life. Thank you for sharing!
They were used for controlling signals (code lines) long after they stopped using the telegraph. AT&T also had something called O-Carrier, which sent long distance calls over open wire like that found next to railroads. I've never been able to confirm if AT&T actually had O-Carrier running next to railroads, but railroads today often have AT&T fiber running next to them so it seems likely...
These days, the control signals actually go through the rails themselves. One system that does this is called Genrakode.
Another interesting hobby is collecting railroad tie date nails. If you have access to abandoned lines you can spot date nails driven into the ties They are nail shaped and have a broad head embossed with a two digit number indicating the year the ties were installed. Track workers carried a sack of these and periodically hammered then into the ties to keep track of the age of the wooden ties to help with timely replacement. Thats it, I’m done.
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