As everyone on this forum knows, on April 17 an ammonium nitrate storage unit at a fertilizer plant in the small town of West, TX exploded just before 8pm and caused a tremendous amount of damage and 15 confirmed (and 35 people still missing) fatalities.
Besides the tremendous amount of damage to West, the explosion also damaged Union Pacific’s mainline tracks that run through West and are next to the now destroyed fertilizer plant. I don’t have a photo to link to, but from the one pic I saw on a news site earlier today, UP’s tracks in West are now twisted. So it looks like the mainline south of Dallas is out of commission until UP can come in and repair the track.
I was curious whose tracks they were, fortunately the topo map on Acme Mapper still had the original owner - Katy.
I suspect the hold up won’t be UP’s ability to repair the tracks - it’s more likely to be when the investigating agencies clear the area so UP can work.
According to another website, UP delivered a car of fertilizer to the plant a few days ago. If you study photos of the destruction, you can see what appears to be a mangled red or brown covered hopper lying on its side next to where one of the large storage bins stood.
13 dead, five of which were first responder volunteer fire fighters, four were EMTs, and four civilians, all heading in to fight the fire that caused the explosion.
They ran into it without being aware of the ammonia issue.
Next time you see one of those tank cars with anhydrous ammonia stenciled on the side, think about West……
No, not as of 5:35 pm Houston time, according to the local ABC affiliate the area in the plant is still too hot and dangerous to allow inspection beyond body recovery.
West is a serious small north Texas town, the railroad and the plant are about the only reason it still existed.
Population is under 3000, and everyone knows everyone else, expect almost the entire population to lose someone they are either related to or knew closely.
(My comments on Agri-industry still stand)…[:(!][:(!][:(!]
Because of the overkill on the other two news events on the east coast, we’re not hearing or seeing much on West. We did hear the order to “pull back”, but the relationship to that order and the BLEVE or chemical explosion is not clear.
Please do not confuse the two different materials said to be at this site.
Anhydrous Ammonia is a pressurized gas shipped in tank cars and stored in pressurized tanks. For either tank cars or storage tanks to fail under pressure due to fire exposure is possible, but very rare.
Ammonium Nitrate is solid material, usually in prill form. It is an oxidizer. Mixed with diesel fuel it is a component in the blasting agent ANFO. It was a homemade ANFO that was the major component in the Oklahoma City bomb, ANFO is not very shock sensitive, so it usually takes about half a stick of dynamite and a blasting cap to initiate it in its typical use as a blasting agent.
Ammonium nitrate itself does not burn but will release oxygen to accelerate the burning of any fuel.
About 1947 a shipload of (wax) coated Ammonium Nitrate detonated alongside the dock at Texas City TX due to a fire. The usual explanation for the explosion was that the fertilizer was confined in the hold(s) of the ship. When I was in the Bureau of Explosives, and later SP Hazmat Control, I always wondered if a hopper car would provide enough mass and enough confinement to detonate a load of Ammonium Nitrate Fertilizer. This event may, or may not, provide the answer to that question.
FWIW I did not see a blast crater in the photo but would not draw any firm conclusion from one photo. If the fertilizer did detonate, that high order explosion should have created a crater. The crater at Wenatchee WA, which was 99,600# of Monomethylamine Nitrate in a tank car, was 30 fee deep, 90 across and shredded nearby rail cars. I did not see any evidence of that kind of high order detonation in the photo.
(1) We don’t know exactly what blew and what didn’t.
(2) The anhydrous ammonia was on site as was 1350+ times the legal stored limit for the Ammonium Nitrate (per the AP newswire) .
My railroad experience taught me that most ag-industry sites are scary places for railroaders to be around and maintenance/safety compliance took a backseat to perceived local priorities. The older the plant, the scarier the conditions, especially for switch crews working the plant (track condition and clearances)… Storage containers in fertilizer sheds and related facilities tended to be badly corroded, unpleasant sites.
Something tells me an OSHA/FRA/EPA audit may be in the offing, which might get rid of the worst of the bad actors and wake-up the credible well intentioned ones.
If our CV Railway hogger was still around, I’d be asking about a certain place on the Manter Sub that started out cheap and concerned me ever since.
I have heard of an incident where a semi trailer loaded with AN detonated, killing a few firefighters, so a loaded hopper car would likely be capable of detonation as well. My understanding was that the fire was very intense, which may have been the critical factor in detonation. In any event, it is a good idea to store AN away from flammable materials.
Anhydrous ammonia will burn, so it is possible that a rupturing tank could have lead to a fuel-air explosion which would have produced a blast wave strong enough to blow down houses, but not strong enough to produce a crater.
If it was the AN that detonated, then the lack of crater could be explained by the AN being a few feet off the ground when detonating - doesn’t take much of an air to bomb gap to make a difference in crater formation even with a nuke. The blast seems to be a bit directional (unintended shaped charge?).
Aware of the difference and the dangers with both…the first one I handle in tank cars, the other…well, I have a first run edition of the Houston Post newspaper from the Texas City explosion.
And I very much remember the ammonia explosion at the Borden’s Ice Cream plant in 1983.
If the fertilizer was stored in an above ground silo or bin, with a concrete foundation, and it was not tightly packed or compressed from settling, then the lack of a crater is not that odd.
The cell phone video of the explosion first shows a massive fire, followed by the explosion with no definitive cause of the fire yet.
Yes, Anhydrous Ammonia will burn but with a narrow range of fuel/air mixture. I disagree with your second statement however and here is why.
Even a flammable gas released through a safety valve will burn in the air but it can not get into the tank to cause an explosion due to lack of oxygen.
I have personal knowledge of a case at Orleans Road WV in which an uninsulated Anhydrous Ammonia tank car rolled about 100 degrees from upright and was exposed to fire on one side of the tank from a burning derailment. The safety valve functioned, probably repeatedly, and in at least one case the liquid discharge caught fire. Since the safety valve was in the liquid space a liquid discharge would not have the usual effect of cooling both the liquid and the vapor which caused me to expect that the tank might fail violently due to overpressure. It did not, but it did open up a 3-5 foot tear in the top portion of the tank as it lay on the ground.
From local TV news coverage, it appears that the UP line through West has been restored. During the day yesterday, arial photos showed a hi-railer, work crews and what appeared to be newly-laid track. A train horn was audible during the 9:00 P.M. newscast.
At least one state environmental official suspects that the hopper car that was delivered a few days ago may be linked to the cause. Others are already disputing that theory. It will be interesting to see the outcome.
I’ve also seen reports of ammonium nitrate being present, possibly a significant quantity (one report said there was something like 1,200 time the amount that would require reporting to the appropriate agencies).
The large bin had some type of grain in it (for seeding) from what I’ve seen. Very possibly that’s what was in the covered hopper.
As bad as the incident was, it certainly had the capability of being far worse.
I did see one news photo showing panel track being hoisted by a crane.
Erikem, about sixty years ago, I read (I think, in Popular Science) an article which stated that shaped (with a hollowed out space) charges placed on a surface caused far more penetrating damage than charges that were flat when placed on the same surface could. In this instance, though, if the explosive material, even if it had a hollowed out portion, was fully above the surface then much of the force could well have been been outward and not downward.
