Crude oil derailment, fire

[Ian MacMillan]

 He'll we skate any string of cars on both ends and handbrake ends at min. If it was loaded Cement Quebec when they were our customer cars we would also handbrake every 4th car.

[peteski]

Earlier tonight, the talking heads on the news said that information was released stating that the derailment was caused by a brake failure. Still unknown was whether it was a human error or a mechanical failure.   

[nkalanaga]

The quote I saw on CBC was "insufficient braking force applied", which sounds like they're blaming the way the brakes were used, rather than the brakes themselves.

If that's the case, it will be interesting to see if the engineer was following company/government standards.  If not, he would seem to be responsible.  If he was, then obviously the standards are faulty.  If there are no standards, and it's strictly a judgement call by the crew, it's likely to happen again.

[Specter3]

I still want to know who the railroad officials the firemen turned the locomotive over to.

[Smike]

The officals if they put blame on any one person in this type of event it will be pointless and will do nothing to prevent any future accident of the same.

Bottom line for me is that no one single person should have had the ability to make any mistake which would lead to this. Redundancy is needed if the person is the single point of failure.

[C855B]

Canada's transport regulators implementing 2-crew minimum for trains with "dangerous cargo" as a result of the accident:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/canada-toughens-safety-rules-for-trains-with-dangerous-goods-following-catastrophic-crash/2013/07/23/4e3e7084-f400-11e2-81fa-8e83b3864c36_story.html

[wazzou]

Excellent video from better times...


Not a valid youtube URL

[Philip H]

I love all the Alco's running with their doors open.  One presumes they did so for cooling purposes.

The track arrangements shown in the video certainly make it clear how that train got to the center of town and derailed at enough speed to cause the explosion.

[sharriso]

Like the video.  Half an hour well spent.

Found this today.

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    Shawn and Sally Harrison
    - Modeling 1850s B&O

[Smike]

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Files for Bankruptcy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-07/montreal-maine-railway-files-for-bankruptcy-after-crash.html

[lock4244]

Not a surprise at all. Even if the costs associated with the derailment didn't kill them first, the loss of their mainline and resulting steep drop in traffic would have. I think that the MMA was somewhat of a paycheque to paycheque operation, and the money was bound to run out quickly.

[lock4244]

More trouble for MMA:

http://www.newswire.ca/fr/story/1209807/canadian-transportation-agency-suspends-mma-mmac-s-certificate-of-fitness

[Philip H]

wonder why it took so long?

[lock4244]

Probably giving them adequate time to find someone will to provide coverage. Failing that, time required to wind down operations (pulling remaining cars of the line).

[cv_acr]

So who's running the betting pool on which railroad takes over the former MMA trackage when the dust settles?