Oops.
Way too much excitement in Tiskilwa, Illinois this morning. News reports in Chicago is that 6 cars of alcohol derailed and are on fire. The video on Channel 7 (WLS) shows quite a fire.
This is on the Iowa Interstate line. Reporter indicates there was work being done on the tracks yesterday at this location.
Ed
luckily alcohol will not explode, just burn. It will take a while for all 6 crs to burn themslves out.
People report hearing explosions, but the explosions are said to sound like a jet, so that may not be an explosion.
Anytime there is something like this (Train derailment w/ attendant fire, explosions). The unintendended consequences seem to line up in the wings: Will here be any kind of a government (over (?)- reaction, ie; PTC, [to start with a big one]? And then let your imagination[sigh] run with it. After all, we are coming into an election year[:'(]
Lets hope thet the fire can be extinguished without any injuries or fatalities. Then wait an see what happens, you know, or assume, the lawyers are already smelling ‘blood in the water’. [2c]
Tiskilwa is a nice little town on a curve, on the old Rock Island line west of Bureau Junction. The former Rock Island depot still stands there… We ate lunch there while chasing a steam train from this summer’s Train Festival in the Quad Cities. It has been the site of some major wrecks in decades past, possibly due to the sweeping curve that goes through town.
Thus far it appears there are no injuries and with luck the local firefighters will not suffer casualties either. As to explosions - while alcohol per se might not explode, ethanol has gasoline mixed in – presumably to make it impossible to use for any other purpose than energy (i.e., not be consumed as corn liquor). So I would have to think there is some explosive potential given the gasoline content.
Dave Nelson
Given the right circumstances, even a non-flammable liquid container will ‘BLEVE.’ Which is to say it will fail due to a weakening of the vessel itself and an overpressure situation inside the vessel. In the case of ethanol, it is conceivable that such a failure could occur and be accompanied by a large fireball as the expelled liquid lights off.
It probably wouldn’t be as explosive as an LPG tanker going off, but the potential would be enough to make one procede cautiously.
True that. I experimented with making water explode when I was a bit younger. The resulting fireball looked more like a large caliber canon blast.