Missing car load on UP

[OldEastRR]

Heard bits about a covered hopper being found empty when it had left the yard full. Fertilizer or ammonium nitrate, which is not good news. This happened in CA and announced only recently. Anybody got news? 

[nkalanaga]

No, but it's more likely to be a leaky gate than theft.  If it traveled for any length of time, the load is probably spread fairly thinly.

In the 1970s, Pasco Yard on the BN always had piles of grain from leaky hopper gates.  For four years we fed our pigs on spilled grain.

(My father had retired from the yard, so was known by everyone there, AND was well aware of the safety rules.  He made sure we knew them as well, and neither my sister nor I went there without him.)

[Hawghead]

The right-of-way from Wyoming to California will have been well fertilized.

Scott

[DirtyD79]

The right-of-way from Wyoming to California will have been well fertilized.

Scott

Good for the weeds, not so good for whoever it was that was supposed to make sure that gate was closed before the car was moved. 

[lock4244]

I once called in a leaking covered hopper on a CN Toronto bound train. Overheard the RTC ask the crew if they were aware of it, and they were, said it was minor... it was flowing pretty good, enough to mark the rofw pretty plainly with a white powdery substance from a train moving at 50mph. Was told to keep going. While they were only 50 miles from McMillan Yard, I'd have thought such things would've been taken more seriously. Maybe they are now, it was 20 or more years ago.

[learmoia]

I once called in a leaking covered hopper on a CN Toronto bound train. Overheard the RTC ask the crew if they were aware of it, and they were, said it was minor... it was flowing pretty good, enough to mark the rofw pretty plainly with a white powdery substance from a train moving at 50mph. Was told to keep going. While they were only 50 miles from McMillan Yard, I'd have thought such things would've been taken more seriously. Maybe they are now, it was 20 or more years ago.

In the scope of a class 1, if it's not hazmat, it's probably more expensive to stop and deal with it than just pay the lost freight claim.

[nkalanaga]

And, if it's a damaged seal, or a damaged gate itself, the crew probably couldn't fix it anyway.  They'd delay the train, possibly other trains, and lose even more of the load sitting there.