Posted on 07/10/2013 8:25:29 PM PDT by rawhide
The president and CEO of the railway's parent company says an employee failed to properly set the brakes of the train that crashed into a town in Quebec, killing at least 15 people while another 45 remain missing.
Edward Burkhardt made the comments during a visit Wednesday to the town that was devastated by the runaway oil train four days ago.
'It was questionable whether hand brakes were put I place at this time,' Burkhardt said.
'I don't think any employees removed brakes. They failed to set the brakes.'
'I think he did something wrong ...We think he applied some hand brakes but the question is did he apply enough of them.
'He said he applied 11 hand brakes we think that's not true. Initially we believed him but now we don't.'
He said a train engineer has been suspended without pay.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
If I was that engineer, I would be on suicide watch. How can you leave a train like that without doing everything by the book?
Honestly, how can you leave a train like that unattended at all? It’s a fundamental failure to ever leave a train unattended.
The movie ‘Unstoppable’ with Denzel Washington, runaway train
that single engineer/train driver didnt set correctly and walked away from train. Same scenario!
Lordy, as long as the parent company can deflect liability in the press!
Hell, it’s what the US does ... why not?
Much more detailed information found here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/11/us-train-brakes-insight-idUSBRE96A03I20130711
Engineer claims he set 11 brakes, but his company doubts he set that many.
From the article: “At least three independent railroad industry experts contacted by Reuters said they would have opted to apply at least 20 brakes and as many as 30 on a similar heavy train parked at a grade of 1.2 percent, which is the slope of the track where the runaway train had been parked.”
I saw the brake issue theorized from early on. It was my understanding that there was going to be a crew change because the first crew had worked their maximum hours. It would have been their job to properly tie the train down.
I remember watching a news report from a while ago where they noted that a lot of engineers are tired on the job as well.
Locomotives don’t have dead man’s switches any more?
Maybe he’s lying.
That clown will say anything to keep the heat away from corporate headquarters. The investigators need to look real close at the maintenance records, or perhaps really look close at the concept of having only one person on a mile-long train. What penny pincher at corporate thought that one up? Why not turn off the engine and chock the wheels if you gotta go take a crap or take a nap. Whatever happened to stay on your post until relieved? You could tell the guy was lying cause he kept looking left.
Economics would dictate that there be an overlap of "crews" (On this and other MMA trains they have equipment that allows the crew to be just one person) so the train would always be manned and spend more time moving.
Bring back the “firemen” and cabooses.
Yes, I thought so too, except with a much worse ending. Unless they're trying to hide sabotage by offering up a believable movie-script story. /tinfoilhat
Do trains have spring brakes on the pneumatic brakes? On trucks they have a spring in the brake pots that takes roughly 60 psi to overcome to release the brake. This sounds like they just pulled the handvalve down. When they shut the engine down air must have bled off allowing the brakes to release.
Each car and locomotive have a hand brake which seems to be similar in function to mechanical automotive park brakes.
‘Unstoppable’-good movie.
Seems like spring brakes would be a good idea.
” The train’s pneumatic brakes, which run on compressed air and are the first line of defense, had been shut down by firefighters when they switched off an engine that had caught fire after the engineer left.
It is not yet clear what caused the fire, but the shutting down of the engine prompted the pneumatic braking system to gradually leak air and lose its track-gripping power.”
Not nearly strong enough. Even one of these rail cars can weigh over a hundred tons - imagine forty or more lined up together. Put that on any kind of grade, and spring brakes might as well be rubber bands.
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