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Ohio train derailment.

so assuming that the venting system was all functioning properly there would have been no reason to pop holes in the tanks?

Do you think that decision was made to make the fire go away in a more expedient manner then?
One big fire that lasts 12 hours as opposed to cars venting fluid and fire for another week? They were on fire for what, 2 or 3 days before they decided to make a bigger mess.

NS and the state EPA both said that they were punching holes in the tanks to prevent an explosion, and if that isn't actually the case then I guess we realy have to start questioning the why. Like did they allow NS to do it so they could open the rail line faster as opposed to the resident's safety?
 
87manche said:
so assuming that the venting system was all functioning properly there would have been no reason to pop holes in the tanks?

Do you think that decision was made to make the fire go away in a more expedient manner then?
One big fire that lasts 12 hours as opposed to cars venting fluid and fire for another week? They were on fire for what, 2 or 3 days before they decided to make a bigger mess.

NS and the state EPA both said that they were punching holes in the tanks to prevent an explosion, and if that isn't actually the case then I guess we realy have to start questioning the why. Like did they allow NS to do it so they could open the rail line faster as opposed to the resident's safety?
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Attached is quick picture I grabbed, inside the steel ring on the head is the safety devices.

Pretty tough to break off but can happen.

As with any accident every situation is different. Best case put the fire out, inspect the cars/tanks for damage.

If structurally sound, right the tank and pump it out like normal. But the fire itself changes the structural integrality of the tank. So they have to have engineers come look at it.

If risk of breaking open then pump them out right there.

They will make a mess pumping them out. I think the general public believes it is a clean job with no spills. Yeah pumping them out will spill a lot.

EPA should not be commenting on this stuff, they are idiots and really have no input on design, construction, or transport of tanks or hazardous materials. They have no idea how these tanks work.
EPA is about what happens after an incident in a case like this.

But really, maybe the tanks were not correct for the product. Maybe the venting was blocked. Maybe it is just what the public wants to hear.

Like in my earlier example of the propane tank. Everyone believed that tank exploded. 3 times. Before they understood how the safety devices work.

I guess I need to read up on it more. Maybe the fire could not be put out with water? Maybe no foam was available?
 

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Tiha said:
I agree, better for the environment to just burn it all up.
Now they have soil contamination, ground water contamination. The remaining product they remove will be waste and not usable.

Just let it burn.
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The problem as I understand it is that it creates Hydrogen Chloride and Phosgene when they burn it.
It seems that it would have been less of a mess to have either put out or flared off the car(s) that were on fire and then pumped out the rest of them versus blowing holes in them with shaped charges, but reportedly the relief valve on one was malfunctioning so they blew holes in all 5 cars and had them dump into a trench where they had flares to light it on fire.

Aaron Z
 
directly acroos the highway from my house. like 150 foot from my front door is a anhydrous ammonia steel pipe line ran by newstar i think or something like that. and 2 miles to the west is the storage tanks. it can be done... fuck all that BS the trains are saying that pipe lines are more dangerous..
 
Tiha said:
But really, maybe the tanks were not correct for the product. Maybe the venting was blocked. Maybe it is just what the public wants to hear.

Like in my earlier example of the propane tank. Everyone believed that tank exploded. 3 times. Before they understood how the safety devices work.

I guess I need to read up on it more. Maybe the fire could not be put out with water? Maybe no foam was available?
Click to expand...

From: Opinion | Over 1,000 Trains Derail Every Year in America. Let’s Bring That Number Down.
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Looking at the first car that was flared off (TILX 402025) its reported to have been a T907 car with a DOT Spec of 105A300W per: Pictures of TILX 402025
Good for 300PSI working pressure, 750PSI bursting pressure per: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg...R-2011-title49-vol3-part179.xml#seqnum179.101

So, insulated, pressure rated, should have been good for that product.

Aaron C
 
Oh no not the cotton balls. Oh the humanty. LOL

Polyethylene. Just a big plastic blob there now I imagine. Would imagine those were beads on their way to be made into something.

All those glycols, who cares. that is antifreeze or some version of it. Not a big deal, not flammable and diluted with a little water perfectly safe.

Vinyl chloride is nasty. Imagine standing over a plastic tote and lighting it on fire and breathing the fumes.

Butyl acrylates and ethylhexyl acrylate Don't know about those but I bet they are nasty. Acrylates are usually sticky like syrup. Can't imagine they would be hard to clean up.

Looks like you found the regs.No bottom outlet. Of course not of that stops something piercing the side of the tank. All the safeties are in that round thing on top.
If it rolled, hard to imagine that staying intact isn't it.
 
Tiha said:
Looks like you found the regs.No bottom outlet. Of course not of that stops something piercing the side of the tank. All the safeties are in that round thing on top.
If it rolled, hard to imagine that staying intact isn't it.
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Looking at: https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/fra_net/18108/HZ1818_ERK PPT v3.pdf they have a check valve inside which should stop flow if the valves are sheared off and the wall of the dome around them is made of 3/4" thick steel if I read correctly.:
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Looking at the post fire pictures from: Derailed train cars in Ohio drained of toxic chemical amid mass evacuation it looks like all the domed covers for the pressure tanker cars stayed on
POHDADWCRFPNNLF2AAGONLDOQU.jpg


7RR732VBRBN2TBUTYHSTC7DUXU.jpg


Aaron Z
 
Tiha said:
Attached is quick picture I grabbed, inside the steel ring on the head is the safety devices.

