Forgive my naivete , but what’s wrong with pipelines ?
We have them running under the North Sea from Norway to the UK .
Mike Brit
Al Pomeroy said:
NOT A GOOD LINK
If you right click on the link and open it in new window it will work, however … I don’t know how long the live stream keeps streaming.
There’s also a write up at http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/medias-media/communiques/rail/2014/R13d0054-20140819.asp
PS And they have a webcast on TSB http://webcast.mediaco.ca/tsb/player-english.html
Mike Morgan said:
Forgive my naivete , but what’s wrong with pipelines ?
We have them running under the North Sea from Norway to the UK .
Mike Brit
PM sent, too inflammatory for this genteel site. 
Starting with the gov’t agenc(ies) lackies who signed-off on allowing railways to run their trains with one-man crews (especially w/ haz-mat) … dem the peoples should be the ones ‘hung-up-to-dry’, beside the corp. suit(s).
There have been less damaging incidents involving outcry for politicians to resign … this is one that should have gone all the way to the top of the respective department(s) !!
imho, of course !
Doug Cannon said:
Starting with the gov’t agenc(ies) lackies who signed-off on allowing railways to run their trains with one-man crews (especially w/ haz-mat) … dem the peoples should be the ones ‘hung-up-to-dry’, beside the corp. suit(s).
There have been less damaging incidents involving outcry for politicians to resign … this is one that should have gone all the way to the top of the respective department(s) !!
imho, of course !
Doug,
I share that opinion! It’s like a caste system, except our untouchables are sitting at the top to very top.
Steve Featherkile said:
Mike Morgan said:
Forgive my naivete , but what’s wrong with pipelines ?
We have them running under the North Sea from Norway to the UK .
Mike Brit
PM sent, too inflammatory for this genteel site.
Steve , inflammatory pm back atcha
Mike Brit
Mike, simple answer. NIMBYs
I’m curious, how would having a two-man crew made any difference in this case?
Ray Dunakin said:
I’m curious, how would having a two-man crew made any difference in this case?
Quite possibly by
a) applying more hand brakes i.e. applying enough hand brakes on the cars not just the engines.
b) not leaving an engine running that was spewing oil - enough of it that the taxi driver who picked up the engineer at Nantes noticed and mentioned it to the engineer.
As always, hang the locomotive engineer out to dry, while the suits go free.
Steve Featherkile said:
As always, hang the locomotive engineer out to dry, while the suits go free.
As the TSB report clearly outlines, one of the contributing factors has been. A “weak safety culture” at the company that owned the train contributed to the derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
Those who have followed this sad tale a bit more closely than just the bare headlines are familiar with a few extra facts. Such as MMA’s top honcho Ed Burkhardt has a “track record” (no pun intended), very interesting performance at Wisconsin Central back in the '90s http://globalnews.ca/news/709823/profile-who-is-mma-railway-chairman-ed-burkhardt/
Essentially he’s another one of the cut-cut-cut specialists and I’m flabbergasted how Transport Canada could permit one man crews on a railway in such poor physical state and with Burkhardt at the helm.
Can’t these people do some basic research on his track record and extrapolate from there? Do they believe a leopard will change spots?
Ray Dunakin said:
I’m curious, how would having a two-man crew made any difference in this case?
Why do we need two pilots on a aircraft hauling just freight … even ‘passenger’ for that matter ? Especially when the plane manufacturers continually hi-lite their computer enabled flight systems !!
Maybe trains are different, they’re already at ground elevation/altitude . . . . . ;(
nite
Well Boys get ready for more of these types of accidents if BNSF gets their way. There is a proposal right now being formed and pushed by BNSF to eliminate all Conductors from their locomotives and only run with a single Engineer.
Only time will tell!.
Steve Featherkile said:
As always, hang the locomotive engineer out to dry, while the suits go free.
Steve, oh no, the suits don’t go “free”. They retire with a big fat bonus, stock options and retirement packages. 
Chuck Inlow said:
Well Boys get ready for more of these types of accidents if BNSF gets their way. There is a proposal right now being formed and pushed by BNSF to eliminate all Conductors from their locomotives and only run with a single Engineer.
Only time will tell!.
Back in the day, there was a minimum of 5 in a crew, Conductor, Engineer, Fireman, Rear Brakeman, Front Brakeman. Now there will be only one?
What could possibly go wrong?
David Maynard said:
Steve Featherkile said:
As always, hang the locomotive engineer out to dry, while the suits go free.
Steve, oh no, the suits don’t go “free”. They retire with a big fat bonus, stock options and retirement packages.
If that isn’t possible they declare bankruptcy - just like the MM&A - and leave the mess for others to clean up.
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Ray Dunakin said:
I’m curious, how would having a two-man crew made any difference in this case?
Quite possibly by
a) applying more hand brakes i.e. applying enough hand brakes on the cars not just the engines.
b) not leaving an engine running that was spewing oil - enough of it that the taxi driver who picked up the engineer at Nantes noticed and mentioned it to the engineer.
