I recently saw an episode of “Modern Marvels” on the History channel the other night. The topic was “Dangerous Cargo.” One portion of the program featured hazardous shipments by rail. I gotta tell ya, I’ve been fanning for a good while. I can sit by the tracks unphased as 4000+hp locomotives scream by. I can endure railcars that rock so bad it looks like they are coming on top of you. However, when I see a string of tankers coming down the line, that shakes me up. Is this anxiety normal or does anyone else out there have “tankophobia.” I don’t even like tank cars of corn syrup or kaolin. [:O] Help meeeeee!!!
I have no problems at all with tank cars, as a matter of fact unit trains of these cars are pretty awesome. Even if they do need a protection car on each end. If you just count them in as part of the whole train there shouldn’t be a problem. The possibilities of anything happening are slim at best. I would much more fear one of the garbage trains going off! however, if you still get nervous, try to make the most out of it. A good adrenaline rush never hurt anybody.
By and large those tank cars are no more danger to you than the LP cylinder under your grill at home.
Granted, if something goes wrong, it’s probably gonna go wrong in a big way. But if you’re trackside (and even a fair distance away) and it all comes off the track, all you’re going to care about is all that steel coming at you. The contents are of little consequence.
This past weekend I was on the platform at the Utica, NY, Union Station when a number of CSX freights came through - at speed. That would be in the range of 60 mph. The tank cars were the least of my worries.
Of course, if you want a real scare, get yourself a copy of the Emergency Response Guide (the “Orange Book”), and sit at the side of the highway, reading placards…
I have a US DOT placard book in my truck. I like to look up the placard numbers on each car as the trains go by. It’s an amazing mix of nasty stuff. What I can’t understand is why they couple a tank car of inert chemical “A” to a boxcar of inert chemical “B.” They’re safe unless they get mixed together. If they do get mixed, you’d have to evacuate for 2000 meters in all directions and 10,000 meters downwind.
I must admit that every once in a while while I am fanning with some of the guys and we are within about fifty yards or less of the mainline and a string of tankers come by at track speed, somebody will wonder out loud if we could get out of the way if there were a derailmant…the answer is very likely NO WAY JOSE!
And here you have the concept of the “Binary Weapon”, a term used in modern chemical ordinance. The theory is, the stuff is safe until the shell reaches its destination and detonates. I guess thats better than the old way, where all it took was a spill,not an explosion. You would think that with computers as ever present as they are, someone would think to program them to check for stuff like that when the train is made up…[X-)]
Nowhere, …but you can see them taking the C,F&E line from Sand to Mike . Especially between the river and GE.
I was there for one about a year ago, through pure coincidence. The train bowed the rails up so much in between wheel sets that it was picking the (well attached) ties up, completely off the roadbed. Not all of the ties were well attached though, and it was quite a sight to see the rails bowing up leaving the ties on the ground in some spots, and lifting ties in others.
Made me think twice about what I was doing so close to the tracks, especially in view of the cargo.
On the CN here in Canada, Molten Sulfur cars are placarded but they have no marshalling restrictions. Many cars of certain chemical types are not allowed to be next to each other in case the two mix. And of course there is the no hazardous next to the units, or loads prone to shift etc. But the stuff thats carried is nasty.
I was under the impression that the molten sulpher trains from Chicago all headed south on the New Castle District at Junction. Is there one that continues east?
Tree, I think you put that in perspective for me. A tanker of hydrochloric acid or a tanker of kool-aid…it’s still 50,000lbs of rolled steel and trucks moving down the rails toward you. It’s not so much the tank car itself I have problems with. They are a marvelous piece of engineering as are all railcars. However, it’s the nasty, dangerous and caustic contents these cars contain that raise the hair on the back of my neck!
For the life of me I cannot figure out where the ultimate destination of that train was, checking the same source I’m sure you are looking at, it doesn’t fit any of those descriptions. Nonetheless, it’s pretty hard to mistake a molten sulphur train. [xx(]
What I noticed at the time was that the train proceeded east up to Mike and parked, so it may have been a convenient way to get that train out of the way, for other meets to clear? (purely speculation).
I was half expecting to see it spread the rails. Surely some one has a little rehab work in mind for that stretch of track, if they haven’t already done so.
I work for an environmental company. A lot of our work deals with storage tanks and a lot of industrial contracting. We also do emergency spill response. Its very rare that we get calls for anything really serious (knock on wood) but the training videos I had to watch when I started showed people in the field cleaning up a train wreck. That gave me a little bit of that phobia when I see tankers on trains. My job is always interesting. I see a lot of places that most people wouldn’t be allowed to enter (security) but one of the best perks of the job is the daily NS train that passes our shop.
Here’s your chance for another adrenaline rush. Train 60N (an empty sulpher train) followed me into the Fort this morning. There was a westbound Huntington District train lined through HUGO, so it had to stop and wait. You may have time to catch it. If not, in a couple of days, it should be loaded and headed back. [;)]
At the other end of the train are the white box cars with shackles inside. The crematorium tanks are, of course, painted like a BNSF locomotive. Keeps them inconspicuous.