Lynchburg train derailment

I was told a 105 car freight train from Lynchburg was suppose to come through Richmond but did not when it derailed it was carrying crude oil, the speed prior to the derailment was 24 mph and now some the oil has spilled into the James river which has everyone concerned, not just the residents that lives alongside the river.

Yep, is a mess. I didn't hear of any injuries or fatalities. Lots of people evacuated. Lots of speculation on cause, of course nobody knows nothing yet.

yes, so far so good, but the cleanup bill to get the water oil free,well, that is a different story.

I live a few miles from there, I heard 12 cars derailed, 3 slid down the river bank. No one was injured or killed. CSX states they are fully cooperating with government agencies (Although I don't believe them b/c of personal reasons). It's kinda funny how the news jinxes stuff, about a month ago the were talking about crude oil shipping safety because of the 3 derailments that have happened since the one in Canada and this would make the 4th...



EDIT: More about how the NTSB is reacting to crude oil transportation safety here.

Dozens and dozens of derailments happen in the US, daily ! Most of them minor. I heard a statistic that someone is killed in a car crash ever 7 minutes, and that there is a train derailment just about as frequent. With some lines seeing 75 trains per day, and high track speeds, it is a wonder that there are not more catastrophic derailments. Due to fracking in most States (which pollutes the deep earth forever with fracking fluid chemicals) there are more and more trains of petroleum. No one seems to remember the 1969 LPG train derailment in Laural MS, where in the early mornning hours ...

Here is an unrelated story:

Title: Southern Railway Company, Train 154, Derailment with Fire and Explosion, Laurel, Mississippi, January 25, 1969.
NTSB Report Number: RAR-, adopted on 10/06/1969
NTIS Report Number: PB-190208
http://www.ntis.gov/search/product.aspx?abbr=PB190208
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,1210198
http://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=21105
http://therailroadman.com/wordpress/?p=95

The boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE):

"Nighmare in Laurel" (Mississippi) Was a story featured in Readers Digest...Train #154 rumbled across a RR crossing, through the sleeping town, during a steady downpour of rain. Within minutes after the first wheel fractured and derailed, the entire town was aflame. Numerous 32,000 gal LPG tank cars exploded, 17 in all, and one was propelled like a flaming missile 1000 ft in the air, where it crashed 1/4 mile away into a residential neighborhod, where numerous houses throughout the entire town became immediately engulfed in an inferno. One freight car wheelset was launched 1/4 mile, and came crashing through the roof of a sleeping familys bedroom, crashing through the 2nd and 1st floors of the house, and ended up in the basement. The story was pages, and pages long...

We have to remember too that the news will make a bigger thing out of this than a 20-car pile up on the interstate. This news will be spun upside down, sideways, and then more for the next eon. Hopefully the NTSB will shed some light on the crash. Go here for more on this and other derailments. www.ntsb.gov

John