There is no doubt that the accident in Graniteville, SC is tragic. But the article below seems like an impossible request. Imagine trying to notify Chicago and surrounding burbs of every train rolling into or out of town with something nasty on it. The phone at the local fire dept. HQ wouldn’t stop ringing. But if the feds get involved and try to impose some type of legislations, will this include trucks? And what about ships and barges? It would be a logistics nightmare!
Mayors seek warning of hazardous train cargo
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The mayors of more than four dozen U.S. cities, citing the recent deadly train wreck and chemical spill in Graniteville, S.C., asked the federal government Wednesday to let local governments know when railroad companies haul hazardous materials through their towns, according to a story in The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C. The almost 50 mayors signing the letter include those representing the cities of Columbia; Baltimore, Md.; Chicago, Ill.’ and Miami, Fla. The letter was delivered Wednesday to the Office of Homeland Security.
Knowing what materials come through town would allow fire and rescue units to launch rescue efforts more quickly and more safely, instead of first trying to figure out what chemicals are on wrecked trains, proponents say. The mayors made a similar recommendation in 2001.
this would last a week…since the majority of most freight trains have some kind of HAZMAT cargo on it…the mayors office would be burried under a mountain of paperwork… but then agin… government burocacy at work yet agin…
csx engineer
It would take longer for the beaurocratic bunglers to find the proper information than it would take the conductor or railroad central office. Trying carefully not to step on TREE68’s toes, but until more people are hazmat trained, there are still going to be plenty of fools over-reacting & rushing in to kill themselves…The info is useless in the wrong hands, especially some political hack (on a power trip) whose demands have no thinking whatsoever behind them.
Save all the hot air and wasted motion for the less accountable and statistically more accident prone truckers.
This same type of request was made back in the late 70’s early 80’s when the L&N had a series of Hazmat derailments across their territory in the South.
When the City of Baltimore was presented with all the information that they requested they detirmined that they really didn’t want to have that big of a volume of information since they had no perception of just how much in the way of Hazmat was delivered to and passed through the city on any given day.
Secondly, if they want to know about rail hazmat, they are also going to have to know about all the hazmat that trucks are carrying on all the roadways through out the city.
The reality is that there is too much hazmat being transported for any governmental agencey to ‘know’ about it without having a serious inpact on effective and safe transportation of the commodities which are critical to the economy of the country.
I took a class in fire college a few years back & they showed a video to people doing “stupid” stuff. This one video showed a Chicago firemen (an officer) stick his finger in a liquid dripping from the side of a tank car & then tasting it…
And if we recall, in the early 90’s Amtrak struck a gasoline tanker that had pulled across, but not cleared, the tracks at a crossing in the Greater Miami area (somewhere between W.Palm Beach and Miami qualifies as the Greater Miami area). Somehow, no one either crew or passengers on Amtrack were seriously injured, however, I believe, 6 motorists that were stopped clear of the crossing were killed in the resulting explosion and fire…I don’t recall if the truck driver was among those killed.
Every time there is a Hazmat incident, from any mode of transport, local governments will make knee-jerk statements and requests to indicate to their voter that they are bein pro-active to the needs of the community. Once the government realizes what they are trying to get t
Ha, this is funny. Sure let the phone ring everytime a hazmat load comes through. Wait, isn’t that darn near every train? I give it 36hours max before the person taking the calls goes postal.
Hey Ed, long time no see. Whats goin on down in the yard.