Why anyone would think rail cars are safer than pipelines is beyond me. Aside from their rather dismal record of staying on track rail lines tend to go for the center of every town along their rout while pipelines go around.
Quebec town rocked by explosions, fire after oil train derailment
- Thread starter petros
- Start date
Besides the oil damage, rail cars can cut quite a swath through public improvements.
You bet and penicillin probably played the biggest role. The diseases today are more those of neglect!
Yep, trains loaded with oil and jumping the tracks!
About 60 people are still missing.
People were eating on an outdoor patio, which, after the explosion, was no more. Completely gone. Several stores as well. flattened.
Not even going to speculate about the 60.
People were eating on an outdoor patio, which, after the explosion, was no more. Completely gone. Several stores as well. flattened.
Not even going to speculate about the 60.
This town is where El Barto lives. In fact, the bar he goes to for an occasional beer was wiped out. My webmaster and friend that goes by the nick of "BSD Guru" also lives there. Luckily neither were in proximity of the blast.
The real issue is routing. Trucks carrying dangerous goods are usually routed around populated areas unless the specific cargo they are carrying is being delivered. What these rail companies do is sneak through town when everyone is sleeping. There should be bypasses built for this sort of thing.
Here's a map of the route used by the rail company that blew up.
The real issue is routing. Trucks carrying dangerous goods are usually routed around populated areas unless the specific cargo they are carrying is being delivered. What these rail companies do is sneak through town when everyone is sleeping. There should be bypasses built for this sort of thing.
Here's a map of the route used by the rail company that blew up.
Yay! El Barto lives! I miss his sense of humour.
Bypasses would be cheaper than pipelines. They should also run shorter trains. Would help reduce the chance of derailment considerably.
Not sure I agree with you there.
As to cost, our rail infrastructure costs a great deal of money to maintain and is very run down. Building the required lines to bypass populated areas (which I support) would cost a great deal of money. I don't have the figures, but I am willing to bet that a pipeline would be better.
Where they park that train is 6 miles way from Lac Megantic , from there it is a gentle slope to down town Megantic... a drop of 350 feet.
That train passes in front of my house and i drive by where they park the train.... My pub , MusiCafe is totally flatten.... the place was full.
60 are missing and i am cringing to find out who I know died
This is my home town
Running anything on rail or over the road poses greater risk. Someone see a leak in a pipeline and the knee jerk reaction is an "Oh my God this is going to happen every day". That isn't the case. Truth is that trucks and rail carrying cargo have a much higher potential for accident and this business of sneaking dangerous cargo through towns at night is playing footsey with disaster.
You may be right. I believe we have the technology to ween ourselves off oil and don't really need either pipe lines or bypasses. But since oil is the richest corporate entities on the planet, that technology is being suppressed.
Well the fact is that we move a lot more dangerous cargo than oil. Chemicals like, ammonia, acids, and a host of other toxic soup runs on rails all the time.
It always takes situations like this to make experts of us all after the facts and events...... all one could say to that was , where were you before all this? What have you done to prevent this? ahh sat there behind the keyboard ..... thought so
Good thing this was oil and not yellowcake which travels by truck and rail from north SK to southern ON going through a few cities and hundreds of towns along the way.
A yellowcake fire would really do some serious harm to life.
A yellowcake fire would really do some serious harm to life.
There will be a municipal meeting this week , call in french MRC , a regional assembly of mayors , my father being one , said they will pressure the company to fix their rails before anymore transportation can continue , this may not be exactly a related issue with what has happened here but the rails are in dire need of repairs , just in my village there was missing 24 inches of rail ... walk along the rails just in front of my house and too many spikes are loose and sticking out.... in any case i am betting the company will be going belly up before that.
Longer trains, two-person crews and deferred maintenance are cost-cutting measures. None of it explains how the brakes released on a tied-down train....