Now, once again, give me the argument against pipelines and in favor of shipping oil on trains.
Let us also recall that in addition to this there were other oil train disasters of lesser severity.
https://www.apnews.com/84b1e8273d854697b34af57bc60badc2
5
"When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? In this series, The Times is going back to the scene of major news events to see if those promises were kept."
In this series, is there a chance you could tell us BEFORE PARAGRAPH 4.5 whether the disaster in the headline just happened, or happened six years ago?
2
Has no one ever thought of using chocks? When I worked at the airlines we chocked every airplane every time it wasn’t moving. I guess they are too high tech for railroads.
4
The problem, for freight or commuters, is that the design of the rail road system is a centuries old relic. Pulling (or pushing) train cars along on two metal rails 4' 8.5 " inches apart subject to wash-outs, broken rails/ties, debris on the track, among other things is a recipe for a dangerous derailment. While it is difficult to argue against the low friction efficiency of steel against steel, the entire railroad system, particularly in urban areas, presents formidable issues.
3
I believe NY State requires owners of the trains to carry higher insurance to cover the disasters. Also make the tank cars double haul as ships do to prevent leakage on impact
2
In La Crosse, WI a grassroots group, Citizens Advocating for Rail Safety (CARS),fought the railroad(BNSF). BNSF wanted to improve their line so they could ship more Bakken Crude. I live 750 feet from the line, which on a good day, shipped 8 train loads (109 cars) of crude per day. In La Crosse County @ 30,000 people live within the 1 mile blast zone.
We found out that the railroad is a quasi military operation that has 150 years of power in DC. The railroad is almost a government by itself. There is no state control of a class 1 railroad. They can pretty much do what they want.
And You cannot do anything about it.
9
Before the disaster, due to the pressure to get the engine running again as soon as possible and at a lower cost, the engine was repaired with an epoxy-like material that lacked the required strength and durability. The repair caused an early engine failure that provoked the first fire that night. The responding firemen had to shut down the engine to extinguish it, which caused the air-breaks to lose pressure.
Just another egregious case of a disaster caused by a business that was trying to save money and skimp on security, while citizens had to pay for the consequences with their lives, their health, and their taxes. Just one more of the many corporations that keep calling for the end of "job-killing" regulations.
11
I notice that this article does not mention the word "pipeline" once. Are not pipelines a much safer way to transport oil and gas products? Has not the environmental movement intervened to slow or stop the building of pipelines, thus exposing the public to greater danger?
35
@Peter Blau If either the federal or Quebec governments had promised to build a pipeline to Eastern Canada, it would have been part of the story. They did not. Also the Bakken fields at the U.S. end of the train's trip generally had a severe lack of pipeline capacity six years ago and relied on rail instead.
16
@Peter Blau even brand new pipelines leak. That is why natural gas is no great environmental step up from coal, a lot of it leaks from the pipes and the industry fights tooth and nail against effective leak detection requirements. Natural gas itself is a environmental disaster. It’s only advantage is it burns cleaner than coal, if it ever gets to the flame. I’m not sure of the leakage rate but it is significant.
18
Right now, the next railway tragedy is on the oil burner in a town near you. Local and national autorities will spin it and label it : 'A perfect storm of unpredictable events.'
Humans, small towns... disposable units for more profits.
The total cost of the Lac-Mégantic derailment will exceed $200 millions ; Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway had $25 million in liability insurance and $274,000 in its bank accounts at the time of bankruptcy filing in august of 2013.
7
This week on New York times I read "A runaway train explosion killed 47, but deadly cargo still rides the rail". This article was written by Ian Austen on July 16, 2019. I found this article interesting because a cargo was carrying more than one million gallons of fuel that exploded and killed a number of people. This accident lights a path for the future to find faster but more safe ways of carrying fuel throughout different cities. This was a tragic event that happened today that killed a number of people. Due to this event, transportation of cargo can be improved in the future.
1
Don’t park trains on hills and then leave them unattended?
7
Good analysis, keep going.
Why does the Quebec Premier keep blocking the proposed
East-West pipeline...the safest and most efficient way
to transport petroleum?
