This does not really fit this forum but checkout out the news today about the train wreck in Iran. Unbelievable, something like 5 villages destroyed and over 200 dead. I wonder if the US has different rules etc about combinations of materials that can be transported in the same train.
In Canada it’s called the “Transportation of Goods Act”. As for International shipping on the high seas you have MARPOL as well as the IMDG code (International Maritime Dangerous Goods) Within these acts and regulations which Canada and the US are signatory to is a set of regulations that set out amongst other things seperation of chemicals which may react with each other. It would be considered the grand Daddy of WHIMS (Workplace Hazardous Information Management System) and MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets). More information may be found in search engines under Hazmat, CANUTEC, Transport Canada or the American equivalent.
I always here of thing like that here in the US. First, the cars are different and less safe. Second, there’s no EPA, or FRA in Iran. Third, the houses don’t have thick wall like we have here.
Remember when a CSX coal train ran away in WV and flew into a house and killed some poor guy?
Dougal,
I read over here that the train was loaded with gasoline as well as fertilizer, and if you mix that you get a very high explosive mixture, like used in the Oklahoma Bombing some years ago, that was a truck load of that mixture, these were multiple traincar-loads. I wonder if any wall could resist that kind of explosion
According to CNN, the death toll is 309 (and might go higher) with 450 injured.
This was not a train wreak in the classic sense where a moving train derails, or collides with something. Rather, a string of parked cars started rolling away (they think the brake was not set or it failed) and traveled 31 miles reaching speeds of over 90 miles per hour.
The cars finally hit a sharp curve and left the tracks. The explosion left a crater 50 feet deep and the shock wave broke windows six miles away. Iranian seismologists recorded a 3.6-magnitude tremor in the area at the moment of the blast.
I don’t think the type of freight car (US or otherwise) would have made much of a difference at enduring the force of impact at that speed, and any nearby structures would have been obliterated (Iranian or US) with the force of that explosion.
Now differences in safety procedures may have saved those people. It was a terrible loss of life.
One has to understand the properties of the materials involved to appreciate what happened. By the description of the blast effects I have to assume that the “fertilizer” involved was the old fashion form of ammonium nitrate. That there were a number of tank cars carrying petrol involved in the incident is almost irrelevant except as a possible iginition source. The Oklahoma bomb was rather different in nature and not really comparable to what happened here.
In the Iran train wreck you undoubtedly had a mass-detonation of one or more freight cars of the fertilzer, probably totalling more than 100 tons. Such a detonation would have a force approaching that of a small nuclear device and would propagate a supersonic blast wave that would level absolutely everything in its path for a considerable distance.
While ammonium nitrate shipped by rail in the U.S. and in Europe is chemically different than what you are likely to find in Iran and less likely to detonate in a wreck, this is mainly because of an incident in Texas City, Texas, in the late 1940’s. On that occasion, a ship loaded with ammonium nitrate detonated dockside and leveled much of the city, leaving thousands dead and injured. That story makes the train wreck in Iran look like small potatoes. Take the time to search for the “Texas City Disaster” on-line to fully appreciate what can (still?) happen in a major transportation mishap.
CNJ831
You guys remember the Amtrak Sunset Limited that crashed becaues the tracks were unalined because that barge hit the draw bridge the train was on? That was horible.
I saw that on the news. man that is terrible.
I did not see the news but i did see a thing on TLC a while back about Train wercks that was one of them. Too bad all those people [xx(]
One also has to consider the way of life of the people who live by the tracks. Remember the term “wrong side of the tracks”, which came from the fact that smoke from the locomotives would be blown by the prevailing winds, usually the west.
People who live by tracks usually don’t have much choice, the standard of living is much lower there, not much in the way of industry unless you’re in oil, and then it’s state-owned anyway. Pay isn’t a heck of a lot.
Regardless of the policies of the Government of Iran, the fact remains that these were people who were killed by a train. I’m not assessing blame, I’m just stating fact.
Also a lot of the were first responders, firemen and ploice, that showed up and tried to put the thing out. And just like the US back in 60’s before we organized the hazmat response info, they were killed in secondary explosions when the derailed cars cooked off. That’s why at hazmat derailments with fires in the US the response is to back off out of range, keep out onlookers and let the thing burn off. Way fewer s and injuries.
Dave H.
Out here on the West Coast, during the Vietnam war a train full of bombs exploded just west of the Southern Pacific’s Roseville Yard, about ten miles east of Sacramento. The whole area was off-limits until a few years ago–I used to bike around there as a kid, there were huge fields with “DANGER–UNEXPLODED BOMBS–PROPERTY OF SOUTHERN PACIFIC” everywhere. then they built a suburb on it, 20 years later, after they figured thjey had found all the bombs. Turns out they hadn’t–during construction and even for years afterward, folks were finding bombs in their backyards when they put a pool in or something. There are probably still some down there…
Well believe it or not last fall they shut down a part of Halifax because old WWII ordanance washed ashore. As for explosions Don’t forget Halifax, NS is home to the World’s largest non-nuclear explosion as a result of two ship’s colliding in the harbour December 6th, 1917. Amazing what 500 tons of Benzene and a ship load of ammunitions will do. Where does trains fall into this category? Boston sent a Hospital Train full of medical personnel to help us. And to this very day we send a note of thanks in a way of a very large Christmas tree