Pretty tough to break off but can happen.

As with any accident every situation is different. Best case put the fire out, inspect the cars/tanks for damage.

If structurally sound, right the tank and pump it out like normal. But the fire itself changes the structural integrality of the tank. So they have to have engineers come look at it.

If risk of breaking open then pump them out right there.

They will make a mess pumping them out. I think the general public believes it is a clean job with no spills. Yeah pumping them out will spill a lot.

EPA should not be commenting on this stuff, they are idiots and really have no input on design, construction, or transport of tanks or hazardous materials. They have no idea how these tanks work.
EPA is about what happens after an incident in a case like this.

But really, maybe the tanks were not correct for the product. Maybe the venting was blocked. Maybe it is just what the public wants to hear.

Like in my earlier example of the propane tank. Everyone believed that tank exploded. 3 times. Before they understood how the safety devices work.

I guess I need to read up on it more. Maybe the fire could not be put out with water? Maybe no foam was available?
Click to expand...
I know they had foam because now we're talking about how bad the foam is and it's also going to leave lasting chemicals in the soils.

how much? I don't know.
but it did burn a few days so you'd think they would have had all the opportunities to get those things there.

I really think that nobody was on the ball with WTF was actually in those tankers for the first 48 hours.
 
87manche said:
I really think that nobody was on the ball with WTF was actually in those tankers for the first 48 hours.
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Agree, everyone probably kind of just left it, rail road was probably going to let it burn for a week until the media made a deal out of it.

If you look at the pictures you posted, there is black and white on the tankers, but there is also 2 shades of black. Meaning tank may have gotten hot but didn't burn and probably has product in them.

Can't tell which is which though as to what had what in it.

totally botched containment and fire suppression.
 
Tiha said:
Agree, everyone probably kind of just left it, rail road was probably going to let it burn for a week until the media made a deal out of it.

If you look at the pictures you posted, there is black and white on the tankers, but there is also 2 shades of black. Meaning tank may have gotten hot but didn't burn and probably has product in them.

Can't tell which is which though as to what had what in it.

totally botched containment and fire suppression.
Click to expand...
Note that the pressurized tankers (at least the ones that they blew holes in to flare off the contents) were insulated, so what you're seeing may be the tin that covers the insulation rather than the actual pressure tank of the car.


Aaron Z
 
Today I drove through Texas oil country. Literally thousands of tank cars queued on miles-long sidings.

Definitely better than pipelines.
 
aczlan said:
Note that the pressurized tankers (at least the ones that they blew holes in to flare off the contents)
Click to expand...
I wonder if they did that on purpose to prevent worse ground and water contamination. The whole exploding pressure thing was just a cover story.

Because it would certainly not help the EPAs case to come out and say, it is safer to burn it off.
 
Tiha said:
I wonder if they did that on purpose to prevent worse ground and water contamination. The whole exploding pressure thing was just a cover story.

Because it would certainly not help the EPAs case to come out and say, it is safer to burn it off.
Click to expand...
I haven't looked into it, but somebody was saying that it would auto ignite above a certain temperature and that's why they flared them off, but I'm not sure how that varies with pressure (ie: if the autoignition temp goes up with pressure).

Aaron Z
 
aczlan said:
but I'm not sure how that varies with pressure
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I am sure the pressure makes it into a pretty big bomb. They would of had to been pretty confident the safety devices were not going to contain it for some reason.

But think of gasoline. Soak a rag in it, it burns. Compress it and it explodes.
Or fire cracker in a closed hand verses an open hand.
 
Tiha said:
I am sure the pressure makes it into a pretty big bomb. They would of had to been pretty confident the safety devices were not going to contain it for some reason.

But think of gasoline. Soak a rag in it, it burns. Compress it and it explodes.
Or fire cracker in a closed hand verses an open hand.
Click to expand...
Compress it with the right amount of air and it explodes, but if you compress it without air you are good right up until you get a BLEVE...

Aaron Z
 
Sorry to keep posting these but these guys are doing the best on the ground reporting of anyone in East Palestine right now. Watch their stories to get a longer version of this clip. Lots more detail. Also on Fox News this morning reporting workers at the site are getting sick. That has been something I've been wondering about, I keep seeing workers in pictures doing the cleanup wearing very little protective gear and I'm like WTF. And they are union guys. There are going to be so many law suits come out of this.

www.foxnews.com

East Palestine train derailment site workers are getting sick, union says

Union representative Jonathon Long wrote to the Department of Transportation and Federal Railroad Administration that rail workers at the Norfolk Southern derailment site in East Palestine, Ohio, are experiencing symptoms of illness.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com

 
redneckengineered said:
Sorry to keep posting these but these guys are doing the best on the ground reporting of anyone in East Palestine right now.
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That is great info.

You really need to be in the industry using those products to understand how bad they are or can be.

I get nearsighted, the company I work for, we carry lots of different hazmat but they try to always say, the diesel fuel in the tanks is the most hazardous thing we haul.
In most cases that is true and the management tries to use that as a marker when considering new products.

We do corrosives and acids. But not the burn your skin off type.
 
Another train wreck in Ohio today on a river.

My brother didn't go into any specifics
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IMG_20230304_201231.png
 
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