6
@David Andrew Henry, He is getting greased. He prefers to have tankers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence coming from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, Angola, and Nigeria to name a few countries. In fact, 66% of the Québécois have stated, in polls after polls, that they want to get their oil from Western Canada. Where does the premier of Quebec think the money for the transfer payments come from??? Go figure. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. Talk about promoting Canadian unity. Not!!!
2
Greens are blocking pipeline construction without thinking about the only alternative way of getting oil to market: rail. Trains dirtier, pricier and more dangerous than pipeline transportation. Plus, they crowd out rail space previously going to grain transport, raising food prices. Finally, unless my fellow liberals want to cancel their biennial international yoga retreats, using Canadian oil to fuel their flights to Bali will remain preferable to importing the Saudi stuff.
3
We either ship by train, semitrailer, barge or pipeline. There are risks in all shipping to people and environment. I believe pipeline is the best and safest way to transport oil, gasoline, natural gas, propane and other distillates. But, pipelines have become a political football, and so trains have become the fallback, because pipeline approval has become near impossible.
Something has to give, because train transport of hazardous fluids does not make sense. Pipelines make far better sense of all the alternatives. Agreed there is still risk, but wiping out an entire town or city is far less likely.
12
The public doesn’t trust pipelines because it doesn’t trust the companies that build them, forcing them through poor communities. Ever seen a pipeline proposed to bisect a gated community? Anyone? Bueller? Didn’t think so.
The public overreacts to train transport because of accidents like this and horribly lame responses from industry and government. (Zillions if tons of dangerous and potentially dangerous materials are transported safely zillions of miles across the country every day.)
If industry and government would actually make real safety reform - spending more than their shareholders want on safeguards - and act with respect toward citizens, they might find citizens more willing to accept fuel pipelines and rail transport of hazardous materials.
5
That same train, carrying the same cargo, still goes through Plattsburgh, where many homes were built quite close to the track, including several senior citizens communities, and continues south along the Lake Champlain coastline as it always has. Except now the President has rescinded the order for special brakes, so it’s even more dangerous for us.
19
People love their fuel. They just don’t like to get it there. Pipelines make way more sense. They’re far from perfect but the enviros have convinced everybody they’re terrible, just terrible.
6
@Harry -- Slam "enviros" if you want, but we're the ones trying to break our dependence on fossil fuels. Solar panels or windmills don't have blast zones, toxic waste, or kill people.
13
@Stevenz Solar panels or windmills do not even come close to meeting our energy requirements.
2
@Lorne
Only because it's not been implemented on a large scale. It's unfair to say that they don't come close to meeting our energy requirements when they aren't used at national levels to power our lives the way fossil fuels do.
3
Appreciate this follow up on this major railway disaster! I would appreciate another in-depth article by the NYTimes on the situation closer to (my) home - here in the US. The statement by the Federal Railway Administration doesn't exactly inspire confidence that all is well under control stateside. What kind and what amounts of toxic or otherwise dangerous freight travels by train through densely populated areas here in the US? Shining light on it now might spur action that prevents reading about such disasters after they occurred. When it comes to such deadly accidents, no news is indeed good news!
8
I can barely imagine what these people went through. Practically every Citizen of Lac Mégantic lost one or more loved ones and friends too. Governements, provincial and federal prmissed quick action. Here we are, five years later and....nothing ! Every time a train goes by must be a nightmare for people living close to the railway. 47 lives taken in vain ? I hope not.
17
This story only proves once again how the value and safety of human life always comes second to money, profit and the rights of corporations. It is also a cruel and dispiriting indictment on the failure of politicians, regardless of their affiliation, to act in the best interests of their constituents and citizens in general.
The Conservative Party under Stephen Harper failed to act decisively and now that failure extends to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.
This is also a cautionary tale of what happens when the governmental institutions tasked with looking out for the public's safety, abrogate that responsibility and contract it out to corporations...
8
@loco73
This failure did not start with Harper, and will not end with the Liberals.
Canadian laws have always favored corporations since Canada was founded. Macdonald while serving as the first PM was simultaneously president of Manulife, the largest insurance company.
Conflict of interest and self-serving laws for corporations have been part of the Canadian identity since its founding.
You have Loblaws "admit" to price fixing bread for decades. Zero punishment or consumer restitution takes place.
