Posted on 07/09/2013 7:43:28 AM PDT by mandaladon
Ed Burkhardt, the chairman of Maine, Montreal and Atlantic Railways...
Burkhardt arrived Wednesday morning in Lac Megantic, a Quebec town decimated after a runaway MMA train hurtled into downtown early Saturday morning, derailed and exploded. Burkhardt announced that Tom Harding, the engineer who left the train, has been suspended and will likely not work for the company again.
“I have never been involved in anything remotely approaching this in my whole life,” he said, as angry residents heckled from behind the media scrum on a Lac Megantic street.
Burkhardt said it now appears that Harding didn’t properly set the handbrakes on the rail cars.
“He’s not being paid, I don’t think he’ll be back working for us,” said Burkhardt.
Shouldn't be able to happen...Air, hydraulic or electric industrial brakes are designed to locked on when there is no power...It takes power to open the brakes...
Around the time of the Boston jihadi bombing some Canadian Mozlem got arrested for planning to derail trains. Maybe he had others planning and they weren’t caught?
I have read other articles about this disaster with a number of knowledgeable or thoughtful comments. Some seem to think that environmentalists against exploitation of tar sands deposits might of done something. A number of others suspect that oil or Canadian government interests may have been responsible because they want the XL Pipeline approved. No one seems to pay any attention to the fact that a major tar sands oil spill in an Enbridge pipeline in 2010 into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River has already cost a $billion in cleanup and is not finished yet. Dozens have permanently lost their homes because of the environmental toxicity caused by this disaster. Lots more at Google.
Both forms of transport have their problems. Tar sands oil slurry is for more toxic, acidic and abrasive than regular oil and the percentage of ruptures is much higher. It is also extremely difficult to remove from water ways in case of spills. The oil in this tanker accident was carried in single hull tankers which puncture easily in accidents. Double hulls and much better pipeline procedures need to be in effect. Apparently pipeline fires are not unknown either.
Bottom line, 72 tankers containing fuel with enough fire and explosive power to equal several Hiroshima bombs was parked overnight with NO watchman or guards with cell phones in our current era of terrorist danger. Gross criminal negligence. We must have stronger safety laws and criminal sanctions.
Why not just park a 30 megaton nuke in orbit with Mecca as the target and deliver an ultimatum to the Saudi’s that unless they stop the world wide terrorist onslaught they started and now finance, Mecca will be a glass-topped parking lot for the next 1000 years?
That myth has been proven false. I'll find the study later and link it.
TRB Special Report 311: Effects of Diluted Bitumen on Crude Oil Transmission Pipelines ( 2013 ) http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18381&page=1
Authors
Committee for a Study of Pipeline Transportation of Diluted Bitumen; Transportation Research Board; Board on Energy and Environmental Systems; Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology; National Research Council
Description
TRB Special Report 311: Effects of Diluted Bitumen on Crude Oil Transmission Pipelines analyzes whether shipments of diluted bitumen have a greater likelihood of release from pipelines than shipments of other crude oils. The oil sands region of Canada is the source of diluted bitumen shipped by pipeline to the United States.
The committee that produced the report did not find any pipeline failures unique to the transportation of diluted bitumen or evidence of physical or chemical properties of diluted bitumen shipments that are outside the range of those of other crude oil shipments. The committee’s comprehensive review did not find evidence of any specific aspect of the transportation of diluted bitumen that would make it more likely than other crude oils to cause pipeline releases.
This would not surprise me at all. I think our civilization is incompatible with their religion.
Ok, I'm not a railroad engineer but I thought that the air pressure was used to release the brakes so that in event of a broken or leaking air hose the default would be to engage the brake.
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