Posted on 09/25/2004 11:03:26 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
For the third time this year, freight trains carrying hazardous cargo collided in San Antonio, this time causing no spills, leaks or casualties but frightening nearby residents, shaking telephone poles like tuning forks and raising the specter of what-if.
At 11 p.m. Friday, a runaway string of 50 rail cars rolling backward from a northbound train struck an 80-car Union Pacific train nearly broadside just east of Brackenridge High School.
The eastbound Union Pacific train was pulling 14 tankers of sulfuric acid and five tankers of sodium hydroxide, or lye.
Both substances are hazardous and potentially deadly.
Five cars were punctured and one leaked magnesium chloride, a bitter crystalline salt used to replenish electrolytes in the body. But the substance is not toxic or flammable, a fire official said.
Informed of the close call, County Judge Nelson Wolff said the wreck was yet another example of the railroads' cavalier attitude toward local residents.
"I'm frustrated," Wolff said.
Neither railroad is friendly to proposals for rerouting rail lines that carry hazardous cargo around the city, as was recently done in Brownsville with a $47 million investment, he said.
"The first thing is, they're getting a lot more freight to haul. The second thing is that San Antonio has never been a priority for the railroads because San Antonio has never had a lot of outgoing freight.
"The third thing is that all the lines lead right through the heart of the city," Wolff said.
The wreck occurred just two blocks east of where the rail line crosses the San Antonio River south of the high school, where a collision May 3 sent two locomotives and 12 rail cars into the water and onto nearby South St. Mary's Street.
Four tanker cars that stayed on the tracks that day were carrying highly explosive propane.
Later, on June 28, a collision just outside the city limits in South Bexar County left three people dead and 49 injured, mostly from the toxic fumes of chlorine gas.
The runaway cars in Friday's collision came from an 81-car Burlington Northern Santa Fe train and apparently were detached by hobos who were trying to get off the train and may have hit the brakes to slow it down.
Each rail car has its own set of brakes.
The resulting string of cars — most of them brand-new empty boxcars — rolled downhill for about 2 miles before running into the Union Pacific train as its 30th car rolled by a switch between South St. Mary's and South Presa streets.
The Union Pacific tankers carrying hazardous cargo were farther to the rear.
Had the cars from the other train been detached seconds or minutes later, a worse disaster could have occurred, agreed Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley.
Sulfuric acid is harmful if inhaled and corrosive if it comes into contact with eyes or skin.
Sodium hydroxide also is extremely corrosive and reactive. If inhaled or ingested, it can cause severe burns to the mouth, throat and stomach, leading to scarring of tissue or death.
"The railroad police did an extensive search, and what they found was consistent with train riders trying to use the brakes to slow the train down and get off," Bromley said.
The wreck occurred near the same spot where two engines and 12 rail cars derailed in May into the nearby San Antonio River. Three people were injured and 5,600 gallons of diesel fuel spilled out.
"There was a lot of screeching, breaking, bumping, sparks and then the impact — boommmmm," wrote Roland Castanuela, of the 100 block of Vitra Street.
Railroad officials had no idea how fast the cars were moving down the track.
"We had a whole view of it," said Albert Hernandez, who lives next door to Castanuela with his fiancée, Harley Reese.
Less than 100 yards from the switch where the collision occurred, Hernandez and Reese said they were in their living room watching TV when they began to feel their duplex shake.
"I felt the walls shaking while it was happening — it was right at 11 p.m. — and we opened the front door and we saw it all right there. We saw the biggest part of it," Hernandez said.
"The telephone poles looked like rubber, the wires were bouncing all around and the sparks were flying," he added, explaining the effect of a rail car that took out a utility pole and temporarily caused a power outage to the surrounding neighborhoods.
"I had a panic attack. I was scared," said Reese. "The Lord kept it all over there, and no one got hurt."
Burlington Northern Santa Fe officials at the wreck scene would not consent to be interviewed, and corporate media contacts did not return repeated phone calls.
Union Pacific crews and contractors went to work clearing the wreckage immediately after it was determined there was no hazardous chemicals to slow things down. They were rebuilding the track and switch by 9 a.m. Saturday.
Freight was expected to be moving through the tracks by 6 p.m. and all three tracks were expected to be open by 10 p.m.
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tbower@express-news.net
A few items to throw into the pile that I have access to..
The BNSF train originated in Eagle Pass, TX.