You have the most litigious man the country, Barry Sherman, founder of Apotex, the biggest generics drug company repeatedly produce tainted drugs for the Canadian market. No fines, no orders to stop and clean up his act.
On the contrary, Sherman is hailed as a hero and given the highest honor by the Governor General. The American government correctly banned him from selling his tainted drugs to the US market, because American regulators were not open to his bribes.
New Brunswick is a fiefdom for the Irving family, controlling everything from natural resources to shipping to newspapers. The last Vice Admiral of the Navy was fired by PM Trudeau because he had the gall to stop yet another Irving ship building contract that Trudeau's cabinet promised them.
Had it not been for the SNC-Lavalin bribery scandal, that would have been front page news. But of course Trudeau put a lid on it by bribing the reporter who broke the story with a cushy director-level job in government.
8
No failures such as these didn't start with Harper and won't end with Trudeau indeed. They are just the latest exhibits in a long line of politicians who have failed Canadians. I was just citing them specifically for the Lake Megantique tragedy.
This story only proves once again how the value and safety of human life always comes second to money, profit and the rights of corporations. It is also a cruel and dispiriting indictment on the failure of politicians, regardless of their affiliation, to act in the best interests of their constituents and citizens in general.
The Conservative Party under Stephen Harper failed to act decisively and now that failure extends to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.
This is also a cautionary tale of what happens when the governmental institutions tasked with looking out for the public's safety, abrogate that responsibility and contract it out to corporations...
4
This story only proves once again how the value and safety of human life always comes second to money, profit and the rights of corporations. It is also a cruel and dispiriting indictment on the failure of politicians, regardless of their affiliation, to act in the best interests of their constituents and citizens in general.
The Conservative Party under Stephen Harper failed to act decisively and now that failure extends to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.
This is also a cautionary tale of what happens when the governmental institutions tasked with looking out for the public's safety, abrogate that responsibility and contract it out to corporations...
1
This story only proves once again how the value and safety of human life always comes second to money, profit and the rights of corporations. It is also a cruel and dispiriting indictment on the failure of politicians, regardless of their affiliation, to act in the best interests of their constituents and citizens in general.
The Conservative Party under Stephen Harper failed to act decisively and now that failure extends to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.
This is also a cautionary tale of what happens when the governmental institutions tasked with looking out for the public's safety, abrogate that responsibility and contract it out to corporations...
1
how cheap can a company be to employ only a single man responsible for transporting what must have been millions of dollars worth of fuel? How much would each additional hire hurt their bottom line?
18
@Seanathan
Its crazy to not have 2 in the cab for a trane that is a mile or 2 in length. This is what happens when union execs. become corp. board members and think about their bonus more then the membership.
3
Meanwhile, no train was carrying sunshine and air, and it neither crashed nor exploded.
1
Very misleading article and poorly researched. Alas, modern journalism. The focus of the coordinated regulation between Canada and the US was NEVER routing. The problem is that rail infrastructure does not have ring-roads. In fact, most of rail is specifically designed to deliver materials to city centers.
The major safety gains are from the new design DOT-117 rail cars and new braking technology that significantly reduces the chance of derailments. Both were tested before the regulations were made. In terms of the implementation timeline, Canada and the US adopted the MOST aggressive timeline thought possible at the time because the new rail cars NEEDED TO BE BUILT. That's right, they did not exists, and it may come as a shock, you cannot replace two countries fleets of rail tanker cars instantaneously.
There are thousands of pages of documentation on the US DOT website regarding all these matters.
19
@Joe Schmoe The article does not indicate that rerouting was a focus of coordinated regulations. Canada introduced the measure, which is similar but not identical to the US system, on its own following Parliamentary hearings.
21
Railroads carry all sorts of hazardous materials every day through every city and town in America. Our lifestyle is built on these materials being available and cheap. In addition there is the extensive use by the military of the railroads for the transport of their hazardous materials.
Most of the time local officials have no idea what is going through their towns, they only find out when something goes wrong and they are trying the deal with the aftermath. Large cities have the advantage of lots of equipment and training. Small towns can find themselves overwhelmed by the scale of a major disaster that has suddenly arrived.
