Quebec train set too few brakes, engineer “under police control”

[jpak]

Source: Bangor Daily News

The handbrake is the railroad industry’s ultimate fail-safe mechanism. It is supposed to help avert disasters like the one that engulfed a Canadian town on Saturday, when a runaway train loaded with oil hurtled downhill, derailed and exploded, leaving 50 people dead or missing.

The railroad initially blamed the catastrophe on the failure of the train’s pneumatic airbrakes after an engine fire, but the company acknowledged on Wednesday that the train’s engineer did not apply an adequate number of handbrakes to hold the train in place, and failed to comply with regulations.

A Reuters review of Canadian and U.S. regulations found that rail operators are given considerable leeway to decide how many handbrakes are sufficient for any given train, depending on track conditions and the weight of the cargo.

Operators are only required to apply enough of the handbrakes — one is found on every railcar — to ensure the train will not move even if other safety features, such as air brakes, falter.

Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2013/07/11/news/state/quebec-train-set-too-few-brakes-with-deadly-result/

---

I've been to Lac Magantic many times. It once had great little French-Canadian restaurant (seafood, escargot and frogs legs) and the waterfront park (where the derailment occurred) was beautiful....

[deurbano]

1. Such a tragedy...

<<I've been to Lac Magantic many times. It once had great little French-Canadian restaurant (seafood, escargot and frogs legs) and the waterfront park (where the derailment occurred) was beautiful.... >>

I'm so sorry. I've never been to the town, but have a soft spot for the province since I got married in Quebec City. (We live in California.) Such a lovely part of Canada.

[wordpix]

2. "rail operators are given considerable leeway"---the regs remind me of oil & gas industry regs

i.e. the industry writes the regs, and regulators who used to be in the industry sign off on industry-written regs.

[LittleGirl]

3. what an awful tragedy.

Condolences to the families for their losses.

[BlueToTheBone]

4. In addition to the loss of life,

did the train derail and spill its contents?

I can only keep up with so many disasters and then I reach fatigue and can't follow them all.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Oh yeah, it's a goddamn mess.

I think ONE car didn't rupture. Something like that.

It's a man-made disaster.

[BlueToTheBone]

7. Holy Crap!

How many cars were there?

[AtheistCrusader]

8. 72 tanker cars.

Parts of the area are still too hot for searchers to look for human remains. 30 people still missing.

I think we can assume the death toll is solidly north of 50.

[BlueToTheBone]

11. Oh how horrible!

This can't go on! The push to destroy everything is faster every day. I am so sorry for our planet. Us, not so much...we are the cause.

[NickB79]

41. I'm guessing some will never be found

The kind of heat put out by that fire, combined with the burn time, almost guarantees that some of the missing are now nothing but ash

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Scapegoat: Acquired

[Thor_MN]

9. They tried first to pin it on volunteer firemen

with an absolutely ridiculous story about shutting down the engine which had a fire (and would have APPLIED the air brakes). Then they tried saying that the train had been tampered with. Now, they have settled on something that does hold liability for the company.

[cali]

29. indeed. fuck Ed Burkhardt. I stand with Tom Harding

[AtheistCrusader]

30. Harding may have made a mistake, but

He was set up to fail by impossible working conditions imposed by the company.

[cali]

31. yes. and that's if he made a mistake. I stand with Tom Harding.

[TheBlackAdder]

10. Correct me if I'm wrong...

1) There was ONLY 1 operator for a 72-car train?

2) The operator was expected to leave the engine unattended, while it was running to maintain the air brakes, while he walked the mile or so to manually set each car's handbrakes and then walk back the mile to the engine again?

3) When he's ready to leave, he'd need to re-walk the mile of cars, while the engine is running unattended, while he unsets the manual brakes?

4) With the bunch of train buffs and other nuts in this world... doesn't it seem unsafe to leave a fully laden train unattended?

===

It sure does sound like PATSY ACQUIRED!