Valid points but I still don’t see what it has to do with the number of crew. If insufficient brakes were applied, then the one man on the job should have done his job and set as many brakes as needed. If the engine should not have been left running while spewing oil, then the one man on the job should have shut it off.
Ray, yes, you are right. But I have seen where one man will cut corners more by himself, then he will if he has a “witness”. So, sometimes, 2 people will make better decisions then one acting alone, sometimes, but not always.
Ray Dunakin said:
…
Valid points but I still don’t see what it has to do with the number of crew. If insufficient brakes were applied, then the one man on the job should have done his job and set as many brakes as needed. If the engine should not have been left running while spewing oil, then the one man on the job should have shut it off.
To quote the chair person of the TSB
“We now know why the situation developed over time,” TSB chair Wendy Tadros told a news conference in Lac-Mégantic. “A weak safety culture at MMA, poor training of employees, tanker cars that didn’t offer enough protection.”
“And then Transport Canada didn’t audit railways often enough and thoroughly enough to know how those companies were really managing, or not managing, risk.”
And the there is this “minor” item:
A U.S. railway consultant says he was approached in 2004 to provide the sort of training for Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway’s employees that could have prevented the July disaster in Lac-Mégantic.
Graphic: The Lac-Mégantic Railway Disaster — The Night a Train Destroyed a Town
But he said the railway balked at his $25,000 fee.
“Imagine my surprise when this all blew up,” Rick Carter, founder of Railroad Training Services, said in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Stockton, Calif.
And all the rest is listed in the TSB Report (a 191 page PDF).
Ray Dunakin said:
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Ray Dunakin said:
I’m curious, how would having a two-man crew made any difference in this case?
Quite possibly by
a) applying more hand brakes i.e. applying enough hand brakes on the cars not just the engines.
b) not leaving an engine running that was spewing oil - enough of it that the taxi driver who picked up the engineer at Nantes noticed and mentioned it to the engineer.
Valid points but I still don’t see what it has to do with the number of crew. If insufficient brakes were applied, then the one man on the job should have done his job and set as many brakes as needed. If the engine should not have been left running while spewing oil, then the one man on the job should have shut it off.
Ray,
A two man crew could have prevented this from happening but not guaranteed. The proper way to secure a train is as follows: make minimum set required to hold train (steeper grades would require more air), trainman goes back and ties what he thinks is the proper number of brakes. While he done, he lets the engineer know, who then releases all brakes (locomotive and train brakes) with the intention that the hand brakes will hold the train without air. If the train starts to roll, then the engineer makes a deeper set (the air wouldn’t have had time to recharge completely, so the only way to make the same amount of set from the first time would be to make a deeper set) to hold the train from rolling away. Then the trainman tied additional brakes, and the test is repeated. Once the train is able to be held by just the handbrakes (engine handbrakes included, which presents another problem if the power is cut off later) then the air now longer matters and the handbrakes function as a safety feature. As the trainman walks back up to the front end, the train line remains charging back to 90psi. When fulled charged the engineer than makes a 20lb reduction (full set) to hold the train on air. This test can only be accomplished by two means: option one; two man crew, option two: remote controlled locomotive. The Lac Megantic train had only one crew member, and I have yet to see any documentation that they had RCO operations.
Now I will say that you must trust the trainman to tie the required number of brakes, and actually conduct the test. Some engineers are lazy, or tired (I will admit to doing it as well) and they simply make the first set, and assume that number of handbrakes that were tied is sufficient.
Story time now… My conductor and I pulled in a stack train to Auburn yard on 7/2, conductor tied handbrakes on S. end of yard (SB train), and connected yard air after the locomotives cut away. 48 hours later, the train rolled out the N. end of the yard (uphill, but that’s another story ;)) and rolled about 4 miles before a local was able to stop it. The air was mysteriously ‘bottled’ on the morning of 7/4, and with no handbrakes to hold the train the train mysteriously rolled North…
We got called for an investigation because the locomotive tapes didn’t show that I made the proper set and release of the brakes after the conductor tied handbrakes. We argued that the train should have rolled S (downhill) out of the yard, and that the number of handbrakes was sufficient to hold the train as it held for 48 hours without incident.
The RR said that the train rolled N. immediately after we cut away (because the tapes didn’t show the set), and the yard air dumped. After 48 hours the air slowly bleed off, and caused the train to roll out of the yard.
Now to add to the fire, the night switch job was scheduled to switch out the train the morning it rolled out… The air was found to be bottled, and no brakes were found to be tied… Guess who got off? Humm…
I told my union rep that I was going to verify each handbrake that my conductor tied, but he suggested that might put to big of a target on my back… Needless to say after that incident I made to sure to do a release test anytime I got off the locomotive.
My point being that if you do the proper air test to make sure that the train is secured properly it doesn’t matter what happens to the locomotives. The train shouldn’t move with air or no air. The Lac Megantic incident simply shows how easy it is to forget (or be lazy), or not to be able to properly do the job with one crew member.