Not shipping these materials by rail is really not an option. Making safer cars and vessels for holding hazardous materials is an option but at a cost. Lastly where does one draw the line? A gasoline or natural gas car is obvious, what about 50 cars of grain? Both groups are explosive given the right conditions. This is not a simple problem.
6
The same people who are outraged by the fact that trains continue to carry dangerous liquids through populated areas likely object to the far sFer alternative of pipelines.
12
It amazes me that a trainload of toxic material would be parked overnight on the railroad's main track - on a grade! A relief crew should have met this train and taken it to its next terminal or crew change point. If not possible, the train should have been parked in a yard where a derail could have been set to keep the train from re-entering the main unexpectedly. Bad practice, poor management, tragic results.
51
Why does that amaze you? It was allowed and it was the lowest cost option. The only time safety pays is when it averts an accident. It’s more profitable to be unsafe and keep your fingers crossed.
5
@Bob From Maine
Bob nails it here......... "parked on grade" unattended is beyond crazy. Also crazy is letting mgt. rely on a single operator in the cab to increase profits.
It appears the RR unions in Canada have been reduced to corporate partners in permiting a single operator in the cab of a trane with a total weight of 10-15,000 tons.
Most people don't relate to figures like that, but think of it as a string of trailer trucks a mile or more in length.
The RR unions have been reduced in US also, same ol same ol reason .........max. profits.
20
@Bob From Maine
The article fails to explain that a poor engine repair performed with epoxy was the first link of a long chain
of events. When the engineer had to leave the train, the engine started a fire due to the improper repair. When the firemen shut down the engine to extinguish it, the breaks started to lose pressure. Shortly after, the train started its crazy race downhill.
Why was the repair made with epoxy? To save money and time to get the locomotive back in service. Corporate greed, called by companies clamoring for the elimination of "job-killing" regulations.
10
At my workplace shop workers can't even work a half hour of overtime without another worker being there with them, in case of an injury or other issue. And yet this freight train carrying petroleum crude oil, 72 tanks at 30,000 gallons each tank, was allowed to travel through populated areas of the US and Canada. That's over 2 million gallons of oil, ferried by one lone, tired ferryman.
36
I've been making annual visits to the region and staying in Lac-Megantic for the past four years. The accident was the first thing I heard about when checking into the hotel for the first time. While there is a scar in the middle, it's no ghost town. I admire the resilience of its residents and look forward to seeing the town continue rebuild and rebound.
4
In my hometown of Amsterdam, NY, 18 trains/ day come into the city on rails along the banks of the Mohawk river. At least half of those trains are carrying the same toxic, flammable liquids that blew up this town in Quebec. I have counted up to 80 tanker cars on 1 train. At a town hall meeting 5 years ago , held by the 20th congressional rep, Paul Tonko, I asked him about what could be done about this huge safety problem for Amsterdam, his hometown also. he said "don't worry Rich, we will be all solar, hydro and wind power very soon and won't need these this type of energy. I got up and left. Vote Paul Tonko out of office in 2020, Please.
10
What a tragedy this was. 47 people died horrible deaths, and a town was destroyed. The environment damage is severe.
The accident was entirely preventable, the result of negligence at many levels. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, none of those responsible for the accident was found criminally liable.
From what I've read, most of the blame should go to the senior executives of the railroad, in particular its president, Edward Burkhardt who, to save costs, allowed one man crews to operate enormous trains carrying dangerous cargo.
As the article points out, the accident occurred because the train's single operator, the engineer, failed to properly set the train's handbrakes, and the train's air brake, which requires compressed air to function, failed when the train's engine was shut off by firefighters due to an engine fire. Setting the hand brakes on a train is difficult, as it must be done manually on multiple cars, one at a time, and it may have been unreasonable to expect a single operator to properly set them. The engineer was also supposed to test that the handbrakes were properly set, but may have failed to do so.
The engineer faced criminal charges but was acquitted; the rail road executives appear not to have faced criminal prosecution.
There was also a failure of regulation and regulators, who seem to have failed at their job.
I usually am sympathetic to corporations, and appreciate the job most of them do. But not here. Not by any means.
57
In other news, solar panels and wind turbines from six years ago still get a daily delivery of free fuel without the need for trains, pipelines, or military subsidies.
15
@Vote with your pocketbook
In still other news, photo-voltaic panels and wind turbines have never once provided the raw materials for over 100,000 products we use every day, many of which come from the oil and gas industry.