[7962]

14. Amen to that!

[HooptieWagon]

15. 1) Apparantly

2) Probably not necessary to set handbrake on each car. I don't know how many is safe, but something like every fifth car or so on reasonably level track seems OK. Yes, would have to walk the length of train. Probably not a mile...72 cars probably a little over 1/4 mile.
3) Yes. Not a mile, see above.
4) Ordinarily, yes. In this case, evidently not. Fuel line in running locomotive sprung a leak causing fire. Apparently individual cars air brakes leaked, causing them to release. Apparently not enough handbrakes set.

RR is desparate to shift blame. IMO probably several causes...possibly operator error, but also probably poor maintainence. Just one issue alone probably wouldn't have caused the accident...but the cumulative effect of all of them did.

[TheBlackAdder]

17. The average railcar is 75 feet long, plus hookups. 80 feet x 75 cars = 6,000 feet. Over 1 mile. nt

[HooptieWagon]

19. 75' too long. 50 or 60 might be about right. And your right, my mental math went south.

[happyslug]

35. Varies, but most seem to be 60-63 feet long, thus about 2 football fields short of a mile

http://www.sterlingrail.com/classifieds/Listings.php?type=Tank%20Car&fsw=FS

The only 47 foot one mention was only for 14,000 Gallon and then for Beer Only. The rest were 60-63 feet long and for 30,000 to 33,000 gallons, Total weight: 196,000 lbs (or 98 tons).

60x75= 4500 feet 63x75=4575 feet long Total Weight 98x75=7350 TONS.

Please remember this does NOT include the weight or length of the engine:

The railroad involves had several different engines:

The EMD-GP7 is 56 feet long, others in use by this railroad can be as long as 70 feet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_GP7

Here is for the GE Dash 8-39B, replaced by the Dash 9 series in the early 1990s, the difference is in the electronic controls:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Dash_8-39B weight is 170 tons. It produces 4000 horsepower (3000 Newtons).

The general rule is .8 horsepower per ton to be hauled. More on steeper grades (and remember when it comes to "Steep grades" on railroads we are talking 2-3%, i.e. 2 feet rise over 100 feet of track. This goes back to Watt's invention of his steam engine. He wanted a measurement that people could understood so he used the power of a horse to move one ton of cargo (Railroads being steel wheels on steel rail and thus have a much lower rolling Resistance then other wheels get away with .8 horsepower on flat ground).

At present the highest grade for a Class 1 railroad is 3.1%. I live in the mountains of Pennsylvania and Norfolk and Southern always double the number of locomotives between Altoona and Johnstown so the train can make the grade.

Thus 75 Cars at 98 tons equals 7350 tons, plus two engine you came to a total weight of 7690 tons. The Dash 8 locomotives produces 4000 horsepower. Thus you need at least two locomotives on this train ON FLAT GROUND. Four if going up grades.

Two locomotives are 140 feet to the length, thus the train would be 4650 feet, if it has four locomotives that would make the train 4790 feet long. 5280 feet is the number of feet in a mile so we are taking anywhere from 490 feet to 630 feet short of the mile. Roughly two football field short of a mile (or the train itself was over 16 football fields long).

More on train hauling (this report does NOT contain the above .8 horsepower to Ton rule, but it is interesting on its own):
http://uotechnology.edu.iq/dep-building/LECTURE/highway&bridge%20engineering/third_class/Railway%20Engineering/Railway%20Engineering.pdf

[HooptieWagon]

36. For many years...

the standard RR car was 40'...boxcars and flatcars. Tankcars were 36' but grew to 40'. Sometime in the 60s RRs started using high capacity cars, that grew to the 60' or so range. Some are bigger. Passenger cars had already grown to 72 - 80' by the 1920s. There is a practical limit, as the longer cars can't take a tight as bend. When there are two parallel tracks on a curve, a car thats too long will sideswipe a train on the nearby track...much like a long truck or bus has trouble making a sharp corner on city streets.

