Train Derails and Explodes in Canada

[klr]

I'm amazed that this was not the lead item (or even the second item) on the BBC News channel at 10 am, given the likely number of deaths.

[Clinton Huxley]

Especially as it has news media friendly explosions.

[cronus]

I recall something similar happened in Russia a few years back, with hundreds fried, but it hardly made news anywhere. The blast wave would have stunned them before they died...less painless than falling off a ladder which claims hundreds each year too. I've plenty of empathy for people I know but these are people I didn't and therefore they are no more significant than casualties of a drone attack in the back mountains of afghanispak .

[Collector1337]

Go get laid.

?

What I mean is, it would be nice if you went and did something that might mitigate the likelihood of you acting like a edgy, defensive fanatic when you come into this forum. (Definition of a fanatic: someone who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject.) And only a fanatic could see this thread and feel compelled to derail it into yet another rant about how his oppressive government wants to restrict his constitutional right to own a rack of M249s.

Yeah, your definition of fanatic doesn't apply to anyone else on this forum on the other side.

[macdoc]

Lots more dead

Not our worst one by far but pretty wild....run away train.

THIS was our worst....in fact the largest evacuation in North America before Katrina and in my ( now current ) home town and incredibly no one died. Hazel's sprained ankle was about the worst injury.

1979 Mississauga train derailment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Mississauga train derailment of 1979 occurred on Saturday, November 10, 1979, in Canada, when a 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario was derailed near the intersection of Mavis Road and Dundas Street in Mississauga, Ontario. As a result of the derailment, more than 200,000 people were evacuated in what was then the largest peacetime evacuation in North America until the New Orleans evacuation of 2005. There were no deaths resulting from the incident. This was the last major explosion in the Greater Toronto Area until the Sunrise Propane blast in 2008.

more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Missi ... derailment

Very similar dangerous chemicals on a derailed train in the middle of town. Worth watching as you get a sense of what happened in Quebec.

and we still have our same mayor....Hurricane Hazel is still going strong at 93

[Warren Dew]

From the Beeb:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23212541

...

The cars filled with fuel somehow became uncoupled, causing them to roll downhill into the town and derail, said the spokesman, Joe McGonigle.

"It seems that the brakes were tight on locomotives," Mr McGonigle told La Presse. "We found the locomotives higher up, half a mile (800m) away."

...

I thought all rail cars have fail-safe breaks, so they need to be connected to the locomotive for the breaks to be released. Perhaps not with freight?

Sort of.

Each car has a compressed air tank that is used to put the brake on. Compressed air from the locomotive simultaneously charges the air tank and shuts a valve between the air tank and the brake cylinder, taking the brakes off.

When the car is separated from the locomotive, the drop in air line pressure opens the valve and permits the compressed air in the tank to reach the brake cylinder, putting on the brakes. In time, however, the compressed air in the car's tank will leak out, and the brakes will be released.

[Jason]

Odd. Semi trucks work in reverse - air pressure is required to release the brakes. So in the case that the trailer disconnects from the tractor the spring tension that the air cylinders work against is applied and the brakes are thus applied. Funny they should do it completely backwards (and stupidly) on rail cars.

[Warren Dew]

Odd. Semi trucks work in reverse - air pressure is required to release the brakes. So in the case that the trailer disconnects from the tractor the spring tension that the air cylinders work against is applied and the brakes are thus applied. Funny they should do it completely backwards (and stupidly) on rail cars.

I think the issue is that springs aren't strong enough to provide the braking pressure needed to stop loaded rail cars - or at least they weren't when the system was invented.

[Hermit]

Odd. Semi trucks work in reverse - air pressure is required to release the brakes. So in the case that the trailer disconnects from the tractor the spring tension that the air cylinders work against is applied and the brakes are thus applied. Funny they should do it completely backwards (and stupidly) on rail cars.

I think the issue is that springs aren't strong enough to provide the braking pressure needed to stop loaded rail cars - or at least they weren't when the system was invented.

Think again.

[macdoc]

ground zero