Firefighters prefer labels despite possible terror risk
This is an article on the very front page of the Courier - Journal from this
morning. Here’s the link for the article.
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/09/05/A1-train0905-10632.html
Just thought those of you who are engineers and current/former firefighters
would find this interesting. Paula (cherokee woman) pointed out the
article to me. She got to the paper before I did this morning.
I’d like to see the article, but the link isn’t working…
LC
Mark
you are correct.have a friend at work who is a firefighter and used some of the trains articles for his research project.It would delay the repsonse time until the firefighters know what they are dealing with.I try to watch for defects on trains when I can.
stay safe
Joe
That is about as stupid as that guy who wanted to change all the RR’s to ten foot guage-
D’uh
I want this said now- this is like Death- Stupid, and When somehting screws up, i’ll be here to laugh, and say I told you so-
Mark that down in your book FEDS-
I seldom use the placards in my observations any more. All I need is the big, bold lettering toward the right end of the sides. It’s a lot easier than looking up the number (though I must admit that I know a few of those commodity numbers from memory).
It is also fairly easy for a person who knows what he’s looking at to distingui***he type of tank cars used for carrying pressurized commodities from those carrying liquids, or even to distinguish a chlorine tank from an LP gas tank (size does matter!). I haven’t put my finger on exactly what makes an acid tank car look different from a corn-syrup car or a molten sulfur car (all of which can be about the same size), but I know that I could tell them all apart.
The color-coded placards (assuming one can see them in the wake of a disaster involving the car!) were definitely an advance in emergency-response preparedness.
Before that, all placards were white or off-white cardboard, with a bunch of small print and the word “Danger” (or “Dangerous”–it’s been a while) in red. Not much help there.
I guess my point is that I haven’t received more than the limited hazmat training that’s required of all railroad employees. Because I’ve trained myself to make a few of these observations, I can do better than your typical employee in figuring out these cars. So could any terrorist who wanted to take the time to study such things. He won’t need the placards. But somebody dealing with the aftermath might…so I’d leave them there.
OMG, are these folks insane? I’d be willing to bet the farm that a rational analysis would show that removal of the placards would increase the risk of casualties to safety responders by factor far greater than the possible reduction in casualties that might be caused by a terrorist checking out the placards.
If a terrorist is too dumb to locate car contents from other sources, he is probably too dumb to read the placards.
If I read correctly, the “White House” asked for a second look at this idea. Our motto: Simple solutions for simple minds."
It makes perfectly logical sense to me. Washington does everything so well. 8^@
This whole “national security” thing is blown way out of proportion! Today, we are at yellow alert, no! wait! it’s orange. What are we supposed to do any different on the day it’s yellow vs. orange??
Remove the placards? Lets hide the “fire extinguisher” label too, sheeee***hey might use that dry chemical on you! Paranoid bobble heads, all of them!
I may be wrong but are these the square placards that are the same as the ones on the trucks on our highways? …I believe these square placards were designed by the United Nations and are used world-wide on trucks and trains ???
Sorry but thats about the dummist thing I’ve ever heard of. I’m supposed to make an initial attack on a tank, hopper or box car with out having a DOT placard??? That scares the hell out of me. If the locomotives are involved in the collision, derailment or (God forbid ) explosion, how are my officers going to find the manifest to determine the contents so we can take appropriate measures.
Sorry but the Feds need to get their heads out of their butts. !!![banghead][soapbox]
“Paranoia strikes deep.
Into your life it will creep…”
Now, if some chemical firm had suggested the same thing for some reason other than “homeland security”, the Feds would come down on them SO hard…
By the way - if you have any interest in this, take the time to read the Feds document http://hazmat.dot.gov/69fr-50987.pdf and send comments.
OK, I’ve read the article. It does seem like an overreaction to questionable threats.
I do think that under the right circumstances a train could be a very dangerous weapon.
LC
The issue of whether or not a train IS a dangerous weapon isn’t as important, imho, as the perception of it being a weapon in a terrorist’s mind. (A mind that perhaps by definition is lacking in some aspects of normal rationality…)
And yes, the presence of certain kinds of placards would be just the sort of thing that a depressingly large variety of amateur terrorists… dare I mention the folks who want to jam train radios or short-circuit block signals? … would find indicative of good targets for their “attention”.
Behind the scenes, OREIS is promising to give emergency response agencies almost immediate knowledge, car by car, of hazardous materials and the methods that are best used to deal with them… within a few seconds or minutes of the incident itself, or in other words before the firefighters are down the pole, let alone by the time the apparatus arrives at the incident scene…
There may be some initial screwup or ‘missed switches’ in the way the data get onto the computer system, or are retrieved or coordinated by the agencies on the spot. But this is something that simple technology can effectively address. I speak with some authority on this point.
Taking the placards off the cars themselves would be like removing the labels from the chemicals under your sink… if you had a master database that could identify what’s in the bottles as soon as you asked. Note how much more difficult it would be for some amateur with a copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook to make explosives or gas in such a situation… they’d have to start pulling off caps, sniffing, and testing.
A very well-established principle of security is: If nobody knows something is important in the first place, they won’t try to steal it or tamper with it. To me, that applies in this sort of situation.
Now, a case could be made that civilians should be able to tell if something that derails ‘in their backyard’ is dangerous. How many civilians know what the
No. The idea probably came from some beaucrat. Maybe in response to a letter from a citizen. It is probably a derective from someone who has worked in the government or politics all of his/her life and does not know about such matters to some who does know more to look into it. It sounds like SOP for government, regardless of who is in power.
Overmod has some good points.
Railroads can send information about haz-mat shipments to jurisdictions that the train will go through. This could be printed on the printout the responding fire engine/truck companies get. The problem would be what if a car goes out on the wrong train. I was given a train consist list a few years ago by a conductor. Some of the cars listed were not on the train.
Of course haz-mat placards are not perfect either. I have seen tankcars with half of the placards missing, cars placarded for LPG and stenciled Gasoline, and a tankcar heading for a fertilizer plant placarded for MTBE.
I am not advocating either method. I do not know which way is better. I am just pointing some things out.
This argument brings politics into railroading, but I don’t see any objections --so far. Can I please start a thread on the questions of the importance of freight railroading to NATIONAL DEFENCE and the importance of passenger railroading, yes Amtrak also?
Or is this too political?
Larry- you got me pulling my hair our-
Where is that song from?
I waited, but nobody answered him:
Buffalo Springfield (named after the gun, btw). The name of the song is “For What It’s Worth” but I don’t think one person in a thousand who remembers the song knows that.
Paranoia strikes deep,
Into your heart it will creep
Starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the Man come and take you away
You better stop – hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s goin’ down…
When we had the IRA blowing up stuff a few years ago things went a bit nuts… Sad thing is, you ain’t seen nothin yet… You’ll be surprised at what the beurocrats can come up with.
Meanwhile a guy is running for US senate here in Wisconsin with a TV ad about the tough stance he will take towards homeland security and terrorists – his TV ad shows a guy taking pictures of … trains! And talking on a cell phone!
Dave Nelson
Thanks to Overmod for covering that for me - wasn’t online after I posted it until just now.
Actually, the Buffalo Springfield name came from a steamroller the group saw in Hollywood, although the Springfield was a popular rifle…
For those who may not have heard the song, it remains strangely pertinent, nearly 40 years after it was written:
For What It’s Worth
Stephen Stills, 1966
There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, now, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down