3
@Vote with your pocketbook
Indeed, and the industrialization of the vast amounts of land unsightly wind and solar farms need to make them even slightly worthwhile is a blight on the environment.
Someone’s going to have to clean up those messes someday.
1
The abandonment of many rural rail lines should not have been allowed, as having these provides alternative routes. It may be necessary to provide funding to reroute freight lines, but that will only help passenger service. Even where railroad-yards were built in undeveloped areas, development spread around them. The US government still owes railroads help from depleting their resources in World War II and not helping them rebuild. That is what ultimately forced Amtrak into existence.
10
It is interesting/stupid that the political leadership of Quebec and much of the Canadian political leadership based out of Quebec became and remain opposed to pipelines despite this disaster.
To me it is shameful that these politicians don't appear to have the courage to admit the a few things:
- most of us like to drive cars and need to eat food that comes from more than 2 miles away.
- moving ourselves and our food (still) requires fossil fuels.
- pipelines are the safest and most efficient method of moving crude petroleum to refineries which produce our fossil fuels.
Maybe those basic premises need to be articulated more clearly to our political leaders.
20
That’s because pipelines leak millions of litres more when they rupture than a single train accident. They haven’t built a pipeline yet that hasn’t leaked, and nobody has found a company willing to clean up their own mess in either the petroleum or chemical company industries.
12
@Tony Lewis. In Michigan there is a political battle to shut down a pipeline that runs under the straits of mackinaw . The pipeline is Canadian owned and operated. The same company that let their pipeline empty into the Kalamazoo river for 13 hours before it was shut off. The damage has still not been corrected many years later. The damage to the greatest freshwater lakes in the world if it were to suffer a pipeline rupture are completely unimaginable. Shut down pipeline 5 now! If anything has been proven in the past history of the petrochemical industry it is that disasters are just part of the cost of doing business and of course showing a profit.
2
This is not just a problem for Canadians. Trains carrying highly volatile crude oil (the same cargo carried by the train that derailed in Lac-Megantic) go thru many US cities and towns and there have been a number of derailment accidents here.
About 25 crude oil trains come through my town each week, coming from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and headed towards refineries further east. It's easy to spot these trains: black tankers, coming from the west, moving slowly (because they're full) with a UN hazardous materials sign on each car (the red-bordered diamond shape) with the number 1267. If the cars are coming from the east and moving more quickly, they're empty, returning to North Dakota.
8
@lc
I've watched them roll through about 100 yards from PNC Park during Pirates games, immediately adjacent to the convention center during conventions, and close to hotels and apartment buildings.
The sharp curve near the bus station always made me particularly nervous.
I'm afraid this is a major accident waiting to happen, whether in Pittsburgh or some other large city.
15
To see this in the US, come to the Schuykill river east bank in Philadelphia where trains to the refineries carry both the petroleum and the chemicals for gasoline synthesis right through town. An example of the potential risks happened not too long ago at the refinery: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/21/philadelphia-oil-refinery-fire/?utm_term=.afea4c7c7baa
1
Not the best NYT has done. The author failed to mention that fracked crude oil and crude from Oilsands are disasters waiting to happen, a witches cauldron of bubbling propane and other volatiles, literally boiling at room temperature.
Crude oil typically is quite safe to move by rail, it doesn't explode and is hard to catch on fire, and it burns slowly.
The two types of oil I mentioned are none of that. And that is what was being carried in the explosion. Had that been crude, it would have been a relatively minor event.
But Canada is the heart of liberalism on the North American Continent. I'm sure this could not have happened.
4
We had a conservative PM at that time, but thanks for trying to polarize this...
13
One word.
Pipelines.
They rarely break, the are more efficient, and they are safer. Why liberals oppose them is beyond my comprehension.
15
They always break and always leak more before they notice than is typically lost in the very few train accidents that do occur.
7
Except a pipeline leak has yet to erase an entire town. Transporting millions of gallons of hazardous fluids on trains versus pipelines is insane. They don’t do this in Europe, they use pipelines.
4
@Shend tell that to the parents of the teenage couple that parked to smooch and when they started their car to leave were incinerated because of a natural gas pipeline leak.
