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Propane prices rise in Maine following Lac-Mégantic wreck
The Province of Quebec was the only area of Canada were one man crews were approved, approved by the Provincial Gov’t…railroads being of course the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, the other the Quebec, North Shore and Labrador , with the use of Iron ore unit trains.
does anybody know the exact cause of the Quebec accident?
not speculation
because we have not heard anything here in Canada
just guesses
Early winter? Last time I checked, winter is right on time. Still kind of a mild winter when compared to a few decades ago.
Hope the NIMBY gangs see this because this is the logical outcome when trains are removed or restricted. Not just heating oil and propane, but other commodities as well including electricity and grain. Most electricity still comes from coal.
Meanwhile what happened has happened and no amount of bashing the private sector is going to fix that. The railroads have to follow regulations put there by big government, which in this case, so far it appears the railroad was. A train crew of one apparently is legal.
The shipper on the other hand is a different story, as it appears the product was incorrectly packaged and labeled. It is the shipper’s responsibility to fill those tank cars properly and then inform the railroad of exactly what is in those tanks.
As for the tank cars, the railroads and builders need to get together and build a better tank. And if they were really smart, they would do it before big government mandates something which is completely unworkable or even worse, a design which opens an entirely new batch of worms. When it comes to government mandated solutions, history has shown how the cure is worse than the disease.
This is what happens when government gets in the way of free enterprise.
Mr. Guse apparently does not read responses to his previous post wherein he said that tank cars that are stronger need to be built. I will repeat: they are being built, but it is impossible to replace the entire fleet of the less stout cars in a day.
How was it incorrectly packaged its a tank car incorrectly labeled after this they tested the crude and found it should be in packing group II instead of III example gasoline packing group II diesel fuel/fuel oil packing group III I sure hope this so called trucker doesn’t have hazmat qualifications
I don’t know how exactly this is “unforeseen” to the propane industry…surely they know how their product is delivered.
Guse The one man crew was pushed by the railroads not the government.
@JIM NORTON - No, Jim, it’s what happens when free enterprise destroys a city center, killing 47 people at the time. There is no government that has banned the MM&A from doing anything - indeed, they’ve been given ample room to have another disastrous accident if they want to. However, they haven’t had the resources to rebuild until a month ago, and no insurer will touch them with a thousand foot pole, which means they can’t carry hazardous/explosive/inflammable goods.
“Other factors leading to the shortage and higher prices, including more domestic propane being shipped overseas and an early winter.” . Where is the rest of the sentence?
Is a longer routing safer? Seems to me that more miles traveled means a greater risk of accident…
"Following July’s deadly wreck in Lac-Mégantic, Que., the city obtained the power to restrict what cargo could be moved… "
I stand by my comment of government affecting free enterprise.
@JOHN DEGGES - I don’t think he reads anything that disagrees with whatever point he wants to make. He (indirectly) attacks me here for attacking the free market, when actually my “attack” was a response to someone claiming the government had banned MM&A from shipping propane. This is someone who thinks WiMAX is a competitor to Wi-fi, someone who thinks trains don’t pay taxes, who thinks nobody rides trains except “old people”, and so on, and so forth, all of which he already knows the answers to (or would, if he read comments.)
If I didn’t know people on unrelated forums with exactly the same MO as Guse, I’d say he’s a Kalmbach employee trying to stir up debate. If he is, he should probably be given a different job, as more comments have been wasted on discussing Guse himself than discussing issues he’s raised, largely due to the extraordinary level of ludicrousness made by him.
It’s also tempting to suggest he’s a shill for some group like Cato, but the reality is probably that he is who he is. And while, in an ideal world, Trains.com would do something to reduce the amount of utter trollish nonsense coming from that account, I’d imagine there’s a limit to what they can do, given the ease of registering under different names.
So at this point, the best the rest of us can do to raise the quality here is stop talking about him. Oops.
@CHESTER MARCINOW - There are plenty of known facts about what happened, that aren’t speculation. Determining “Fault” is a trickier issue.
- The lead locomotive was in a poor state of repair, was showing signs of being on fire or being about be on fire, when the engineer left it, and caught fire shortly afterwards (if it wasn’t already)
- Firefighters had to turn the locomotive off to prevent fuel circulation from feeding the fire. Unfortunately, that also killed the air brakes.
- The entire train was parked at the top of a slope on the ma
@JIM NORTON - sigh Then you’re ignoring the facts. There wasn’t even a line through the city until last month. And Lac Megantic can only control that traffic.
Moreover, as I said, the truth is the MMA cannot transport hazardous cargos right now. Period. Not because of any government fiat, but because it can’t get insured.
Claiming the government is doing this is like claiming that the government is what’s preventing me from flying to Mars. There may be some obscure laws preventing me from doing that, but that’s not the reason I’m not on that planet right now.
POOR CREW SCHEDULING COULDENT THEY HAD A NEW CREW TO RELIEVE THE ENGINEER. THE HAD 12 HRS TO DO THAT. I MAN CREW WITH 4 LOCOMOTIVES & 70 TANK CARS NOT GOOD POLICY. SHAME ON ALL INVOLVED.
HERBYGD@AOL.COM
POOR CREW SCHEDULING COULDENT THEY HAD A NEW CREW TO RELIEVE THE ENGINEER. THE HAD 12 HRS TO DO THAT. I MAN CREW WITH 4 LOCOMOTIVES & 70 TANK CARS NOT GOOD POLICY. SHAME ON ALL INVOLVED.
HERBYGD@AOL.COM
In northeast Minnesota propane is selling now for about $1 more per gallon than a year ago. Demand has increased relative to supply. Here the winter heating season was early, with January type temperatures through all of December. And January is following suit. I haven’t heard anyone blame the price increases here on a derailement in Quebec.