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East Palestine Derailment and Fire

"J"

"J"

Git Off My Lawn
Supporting Member
60,304
288
North Carolina
Looks like Norfolk Southern got another black eye in NE Ohio.

www.cnn.com

Train derailment in northeastern Ohio sparks massive fire | CNN

Evacuation and shelter-in-place orders remain in effect in a northeastern Ohio town after a train derailment sparked a massive fire and concerns about air quality.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

@Ohiosam could see the glow from his place last night.
A buddy (who works for them) has been there all night. He was also raised there.
 
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Reactions: finelyshedded, MoonLab, Outdoorsfellar and 5 others
Thanks for sharing @"J" ! Sad story no doubt, but rather real neat photography taken and shared!

Throughout my earliest years being a young boy of a railroad engineer that worked for the railroad all the time and experienced being around many rail yards, locomotives, railcars, so on and so forth, I've never seen such a thing like the photographs you just posted, but I do recall some of the horror stories once told by my father during his time working for the railroad as an engineer, and I was real young at the time (from 0-15yrs of age).

One of those stories be told is that I distinctly recall was when my father nearly died. I was just an infant/toddler and he just achieved becoming the youngest railroad locomotive engineer at his workplace after receiving his card/license. Soon after, there was a locomotive fire/explosion that he was operating and he literally had to jump from that locomotive into the nearest ditch right by the tracks to put himself out from being on fire. No one else was ever hurt other than himself. Supposedly, the cause was some sort of equipment failure within the locomotive. BTW, there should be historical news paper clippings of the incident somewhere in Syracuse, NY I would think, going back somewhere around 1966-68, if anyone is interested in chasing down factual history. I've actually seen the news story of it decades ago.

Although that isn't what I recall most about my father sharing his experience/story, it was after the fact in how much it truly shook him up and changed him as a person. I always thought my father was superman at the time, fearless of most everything in life when I was just a young little boy and never seen my father scared like that ever before. In fact, this memory makes me giggle in a way because of how that life experience changed him as an everyday hardworking provider for the family guy that had a real casual nonchalant attitude and outlook towards life back in the day it seemed like back then. Once again, going back in time, pulling up this memory.

Boy,,, what a wild flashback down memory lane that I just had thanks to you and the rather unfortunate news.

When I first read your post, almost immediately, thoughts of my father came rushing forward, which most are real good ones, taking me back in time nearly 50 years now.

Holy-smoke,,,, starting to show my age, fugg! 😳 but I don't feel that way at heart and mind though, just so everyone knows. If anything, spiritually, I feel like I'm 30 or so...

Anyway, have a good one "J", and thanks once again for sharing!
 
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One thing about these train companies is they are heavily protected by federal laws that basically allow them carte blanch for their railroad property and trains. Cities and even states face an enormous uphill battle to get them to do anything. They closed a very busy crossing here in town for a week with hardly any notice to the city, and when they were done it was worse than before. The speed limit on that road is 25mph but if you go over that crossing anything above 10 it will literally bounce crap out of the back of your truck. CSXs response to the city was basically "tough shit".
 
Also, is this a main rail or feeder? If main, what kind of shortages is the area looking at? Any way for someone like myself to help in any way?
 
This is a double main line. About 8 trains an hour travel it. The alternate route will go down to Wellsville, but that route can’t take the double stacked containers
Red is roughly the regular route, yellow is the alternate route.
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I've been doing some reading off and on about it since I posted. (Pretty lazy reply by myself, so I'm fixing that) Seems they aren't letting out much information on the contents just yet. Some containers had a hazardous material in them to help the hardening process in plastics. (Vinyl chloride) With some of the local being evacuated. I also haven't been able to find any information on slow down to normal traveling items and how far this will effect things. Being that it was a main line with that kind of traffic...and both main lines being down this long, I foresee some issues. Even if it it localized to plant slow downs or shutdowns.
 
My SIL assisted on the evacuation of some of the residents.
There’s sensors every so often too let them know of an overheated running gear. It didn’t trip the first one when the gear started fail, but it tripped the next one, but another train which had just gone by warned them they were on fire. But it was too late. Catastrophic failure and derailment before they could get it stopped.
I can vouch for the amount of train traffic going by. I have multiple tree stands a stones throw from them. Fortunately about 10 miles west of where this happened.
Still amazing that no one was injured in any of this!
 
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