Posted on 07/09/2013 7:43:28 AM PDT by mandaladon
CNN) -- The chairman of the company whose driverless train barreled into the small Quebec town of Lac-Megantic and unleashed a deadly inferno told a Montreal newspaper he believes it had been tampered with. "We have evidence of this," Ed Burkhardt said in an interview published by the Montreal Gazette. "But this is an item that needs further investigation. We need to talk to some people we believe to have knowledge of this." The company did not immediately return phone calls from CNN about the report. Burkhardt is the chief executive officer and president of Rail World, the parent company of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, the operator of the derailed train. Seventy-two tanker cars carrying crude oil jumped the track early Saturday, setting off a huge fireball. At least 13 people are dead and 37 are missing. Officials in the town 130 miles east of Montreal say some were likely vaporized by the sheer intensity of the blaze, which burned for 36 hours.
(Excerpt) Read more at us.cnn.com ...
Without a running locomotive, hand brakes are required.
63.10.3 Securing a Train or Portion Of Train Without
Locomotive Attached
http://www.akrr.com/pdf/SAF_AirBrake.pdf
Page 63-14
See Alaskan railroad operating manual in link 41
That is similar to the way that over-the-road, 18-wheelers work. Lose air pressure and the brakes go on. You need air pressure to release the brakes. Springs lock the brakes if there is not enough continuous pressure to keep them unlocked.
That probably isn’t that far from the truth.
With air brake 2.0, Westinghouse turned things around. Air pressure kept the brakes off. The engineer reduced pressure to put the brakes on. This built-in safeguard meant a loss of pressure would stop the train automatically. That applied to leakage and to the situation where cars came unhitched: Loose cars would brake to a stop. The system went into use in 1872 on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/dayintech_0305
Trains do not use springs to close. They use an on-board air tank on each car. It will eventually bleed down.
Better call Saul!
You can still today go to McMaster-Carr supply and buy a train de-railer that bolts on to the track in about 30 seconds that will lift and throw the lead car off the rail.
I can't believe that they would sell that these days, not that you couldn't build one with a bridgeport and a welder, but still...
Is Burkhardt French? There’s room for a resident idiot in this story. The various stories all make it sound like the engines lost all their cars which rolled into town by them selves. But I saw video late yesterday of the engines and numerous cars still connected to them. Someone had to manually disconnect a car coupling in the middle of the car line. No other way for that to happen except by direct action. They also had to manually disconnect the air line between the same two cars. Note that the air lines are, by themselves, strong enough to keep cars from rolling away on a slight slope. The engines were parked for the night meaning the air line was most likely dumped such that each car was braking itself. Getting those cars rolling would require climbing up each car and manually cranking off the brake wheel.
When I was in high school one of my occasional jobs was loading individual box cars. Moving them by hand required cranking off the manual brake wheel, jacking the car, then re-setting the brakes to make sure the car was still there next day.
There is no freeking way this was not sabotage. Just find out who would have known the train frequently stops on a slight slope. Note also that if the brakes on the cars weren’t holding it would have been very difficult to uncouple two cars. Pull pressure on the coupling locks it tightly in place-—it’s not like a suicide latch or pelican hook which disconnect with slight pressure. From the pics of the area it looks to me like the perpetrator picked a spot far enough down the car line to be out of sight of the engine area.
Perhaps there was some foul play involved, and if there was, that needs to be examined along with security policies and tie down procedures.
“When I was in high school one of my occasional jobs was loading individual box cars. Moving them by hand required cranking off the manual brake wheel, jacking the car, then re-setting the brakes to make sure the car was still there next day.”
The brakes where you crank the wheel where on cars I used to load with aggregate stone. Sometimes during loading the brake would fail and the hopper would start rolling down the track.
Always fun to get to the brake in time before hitting the derailer.
It could only have been tampered with, without anyone knowing about it, because it was setting on the tracks with nobody on board.
“Burkhardt doesn’t “believe that the event was malicious or an act of terrorism.””
TRANSLATION: Kids....
Happened a lot when I was younger, but not with such results.
Along with at least a dozen recent "unexpected" events around the world...
I'm wearing a tungsten and sod helmet... not "tin foil"
I thought so too, that they were like the brakes on a heavy truck that applied in the event of failing pressure.
Bump.
The brakes can be overpowered and blown if the engines aren’t slowing their speeds.
Especially when there is no one on the train and the engines are not running.
This was a parked train that started rolling downnhill.
I suppose it’s possible the train was so heavy it broke through the air brakes and started rolling. I’m guessing the independent wasn’t on.
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