The "new" boxcars were new construction from a plant in Mexico.
Angle cocks (hand valves) control the flow of air throught the brake pipe.
At the point of the uncoupling, the angle cocks were closed on both cars, on the one left coupled to the train and the one that was part of the roll-away. The air was "bottled" in the rear 50 cars and the brakes were inoperative.
The uncoupling lever was lifted which opens the knuckle and separates the couplers.
There is a .34% to .92% westward descending grade from the point of the uncoupling.
Evidence was found on the east car of the cut that rolled indicating the presence of a "UDA" on the railcar. Empty water bottles - clothing - papers - excrement.
Tracker dogs were used, first on the rail car which they got a good hit on. Tracked the scent along the railroad, through a wooded area and onto the sidewalk of Commerce St. in San Antonio. Along the sidewalks for a few hundred yards and then to the curb where the scent dissappeared as if the person/persons got into a vehicle..
Hundreds of "UDA" are pulled off of and from under trains across the southwest daily..
wideminded,
Angle cocks were turned on two cars then the pin was lifted between the two, uncoupling the cars. By turning the angle cocks, the air is "bottled" in the cut and the brakes will not set when the train line is separated. Had the angle cocks not been closed, the cut of cars would have likely not rolled more than a few hundred feet because the train line would have been "broken" and the brakes would set up in an "emergency application". Hope that helps..
WOW!
That's a lot of information.
***At the point of the uncoupling, the angle cocks were closed on both cars, on the one left coupled to the train and the one that was part of the roll-away. The air was
"bottled" in the rear 50 cars and the brakes were inoperative. ***
Is that normal?
Of course the RR should bear first responsibility.
But this lax (crimminal) attitude sets trains up for terrorist use.
kemosabe, the railroad knows the cause. It is not "mythical". It real and provable. And, it is possible to have a "rolling disconnect" and not set the brakes. Of this I speak from hands on experience.
Yep, that's normal.
Like having water flowing through a garden hose.. The nozzle is closed first - then the faucet is closed. You still have water in the hose, under pressure, until you open the nozzle and release. The release is what casues the pressure to drop in the hose and in the air brake lines. This drop in pressure sets up an imbalance in pressure and causes the brake pistion to operate and set the brake against the wheel.
I did some more reading on train braking online and noticed that this is probably the most plausible explanation, although it was not discussed in the article. Some other ways a runaway train could occur include:
1. If the boxcars had been idle long enough to have empty auxiliary air tanks and the crew did not connect up the brake lines to charge them.
2. If the train had braked hard several times in succession just before the cars were decoupled, the auxiliary air tanks would be depleted, leaving no force on the brakes.
Sorry, I hadn't read your post #22 before my last post.
Yes, but this would tend to suggest a deliberate--rather than accidental--uncoupling, would it not?
Also, I thought that trains had a motion sensor on the rearmost car which maintained radio contact with the engineer (a function formerly performed by the brakeman in the caboose). So shouldn't the engineer have discovered that something was amiss, unless somebody also sabotaged the motion sensor?
The way I read it they were turning the manual brakes on the car (the big wheel) that sets individual brakes.
>>>>I'm puzzled, though--wouldn't uncoupling cars on a moving train cause all the brakes along the entire train to get automatically thrown pretty quickly? Or did whoever uncoupled the cars cap the brake lines to prevent that from happening?
Sorry to get back so late... work keeps getting in the way.
1) Yes, this was a deliberate act on the part of the trespasser/vandals.
2) The BNSF train was equipted with an EOTD. In the initial interview with the BNSF train crew, they claimed that they had been having problems during their trip with losing linkage/connectivity between the locomotive and EOTD. They would have to stop and relink electronically. They claim that while they were stopped for the signal, they got no information from the EOTD that the rear of the train was moving AWAY from them. (it reads out footage between the lead unit and the EOTD)
The EOTD device is being tested as well as the readouts from the "blackbox" on the locomotive.
Had the angle cocks NOT been closed, the brakes would have set up on the entire train as soon as the "glad hands" on the air hoses uncoupled. Since the trespassers/vandals closed BOTH angle cocks, the train line was kept intact and no "emergenty application" of the brakes occured.
The hand brakes (big wheel) does set up the brakes on an individual car but did not come into the play at any time during this event.
Typical that San Antonio would blame the UP....instead of their own immigration problems. I get it is a "sanctuary city" like LA, etc where they dont deport people.
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