NS evacuated everyone in a two mile radius. For more Info see Findlay Courier Website and ABC 13 Website. Railfans stay away, Everyone evacuated in a two mile radius.
http://www.thecourier.com/ Link to the The Courrier. com (Findlay,Ohio Paper)
FTL: "…ARCADIA — About 25 rail tanker cars loaded with ethanol burned after a freight train derailed this morning less than two miles west of Arcadia.
No one has been hurt, authorities said.
About 20 families evacuated their homes up to 1.5 miles from the Southern tracks near the intersection of Hancock County 216 and Cass Township 247. is about seven miles northeast of …"
“…The derailment and fire were reported at about 2:15 a.m. and witnesses said a “big ball of fire” lit up the sky briefly at about 3:20 a.m…”
About six tanker cars filled with ethanol were still connected to the burning tankers this morning and one was engulfed in flames, said Jim Breyman, spokesman for the Washington Township Volunteer Fire Department.
Here’s another report and some TV news video.
A friend of mine lives in that town. He said the sky was lit up last night like a scene from The War of the Worlds. Fortunately, he lives next to the evacuation center that they have set up, so he’s still at home.
Kevin
More…
http://morningjournal.com/articles/2011/02/06/news/doc4d4ed292ef40d434825550.txt
http://www.sanduskyregister.com/arcadia/news/2011/feb/06/train-derailment-causes-mass-evacuations
Boy those info-babes are useless! So many inconsistencies and downright untruths. Personally, I think NS needs to hire CSX to handle incidents like this. Their HazMat training, material, and resource network is well respected. So good, locally UP had them here with their train in 2003 to do a training session with local producers/employees. (UP now has regional managers who’s only job is education, enforcement, and emergency management, yes, with red lights and all!)
From UPI: “About 18 tanker cars carrying 320,000 gallons of ethanol…” Nope! Eighteen loaded cars of ethanol is 522,000 gallons (plants only load to about 29,000 gallons per tank). I hope first responders are not counting on that assessment.
A train derailed in my backyard years ago on the edge of the German School flood zone. From the way the load shifts when a heavily loaded train goes by my house, it’s going to happen again soon. Who are we supposed to report this too?
Although the Emergency Response Guide suggests 1/2 mile, maybe more down wind, and stay out of low areas, 2 miles seems to be pretty large. From reports, the nearby Co-op does not seem to be a very big concern. It did not appear to have enough storage for a large quantity of Anhydrous.
But, your advice to the fans is fitting and proper. It ain’t no place to be taking shots right now.
Scanner activity on what is happening in Fostoria is available at this site:
Additional Fostoria scanner channels:
Here are my pictures from the cleanup
https://picasaweb.google.com/huelsystrainblog/ArcadiaTrainDerailment#
Thanks for that excerpt, Sam, and those links, Murray. At about these Lat./ Long coords., per the ACME Mapper 2.0 application: N 41.11210 W 83.54203
All tangent, single track, with grade crossings a little distance away on each side - no opposing trains or a collision, so no reason to suspect an operating error. If the train was headed eastward as stated, then it would have ‘trailed’ past the farm supplier’s turnout, which greatly reduces the possibility that was a cause or factor. So while the wreck could have nevertheless been caused by a track defect - most notably, a broken rail - I’d be looking real hard at the cars and their wheels and axles as a possible cause.
More troubling is the extent of the fire and explosions, and the number of cars involved. These are supposed to be ‘state-of-the-art’ tank cars, with the shelf-type couplers, shielded valves and hatches, reinforced ends, etc. I realize that won’t prevent the tankers from leaking and burning in the event of a derailment at speed - how fast was this train going, anyway ? I didn’t note that in the several articles I reviewed - but I would not have expected 6 to 8 or more cars to catch fire and explode.
Also, that this happened on NS - a very safety-conscious railroad - is troubling. Fortunately, no one of the crew or firemen was injured or killed, but if this can happen on NS, then the NIMBY’s and ‘Chicken Little’ worry-warts of the world can now point to this event and will be able to ask more legitimately, “How do we know this isn’t going to happen in our town ?!?”.
- Paul North.
While the NS has the reputation of being safety oriented I find it very curious that the Graniteville, SC incident and its resultant loss of life, a prior Ethanol train derailment in the Pittsburgh area (New Brighton, PA) several years ago and now this Ethanol train derailment have all been on NS.
Admittedly the Graniteville incident was out and out man failure. The Pittsburgh area Ethanol derailment was track failure, that the NTSB attributed to inadequate inspection procedures
http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2008/RAR0802.htm
And now this incident, the cause of which is yet to be determined.
Thanks for that link to the NTSB report on the NS New Brighton derailment, which occurred on a bridge over the Beaver River and is of similar proportions - many cars leaked and caught fire. In brief, that wreck occurred at 37 MPH, and was attributed to failure of the inspections to detect an internal rail defect - in 140 lb. rail maunufactured in 1976. While there may have been some human errors there, that seems to me to be more like an oversight or ‘getting hit by lightning’ - who knows if that defect was actually detectable by any practical means whenever the last inspection occurred ? - than the out-and-out failure to realign the siding switch in Graniteville. Fortunately, no one injured or killed at New Brighton, either - but that one too makes me wonder about the integrity of the tank cars.
- Paul North.
The cars involved are part of an estimated 10,000+ fleet of general purpose tanks that ethanol marketers operate, based upon designs that were standard in 2001. The newly proposed “state-of-the-art” tanks as suggested by carriers and regulators has yet to be produced. Yet these tanks are more robust that those produced prior to the 1990’s , or so we are told. I do know that things like bottom valves, and other appliances have been improved to better survive derailments and accidental product release.
You are right however, no tank will survive a lot of at-speed derailments.
Didn’t Pan-Am and VRS derail a couple ethanol trains the previous year? I guess those derailments were slow enough that the sky didn’t turn orange.
“…80 to 90 trains per day.” Wow…