[TheBlackAdder]

16. As an addition...

While the engineer is away from the engine, anything thing could happen including the air brake system fails or power is lost causing the train to move while he's down-track manually releasing the handbrakes.

Someone could release the first dozen handbrakes so while the engineer is walking back, releasing them, by the time he's the dozen cars away, the last brake would have been released, allowing a thief to take the train for a joyride, possibly crashing it.

[HooptieWagon]

20. There are two air pressure systems.

Assuming the train had Westinghouse Air Brakes, which has been almost universally used on freight cars for over 100 years.
Each car has an air tank, the pressure in those tanks applies the brakes. The locomotive supplies air pressure to the entire train, pressure from this centralized system overrides the pressure in each car and releases the brakes.
If the pressure in the central system drops, the brakes on all cars are applied.
If an individual car's air pressure drops below that of the central system (by leaking or manual release) then the brakes on that individual car are released.

[silvershadow]

12. Were they unionized? Seems to me this would be an issue a union would have plenty to say about.

If they weren't unionized, this is example A of why they should have been. Trusting any company is like the fox guarding the henhouse. And, nowadays, expecting any government agency or regulatory body to take interest at any time other than after the fact is ludicrous- big industry has sufficiently invaded governments like a parasites feeding on their hosts. in my "humble" opinion.

[GliderGuider]

25. Yes - United Steelworkers. However...

MM&A was able to convince Transport Canada to issue them an exemption from the two-crew requirement... Oopsie!

[silvershadow]

33. Well, then looks like the union knew best. nt

[bahrbearian]

13. And anyone walking the tracks can release the hand brakes.

[HooptieWagon]

18. That could be.

But not knowing which cars had handbrake set means they would have to check each car. And they'd have to know each cars airtank was leaking. And all that assuming there were no remaing firefighters, railroad personell or police around.

[snagglepuss]

21. Until the engineer admits fault or facts show he is responsible, what the comapny says is pure crap.

The company doesnt know the facts. What the cmpany is doing is making the engineer the scapegoat. What we do know is that the company in the name of profit had only one person to oversee this potential weapon of mass destruction.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. EVEN IF he made a mistake the working conditions made it not only possible, but likely.

[ConcernedCanuk]

22. Ok - 1 guy is going to set handbrakes on over 70 cars?

.
.
.

If one checks the time frame from earlier reports - the engineer was in a hotel room shortly after the train parked - no time to set hand brakes.

Why do not trains have a system like transports? - No air - the brakes are ON.

Oh I get it, that would cost money -

and the railways don't have any . .



CC

[GliderGuider]

24. No, only a number of them need to be set. The real issue is...

What happens if something goes wrong between the time the engineer leaves the cab and when he gets enough brakes set? That's where a safety crew-member would be essential. I think we've seen the last of single-crew trains...

[ConcernedCanuk]

26. Shouldn't be a concern of the engineer

.
.
.

We've have what we call "maxi brakes" on transports and their trailers for decades,

no air

brakes are ON

that simple.

CC

[GliderGuider]

27. I'm pretty sure we'll see some significant regulatory changes as a result of this. nt

[mrdmk]

38. (I posted this on another thread) The Proceeding would not have happend in the U.S.A.

link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_brake_%28rail%29

Railway air brake

<snip>
An air brake is a conveyance braking system actuated by compressed air. Modern trains rely upon a fail-safe air brake system that is based upon a design patented by George Westinghouse on March 5, 1868. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO) was subsequently organized to manufacture and sell Westinghouse's invention. In various forms, it has been nearly universally adopted.

The Westinghouse system uses air pressure to charge air reservoirs (tanks) on each car. Full air pressure signals each car to release the brakes. A reduction or loss of air pressure signals each car to apply its brakes, using the compressed air in its reservoirs.
<end of snip>

This is very weird at best, trains cross back and forth between Canada and the U.S.A. all of the time. Why have different air braking standardized by the Department of Transportation (DOT)?

