East Palestine, Ohio Railroad disaster.

Mott the Hoople

Mott the Hoople

Sweet Jane
I’m a bit surprised that I haven’t seen a thread yet on this incident (Maybe I missed it).

Anyone have any thoughts on the situation?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I’m a bit surprised that I haven’t seen a thread yet on this incident (Maybe I missed it).

Anyone have any thoughts on the situation?
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Hello, there are threads, but they’re under Pedo Brandon causes toxic spill in Ohio.

Always good to see you return. Hope all is well.
 
I need to know:

1) did this train trip a hotbox detector?

2) are hotbox detractors generally working?

3) did this train go past any non-op hotbox tectors?

4) if any device or RR employee knew about the hot box were dispatchers also aware?

5) if dispaters were aware of this hot box what did they order and why, does management discourage dealing with hot boxes in order to save money thus drive profits to be passed out to owners and managers?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I’m a bit surprised that I haven’t seen a thread yet on this incident (Maybe I missed it).

Anyone have any thoughts on the situation?
Click to expand...

Hi Mott, can you tell me why it was considered preferable to burn off vinyl chloride, producing vast clouds of phosgene in the process, rather than just allowing it to dissipate? Vinyl chloride is a gas at STP as you know.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
I need to know:

1) did this train trip a hotbox detector?

2) are hotbox detractors generally working?

3) did this train go past any non-op hotbox tectors?

4) if any device or RR employee knew about the hot box were dispatchers also aware?

5) if dispaters were aware of this hot box what did they order and why, does management discourage dealing with hot boxes in order to save money thus drive profits to be passed out to owners and managers?
Click to expand...

Excellent questions and thank you for that. I’m very much interested in what the NSTB has to say as the cause and root causes of the accident.

Have you had experience in railroad work and their safety precautions? If so I’d love to hear your point of view.

I come from a long line of railroaders myself though I have never worked for one.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
I need to know:

1) did this train trip a hotbox detector?

2) are hotbox detractors generally working?

3) did this train go past any non-op hotbox tectors?

4) if any device or RR employee knew about the hot box were dispatchers also aware?

5) if dispaters were aware of this hot box what did they order and why, does management discourage dealing with hot boxes in order to save money thus drive profits to be passed out to owners and managers?
Click to expand...

The train went through three detectors. The first two failed to alert the crew because the temperature recorded was too low. The third alarmed but by then the car with the problem was already derailing and on fire. The train was stopped from its 47mph speed (50 was the posted), the crew got out to see the derailed cars and initial fire. There was nothing they could do.
 
serendipity said:
Hi Mott, can you tell me why it was considered preferable to burn off vinyl chloride, producing vast clouds of phosgene in the process, rather than just allowing it to dissipate? Vinyl chloride is a gas at STP as you know.
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Well to explain it as simply I can is that the probability of a BLEVE was far greater and graver than the countryside getting splattered with vinyl chloride.

BLEVE is an acronym for a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.

So the potential for a BLEVE occurring was the worst case scenario. Had a BLEVE occurred there would have been a powerful explosion. See for your self. This is a BLEVE of one tanker car of LPG. Vinyl Chloride is significantly more volatile than LPG and there were five tankers of vinyl chloride. You’ll understand the math when you watch this video.


So the reason why they chose to do a controlled burn of the vinyl chloride in an open burn was last ditch effort to prevent a BLEVE and it worked.

Some would ask “Why didn’t they just transfer it to another tanker and send it out of harms way? To which I reply, rhetorically, “How?”. I mean you have 20 rail cars tangled up in a heap and the tracks all tore up.

So that’s why they did the controlled burn.
 
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Mott the Hoople said:
Well to explain it as simply I can is that the probability of a BLEVE was far greater and graver than the countryside getting splattered with vinyl chloride.

BLEVE is an acronym for a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.

So the potential for a BLEVE occurring was the worst case scenario. Had a BLEVE occurred there would have been a powerful explosion. See for your self. This is a BLEVE of one tanker car of LPG. Vinyl Chloride is significantly more volatile than LPG and there were five tankers of vinyl chloride. You’ll understand the math when you watch this video.


So the reason why they chose to do a controlled burn of the vinyl chloride in an open burn was last ditch effort to prevent a BLEVE and it worked.

Some would ask “Why didn’t they just transfer it to another tanker and send it out of harms way? To which I reply, rhetorically, “How?”. I mean you have 20 rail cars tangled up in a heap and the tracks all tore up.

So that’s why they did the controlled burn.
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How likely is that considering how cold it was that day? I get that vinyl chloride is denser than air and that's a hazard, but then so is phosgene, carbon monoxide and hydrogen chloride.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
The train went through three detectors. The first two failed to alert the crew because the temperature recorded was too low. The third alarmed but by then the car with the problem was already derailing and on fire. The train was stopped from its 47mph speed (50 was the posted), the crew got out to see the derailed cars and initial fire. There was nothing they could do.
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That brings up another question....has the criteria for setting an alarm, alerting the crew, taking action changed?

And was this with government approval?
 
serendipity said:
How likely is that considering how cold it was that day? I get that vinyl chloride is denser than air and that's a hazard, but then so is phosgene, carbon monoxide and hydrogen chloride.
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It was a very high risk. Vinyl Chloride has a flash point of -108 deg F and a boiling point of 8 deg .

As for the phosgene, HCl and CO those would have been combustion products from incomplete combustion of the vinyl chloride. There wouldn’t be a great of phosgene produced by such a burn and it would have quickly been diluted into the atmosphere to below non hazardous levels and essentially that would be true of the HCl and CO. The HCl and CO would have only been a health issue if you were near the plume at its source. Phosgene I don’t think will be an issue at all as we don’t even know for certain if it was produced. Which is like one of those things I was bitching about that the reporters didn’t understand.

I’ve seen worse than this and larger remediated successfully.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
It was a very high risk. Vinyl Chloride has a flash point of -108 deg F and a boiling point of 8 deg .

As for the phosgene, HCl and CO those would have been combustion products from incomplete combustion of the vinyl chloride. There wouldn’t be a great of phosgene produced by such a burn and it would have quickly been diluted into the atmosphere to below non hazardous levels and essentially that would be true of the HCl and CO. The HCl and CO would have only been a health issue if you were near the plume at its source. Phosgene I don’t think will be an issue at all as we don’t even know for certain if it was produced. Which is like one of those things I was bitching about that the reporters didn’t understand.

I’ve seen worse than this and larger remediated successfully.
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Ok, sounds about right!!
 
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