If in a derailment a car full of popcorn landed on top of a tank car full of gasoline, would popcorn be exploding into the sky? How about butter? 1-2 years ago a plant that makes butter here in Minnesota caught on fire and the butter burned, so I’m guessing whether it caught on fire or not, butter can be messy in a train derailment.
(1) Train hit a truck full of Hersey’s syrup and derailed. (could not stand the sight of chocolate for months, spoiled chocolate smells awful)
(2) My introduction to being a roadmaster in LA had a minor derailment happen while switching an industrial lead that served Coca Cola. No big deal, but it happened in the middle of a movie shoot for “Cagney & Lacey” and we could not even start rerailing the cars for two days because of the movie shoot. This area is the scene of many commercials, movies and TV shows to this day. The director added extras acting as homeless people and added tents and lean-to 's against the derailed tank cars of corn sweetener. Then the real homeless people moved in with the actors. Then the homeless tried to get at the corn syrup residue. Then the industry screamed it needed to be switched again before it ran out of product. Then the railroad got cited by the city for the movie set and the homeless…and it went downhill from there.[*-)]
What the heck had I gotten into?
Train hit a truckload of Joy liquid dishwashing detergent. Engine was too damaged to continue and was dragged back to the nearest set off point. Before repairs could be made to allow it to move to the Heavy Repair Shop - a Thunderstorm hit - Engine was foaming!
Now we know where the real railroad foamer came from!
Here was one that I was a Witness to in the OTR side and was like HOLY CRAPOLA when it did happen. 2 trucks on the interstate collided in a Thunderstorm one had on Petrolium Jelly in a Tanker the other was hauling Feathers from a Chicken Plant. Well lets just say it was one HELL OF A MESS with the rain the Grease and the Feathers every one that was in that area looked like they had been Tarred and Feathered on that one. Let alone how slick the Road was with the Grease on the road.
Had a derailment near Dresbach, MN (just west of La Crosse, WI on CP) where a tank car of molassas ruptured. It was February and the temperatures were below zero. We wanted to push it out onto the ice of the Mississippi River next to the track but the DNR would not let us do that. We had to truck in sawdust to be able to pick up the molassas and haul it away.
Yes, molassas does flow at sub zero temperatures
The next spring that area was extremely sweet smelling and attracted a lot of bees.
Something similar happened near Phoenixville, PA 10 or 15 years ago - a couple tank cars of corn syrup sweetener derailed and leaked (or were vandalized) into the mostly cinder ballast, in fairly warm weather. As i understood it, the stuff started to decompose, released a lot of heat, and basically set itself on fire !
I imagine that the many railroads over the span of years of their history have had enough derailments and other incidents involving livestock, foodstuffs, refrigerated goods, alcohol (of various kinds), etc., that each have their own version of humorous anecdotes.
- Paul North.
Not a derailment and forgive me for going off topic,
A few years back a truck full of waste restaurant grease wrecked on I-71 in Cincinnati. After the accident DOT could not get the road surface clean.
Finally a rep from Proctor & Gamble(they’re based in Cincinnati) gave DOT a truck load of DAWN dishwashing soap.
Wonder how a railroad might handle this kind of problem?
Thx IGN
[(-D][(-D]
The strangest derailment that I can recall offhand was caused by a broken rail–but not just your ordinary broken rail.
A loaded tank car went down the hill (I think it was vegetable oil). It went out of my intermediate retarder and through two divide switches before snapping a rail above the group retarder. The break went through the head and long the web. I don’t know how, but the car started riding the web, extending the break through the length of the rail! The resulting “snakehead” (remember that legendary term from the days of strap rail?) went up and along the tank body. When the car got to the next joint, something had to give. I think it was the rail, because the car entered the retarder on the ground to the point that it was off the retarder beams. It slid most of the length of the retarder. When its inertia petered out and the car stopped (entirely within the retarder area), gravity took over and I was able to watch the tank slowly tip over onto its side into the adjacent retarder. Fortunately, no lading was lost.
Another derailment was a bit more mundane, but the cause was interesting. Usually, when a car comes up the hump with some lading bands dragging (either out of a box car door or off the deck of a flat), the pin-puller attempts to either throw it back in/on, or perhaps pull it off the rest of the way. More often than not, they’re unsuccessful and things keep dragging (we’ve had the straps caught in retarders and switches; it’s possible that some derailments were caused on switches by these straps getting caught in the point). This time, the bands didn’t have to drag very far. Just below the crest is a hand-throw derail, used when track or signal take the master retarder or the switch below it out of service. Somehow the banding found the derail and flipped it. The next car down the hill hit it, and t
The San Luis and Rio Grande did some lava rock landscaping not too far from Occidental several years back with this (stringlining?) accident:
Thank You.
Kootenay Central:
No good Tale should go unPUNished! [:‘(][:’(][:'(]
You win the award for today, and you can send me a replacement keyboard… Spit coffee into my old one…[#oops]