Does anyone know: Is there a way I can find out if my local shortline, which passes fairly close to my home, ever carries any Haz-Mat? This occurred to me after the recent Haz-Mat incident in Michigan. Thanks in advance for assistance with this.
Hazmat covers a lot of ground and a variety of risks. The best place to start would be to find out who are the local shortline’s customers and the nature of their business. This could give you an idea of what sort of raw materials they require and what sort of product they ship.
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Call them and ask them.
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If it is that close to your home, what industries, etc, does it server and do they use or manufacture or sell hazmat stuff.
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If the shortline interchanges and isa bridge between two or more railroads ask if it carries hazmat between them.
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Observe the trains as they go by. Read the cars, look for warning messages, look for placards. It there is nothing you understand, call the railroad.
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Call your local fire department and ask them. They should be apprised of such traffic and schooled in the handling of hazmat materials.
Where are you located? Easiest way would be to spend time along the tracks watching trains. Oh yah, and have an Emergency Response Guide Book with you so you don’t confuse nuclear waste with crude oil. But be assured that even if there is a haz-mat placard that does not mean that if it would de-rail your town would be wiped out. Railroads are the safest mode of transportation and follow strict safety guidelines. If you are worried about a hazmat incident I would worry more about the highway that goes through your town than the shortline.
You can ask, but the railroad is under no obligation to tell you, unless you have a bonafide Need to Know. Specific shipper and commodity information are regarded as privileged information.
Due to the current security climate, company regulations state, any inquires regarding commodities carried, are suppose to be reported to company security.
Nick
In line with what Nick says, I would be more inclined to find a safe and legitimate observation location and observe. Lots of tank cars would indicate a potentiall problematic haz-mat situation. Placcards will display the potential hazard-- red background is generally a flammable class:.
The placcard will carry a number assigned to the particular product carried under that designation. Could be a DOT number or a United Nations Number ( Those placcards are generally a rectangular shape in an orange background.
I would suggest that you observe, you start making phone call and you can probably expect some kind of a visit from an enforcement entity. They will probably peg you as a potential nut-job. Observe and use the Internet to find out what the placcards represent. [2c]
You could get yourself a copy of the Emergency Response Guide (available online) and watch the cars in their train has it goes by. Hazmat isn’t just carried in tank cars, but any car carrying hazmat will have the required placard on both ends and both sides. You should be able to determine how nasty any hazmat they carry is.
Hazmat doesn’t just go by rail. If you’re close to a major highway, you could also see what the trucks going by are carrying. An individual truck may not carry as much as a tank car, but with some things a little spill can go a long way.
Jeff
Those who get warped out of shape about the HAZMAT that the rails are carrying…should look outside their door and see all the HAZMAT that goes by on the highways closer to their houses. If they did, they would almost forget about the railroads.
I suppose you are right… Simply forget about railroads ever being a danger… I mean, they never have equipment breakdowns, never derail, never have “cornfield meets”, and since we all know that both management and employees are the most altruistic of individuals that they would never cut a corner someplace that might compromise safety, we can be utterly complacent about whatever is being transported on the tracks near us. But ya just can’t trust them truckers an iota, they are sure to be carrying the most dastardly of substances in the most haphazard way and are probably of a mind to deliberately deposit it in your front yard or paint your women and children with it, not to mention feed it to your dog.
Was this crap (post) really necessary? Must be a better way to get your point across without insulting the safety of an entire industry (and its workers).
That gallon can of gasoline for the lawn mower in your garage is more likely to prove hazardous to you and yours than 12,000 gallons in a railroad tank car passing by. Be especially worried in case lightning hits the house!
Short lines tend to travel at slow speeds, and while railcars may look spectacular on their sides they generally remain intact. Simply put, cars expected to carry hazardous materials are built with strength in mind, and the rails allow the extra weight necessary to provide this strength. A big pile up at 60mph may occasionally produce enough force to puncture a tank car but it would take exceptional circumstances for the same to happen at 10mph.
John
Get a handle on your disgust! Nobody is altrustic…not you and not me.
All I am stating is there is more HAZMAT moving in trucks than anyone would like to realize and those trucks generally come much close to housing than railroads. Check the truck placards the next time you are out on the city to city highways and around the various large city beltways…you will amaze yourself.
Save it to your computer so you haven’t got to run it down on-line every time you want to look at it. If you take a laptop trackside, you’ll have it at your fingertips.
If you know someone in a fire department or other such agency, see if they have an older print edition of the ERG. The changes edition-to-edition aren’t usually so great as to render the previous version obsolete.
When trainwatching, look for a four digit number either in a diamond shaped placard, or in black numbers on an orange rectangle. Of course, sometimes the product is stencilled on the side of the car, but oftimes not.
A quick look at the ERG will make using it self evident.
If you see something you don’t recognize, search for it on the web.
BaltACD has a point with regard to the highways. It should also be noted that under a certain quantity, a vehicle carrying hazmat doesn’t even need to be placarded. If it is, it may just be as “Dangerous,” with no specific products noted.
Railroads tend to be a relatively stable mode of transportation, but when things go wrong, they go wrong in a big way. On t
S V, when I mentioned hazmat going by truck, I wasn’t implying that railroads don’t have accidents. What I was trying to say is that materials that are just as dangerous go by truck. So many people are scared because a railroad goes near or through their neighborhood, but overlook the fact that these same things are going just as close, if not closer on the streets and highways. Streets and highways shared with motorists who increasingly seem to have gotten their driver’s license as a prize out of a cereal box. At least that’s how some of them drive.
Besides, the accidents get the headlines, the vast majority of loads (rail or truck) that make it safely to their destination don’t get squat in the media.
Jeff
For those who were around, they will understand this, but my Graduating Class was referred to as the Benzine Babies.
If you’re worried about the tank car being ruptured in a derailment, find the on-line video of the UP train that got caught in a tornado somewhere in the Midwest about 2 years ago - it was the subject of a thread here, too, so that may be an easier (or harder !) way to find it. The action in the video ends with a derailed tank car - partially turned over, as I recall - skidding towards and into the trailing locomotive, where the on-board camera was recording all this. There was Haz-Mat on the train, and some may have been released - I don’t remember the details - but not from that tank car, and not in any significant quantities.
- Paul North.
That was one tuff tank car.
Another series of photos showing how tough these cars are built (from a wreck in Hershey, PA in 2006):
The one car on its side was a loaded chlorine car. Wreck was cleaned up without incident or leakage.