1
If the goal of our society is too have no accidental deaths, then we might as well all kill ourselves and give up because only in a world without humans will we ever have no humans die in accidents.
I see the increasing value placed on individual human lives as a very slippery slope where we can soon find ourselves unable to really do anything since that poses risk. See DeBlasio's vision zero, and the PC world for more examples where prioritizing the few over the many seem to be taking precedence.
1
@Yeet
You speak of this as if we're debating the safest surface for playgrounds in wealthy communities or participation trophies. Yeah, this is exactly like that (eyeroll).
Here's part of the account of the accident from wikipedia.
People on the terrace at Musi-Café—a bar located next to the centre of the explosions—saw the tank cars leave the track and fled as a blanket of oil generated a ball of fire three times the height of the downtown buildings. Between four and six explosions were reported initially[80] as tank cars ruptured and crude oil escaped along the train's trajectory. Heat from the fires was felt as far as 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) away. People jumped from the third floor of buildings in the central business district to escape the fire. As the blazing oil flowed over the ground, it entered the town's storm sewer and emerged as huge fires towering from other storm sewer drains, manholes, and even chimneys and basements of buildings in the area.
The Musi-Café owner says that some employees and patrons felt the tremors of the train and thought it was an earthquake. They went out and started running. Other patrons and employees told some survivors that the tremors were an earthquake and that it would be better to stay under a table. Of those that went out, not all survived. Some were not able to outrun a "tsunami of fire".
6
This is the exact kind of article that really needs to have a discussion with industry before putting it out. Here are several reasons why.
Everyone has 20/20 hindsight. It's so easy to lob criticism.
But what to do to fix the problem? People need that fuel. They have to transport it somehow. If you want extra people, fine. If you want electronic brakes, fine. You want to go around cities, fine. You want to change what cars they use, fine.
But no change is perfect. You put two people on that train, it'll be more expensive and it's only a matter of time before they start nodding off because the other guy has it, and then that guy falls asleep too. We put in electronic brakes only to find out they're not infallible either, they can fail with a software update or induced voltage or shorted lead or something. You want to go around cities to find out that no one builds a railroad that goes around every town in Canada and if you want to build a new one it's a $100 million dollar project that will take four more years. You want to use different cars only to find out that pretty much any steel is going to fail when you crash it into a wall with 1000 tons of train car behind it.
As everyone continues to use power, they're going to find out that getting energy into your home is a ton of work and it will always have the potential of releasing that energy. We pretend like you snap your fingers and fairies turn on your furnace and lights. It's not grounded in the real world.
4
Since day one the railroads have done everything in their collective power to thwart safety measures, all the while they have reaped billions in profits hauling every known type of dangerous cargo through cities and towns worldwide. They appear to be untouchable, in the name of interstate commerce, which prohibits states and local municipalities from legislating any rules or reg's on these companies. Now with unions in decline, the railroad workers will once again be put in a position of risking not only their own lives, but also the lives of everyone living near a rail line. Railroads are an efficient means of moving certain products, but not if we don't enforce strong safety and work rules.
5
I investigated the site of the Kingman Arizona disaster on my honeymoon in 1975. I worked on the Kaprun ski train disaster and If taught lots of students engineering ethics. NOTHING absolutely NOTHING will improve unless all the leading.firms in an industry are financially responsibile for a disaster. Tehy collaborate to keep regulations soft and therefore shulod all pay when the disaster occurs.
18
This accident report has never passed the 'smell test'. That's because all trains in Canada rely on a fail-safe Westinghouse braking system. In that system, the brakes on all cars are applied if there is a loss of air pressure in the breaking system.
The train in this case was left unattended by the engineer with the engine running, at the top of a hill outside Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Unfortunately, the Railway Investigation Report R13D0054 never cites human error as the principle cause of the accident. Instead, it lists a large number of systemic problems, which are attributed to deregulation. But the Engineer in this case had the moral responsibility to do his job, and to operate this train in a safe manner. He should have been charged with manslaughter.
The accident report includes a number of inconsistencies in regard to the braking system, which only serve to obfuscate the basic problem. For example:
"1.1 The accident [...] With no locomotive running, the air in the train’s brake system slowly began to be depleted, resulting in a reduction in the retarding force holding the train."