Why completely abandon a crippled train on the hill? Who is the idiot who made this decision?

[snagglepuss]

40. The train was left on the incline because it was crippled, it was parked there so the

engineer could book into a hotel for a mandatory sleep.

[GliderGuider]

23. More on the track incline, union representation and the single-operator issue.

The track from Nantes to Lac-Megantic has a 1.2 degree grade, which for a train track is quite steep.

The train had only one engineer as permitted under an exemption from Transport Canada. MM&A is apparently one of only two lines granted such an exemption from the two-operator rule. The United Steelworkers represent about 75 MM&A employees, including the engineer in question.

Brakes Cited in Quebec Wreck

MM&A is also facing scrutiny from critics over its policy of using a single engineer on its trains in Canada. MM&A won a special exemption from Canadian authorities to do so—one of just two operators with permission to do so.

[cali]

28. Bullshit. This makes me furious. That's the accusation of the vile pig Burkhardt

The only source saying that Tom Harding is "under police control" that I can find, is the bangor paper. Harding was the entire crew on a train carrying 79 tanker cars (in unsafe DOT111 tankers). Whose shit corporate policy was that? Burkhardt, the asswipe.

Railway CEO Faulted by Union for Blaming Engineer

the head of the railroad in the crash and fatal explosion in Quebec last week is ducking responsibility and prematurely blaming the train engineer for the disaster, a union official in Canada said.

Edward Burkhardt, chief executive officer of Rail World Inc., owner of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., told reporters yesterday that the engineer failed to apply hand brakes before leaving the train on July 6. The engineer, identified by a union official as Tom Harding, parked the 72-car train hauling oil tankers overnight in Nantes, near the devastated Quebec town of Lac-Megantic.

“I have no respect for a person like this who cannot take his responsibilities and tries to find a scapegoat,” Guy Farrell, assistant to the Quebec director of the United Steelworkers Union, said today in an interview. “It doesn’t make any sense that he should come out and say something like this because there’s no proof of this so far.”

Burkhardt paid his first visit to Lac-Megantic four days after the unmanned oil train rolled from an overnight parking spot into the center of town, where it jumped the tracks, caught fire and incinerated about 30 buildings. Police said 20 people died and about 30 more are missing and presumed dead, making it the worst rail disaster in Canada in more than a century.

<snip>

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-11/railway-ceo-faulted-by-union-for-blaming-engineer.html

Lac-Mégantic investigation: Use of one-person train crew under scrutiny, Transport Canada says

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/M%C3%A9gantic+investigation+person+train+crew+under+scrutiny/8645614/story.html

[mtasselin]

34. scape goat

This guy is going to be the scape goat, I retired as a conductor off the Union Pacific so I have a pretty good idea what happened. This train had just one person on it, and to make a proper brake test he would set the air go back tie on the necessary hand brake than release the air to see if they move, and if they do move he sets the air again and goes out and puts on some more hand brakes. This is the trouble with fast Eddie, he has always blamed the worker when if fact all trains should have two people on them, you hit vehicles and people so someone has to go back. But greed is always the factor, the old saying in the industry, safety first unless it cost money. I feel for the engineer he doesn't stand a chance.

[Brickbat]

37. Oh, FUCK THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT!

Why the FUCK was that train stopped on a 1.2 percent grade? And if they want 30 handbrakes set, why the FUCK don't they have a conductor on there? They would have had to have stopped him an hour earlier if they expected him to set 30 handbrakes.

Does everyone see how much absolute bullshit this line is? "Operators are only required to apply enough of the handbrakes — one is found on every railcar — to ensure the train will not move even if other safety features, such as air brakes, falter." You don't know how much that is unless or until it fails. Oh my God, I can't believe they're hanging this guy out to dry. Actually, I can. Burkhardt can eat a bag of dicks.

[GliderGuider]

39. +100 nt