"1.9.1 Automatic brakes [...] When an automatic brake application is required, the LE moves the automatic brake handle to the desired position. This action removes air from the brake pipe. As each car’s air brake valve senses a sufficient difference in pressure, air flows from a reservoir located on each car into that car’s brake cylinder, applying the brake shoes to the wheels."
19
@W, For any crisis, the mouthpieces of the Oligarchs tend to blame the worker rather than examine if there were any systemic problems that caused the crisis in the first place. Your shallow and unsubstantiated arguments couched in a seemingly technical language are in exact same vein. Kudos to the erstwhile Canadian government for a comprehensive evaluation of the issue and not falling prey to the "blame the worker" syndrome.
10
@W You are forgetting the Fire Department that shut off the power.
4
@W There are two kind of air brake systems on North American trains. The automatic brake system developed by George Westinghouse, as you say, applies brake shoes when there’s a loss of pressure throughout the braking system. But automatic brakes are for stopping moving trains. They cannot hold parked trains in place, particularly on grades. So after coming to a stop that night in Nantes, the engineer used the locomotives' independent air brakes along with handbrakes. The independent air brake is a kind of parking brake but it is activated by increasing air pressure rather than releasing it. When the lead locomotives where shut down, that air pressure bled away and the independent braking system released. The inadequate number of applied hand brakes then failed to hold the train.
50
The first paragraph in the article:
"When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? In this series, The Times is going back to the scene of major news events to see if those promises were kept."
The first thing that immediately comes to mind about promises not kept by "those in power" is the tragedy in Flint, Michigan. Hundreds or thousands of live basically ruined by water poisoned with toxic levels of lead.
Then governor of Michigan Rick Snider, first downplayed the severity of the problem, then promised to fix it.
When he did basically nothing, president Barack Obama showed up and staged a disgusting and insulting photo op. He promised that the federal government would do whatever it takes to fix the problem once and for all. Once again, pretty much nothing has been done. Thousands of cases of bottled water have been distributed. Families are still without clean water and their health continues to decline.
NYT, please include this horrific example in your reporting on promises not kept.
29
@r2d2 The Flint water crisis was entirely caused by the local government. 1st, they chose to build a water treatment plant instead of simply importing water from Detroit. They were responded to Federal grants, which creates an incentive to build unneeded infrastructure as jobs creation packages. Had the water from Detroit been continued, the pH wouldn't have changed and the 100 year old pipes wouldn't have leached lead.
Tragic issue, nonetheless, but local greed is the prime cause.
7
@James
Snider installed an “emergency” City Manager in Flint, who then worked with Snider and assorted other low life to push for and build a second pipeline. Yes, agreed, local greed/ corruption. The resulting mess poisoned thousands of families.
Federal grants to build infrastructure and create jobs are not inherently bad, they just need proper oversight and accountability. In fact we should be spending billions to fix crumbling bridges and highways instead of subsidizing arms manufacturers.
After Snider failed to act and Flint became a hot national issue, Obama’s advisers and PR folks whisked him off to Flint for a carefully staged photo op. My main point is that the NYT series is about promises not kept. Obama promised he would absolutely fix the problem. He PROMISED, and then did pretty much nothing. As usual, big talk and no fight.
People are still getting sick and/ or dying.
9
A few years back a CPR freight train derailed on CP's main line just east of Belleville, Ontario. A propane tank car exploded and its shell was found 1 1/2 kilometres from the site. Scary.
9
If you want to move crude oil you build pipe lines. Its cheaper, much safer, and can be routed through less populated areas. somehow Greenpeace and it's believers have convinced some members of the governments of Canada and the USA not to build pipe lines too transport fossil fuels. People don't need cheap energy and oil profits are bad for the the planet. But why put people at risk? They say if it can't be delivered it won't be used.
There's other dangerous chemicals that that need to be transported by rail but making tanker cars safe is not impossible.
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@JoeG
Maybe so - but then, moving 3 times more Alberta tar is going to have consequences for the environment and all our health as well, isn't it?
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@JoeG
The same people complaining about this will complain even more about the pipelines.
Did you miss Keystone XL?
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@JoeG "Oil profits are bad for the planet"? Look at the pollution from Venezuela's state-owned oil industry (entire lakes are contiminated, gasoline can be skimmed from the surface). THe lack of profits is much worse. XOM, CVR, et al want to keep their meager profits (5% margin) and will protect the environment to do so. When a disaster hits (BP Gulf Coast), the shareholders are the first to get punished but the company has sufficient reserves to fund the clean up.
Agree with your comment about pipelines. The economy needs the oil, and will get it with or without the pipelines. Better to use the safe method of transporting oil and fuel via pipeline.
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So surprised this article made no mention of pipelines, which are by far the most efficient, safest method of transporting petroleum products. The public's irrational distaste for pipelines has lead to the scenario whereby oil transportation by rail has increased significantly. Rule of thumb for transporting hazardous goods: take the option with the fewest moving parts every time.
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@Kristen
Our distaste is for the environmental effect of tripling the production and movement of that crud.
I haven't much liked the threatening retorts of some (not you), either - 'give us our pipelines or we'll move it by rail!'.
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@Kristen Agreed, the pipeline issue is a major factor. In British Columbia we see continual unit trains taking Alberta crude oil to salt water ports - in the process running through major centres. The absence of pipelines is putting the public at risk. It's incredible that the public debate on the pros/cons of pipelines seems to overlook what should be a crucial and overriding factor.
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@Michele K; Of course, you don't own a car, nor do you use public buses. All your food is grown within walking distance of your home, and if you have to go out of the 'hood' you use your bicycle, probably on the sidewalk as you are allergic to cars and pedestrians have to get out of your way - or else!
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Whoa, wait a minute. I thought the left didn't like pipelines and moving stuff by trains is the best option. As the highest per capita hydro carbon users on earth we aren't going to stop using the stuff anytime soon. Our entire lifestyle is a compromise, usually in favor of more consumption, so we'd better start making some tough choices. Not a direct comparison from toxic explosives, but the idea is the same. We've, like most advanced countries on earth, made a deal with the devil.
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@Al
Who is the 'we' here? This was oil going to a refinery in New Brunswick, not a U.S. location. Ask Canadians why they don't have pipeline capacity from Alberta to their Atlantic Coast refineries.
@SA. We is all of us who use oil. I'm assuming you might as well? The Canadians are net oil exporters. They have 1/10 our population. We use so much that even after obama increased oil production to the highest levels (# 1 in the world!) since the early 70s we still need to import the stuff. They don't need the pipelines we do. We need rail tankers, oil tankers and any other way we can get it. "w" was right about one thing. We are addicted, with no end in sight.
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@SA
The oil on the train was not from Alberta. It was from North Dakota.
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This is a classic railway accident caused by several people not just one. Management is culpable as usual. The person who advised to shut the engine down. Putting 25 plus handbrakes on is a big job and a serious workout for just about anyone. I was involved in several odd rollout accidents that occurred over a couple of years. It took federal FRA intervention to solve it. The problem? A valve that was to be serviced every three years had never been in 35 was responsible,but several employees responsible for putting brakes on “served time” before it was discovered.
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When you hear the mouthpieces of the Oligarchs talk about "job-killing regulations", always remember this. Regulations do not always kill jobs. But lack of regulations (when it comes to environmental, health, and safety hazards) always end up killing people.
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Similar trains run through the heart of many U.S. cities as well.
(Perhaps the NYT could do a follow up analysis of the safety record of pipelines versus trains.)
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@John; I reside adjacent to a 24 hour BNSF oil train line that is routed directly through urban Minneapolis. We have well organized oil pipeline protesters that are facilitating the steady growth of train shipments. We are not looking forward to the inevitable derailment.
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Yes, oil bomb trains run through densely populated NJ suburbs!
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As I recall, the Times barely covered this disaster 100 miles or so from the northern border as spot news. .
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Yucca Mountain in Nevada is not open yet and may never be. But there will have to be a longterm storage site for the high-level radioactive waste now stored in concrete and steel "casks" at nuclear facilities around the country. And there will be rail lines leading in to that central site.
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@dwalker. Correct. Americans like cheap power and gas and like to talk about the environment and want where they live to be clean no matter what it does somewhere else to get the gas and power. Climate change is the end result of all this and it's coming to a very uncomfortable head that no one is owning up to.
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