Not at all. Nothing as benign as even poopy diapers.
There has been a fair bit of controversy between the railways, the federal government and local communities regarding disclosure of exactly what is on the trains rolling through towns and cities. The railways would prefer to provide that information once a year in a document that the local communities would keep confidential. Communities would know what has been moved through their town in the last year, but the residents of the town would not. The Feds and Communities have asked for a more realistic update on the contents of the trains and the railways seem to be bending, but once again do not want to have that information released to the general public.
Hey Mr. Railway CEO, it’s not really that confidential. Anyone who wants to take the time can sit beside the railway track and count the cars going by and mark down the content of the hazardous cars. That’s because all hazardous railcars are required to carry labels with the appropriate UN or NA Code. Those numbers in the diamonds (actually squares rotated 45 degrees) that you see on tanker cars and some tanker trucks on the highways, they tell you what’s inside. Sort of like the ‘Baby Onboard’ sign some parents hang in the back window of their car.
So, what’s rolling through Parry Sound? Besides grain cars, containers and automobile carriers there is some interesting and pretty nasty stuff. According to a very informal audit of what’s rolling behind my property (the CN line) this is what I’ve seen so far. This table lists the UN hazard code and the corresponding contents.
This is a very informal list of rail cars I have seen while outside and in a position to read the hazard codes. I may take some time and sit by the track (always on non-railway property of course) and see what other ‘numbers’ ‘roll by’.
The largest number of hazardous cars are 1267’s and 1268’s, with a significant number of 1075’s. One train had more than a hundred 1267 and 1268 cars strung together, crude oil and distillates, doubtless Bakken oil. I’ll offer an analysis on the energy implication of these tankers in a future post that will help explain the devastation seen in Lac-Megantic near future.
What about the northbound line that crosses the Seguin River over the CP trestle? I don’t have numbers for them but expect the tankers will primarily consist of processed chemicals heading back from the eastern refiners and chemical plants. I’ll see if I can get some numbers and pass them on in a future post. I guess the ideal spot to spend a day would be where the two tracks cross Isabella Street. You can watch them coming and going. I estimate that we have about 35 trains a day passing through Parry Sound heading north or south.
The refusal of the railways to release information on the hazardous materials they are transporting is consistent with their habit of hiding and obfuscating information. Are they lazy or just afraid of the public knowing what is being transported through their communities? Some analysts suggest it might be related to competitive concerns. Not likely, any of the rail companies could easily monitor the detailed activity of their competitors with a video camera. No, they just don’t want you to know what’s rolling through our downtown (you might be worried). But if we really want to know what’s going on it’s as simple as looking out our window and keeping track of things.
Know the Code ( Parry Sound in Black & White)
No comments
June 11, 2014 at 8:16 am
Joe, you are welcome to come and sit in my sun porch to check out the northbound view. What disturbs me more than what’s in the contents is the number of cars on each train. Rail workers tell me that there are many more derailments than we hear about, and that is because the engines really aren’t big enough to get the whole train around some of the curves along their route. Thanks for keeping us updated!
June 11, 2014 at 8:29 am
The railways motivation to resist disclosure is possibly related to the administration of that disclosure; it would be another layer of red tape they don’t want or need. Disclosed information would by default become public information which could have some serious security concerns. A saboteur would need to know which train was coming and the contents of that train in order to maximize damage; such a list would be ideal for that purpose.
As far their competition using the information for their own benefit; each railroad is already privy to that information because they share track between South Parry and Wanup as well as some track in British Columbia. Each railroad must disclose the contents, weight, length and so on to the guest railroad before entering their track.
The Lac-Megantic derailment was a unique event created by a runaway train; it was sharp corner and the speed (~63MPH) at which the derailment occurred that piled the tankers up and split them open creating the massive devastation. The track speed through the town was just 10MPH; the accident would never have happened under normal operating conditions.
Although I personally support the conversion to double walled tankers; I believe that a single wall tanker would be prone to failure only in extreme circumstances.
This is a list of UN codes that I have witnessed coming and going on the CN & CP mainlines:
1005 ammonia
1075 liquefied petroleum gas
1136 coal tar distillates
1196 ethyltrichlorosilane
1202 diesel fuel
1203 gasoline
1230 methylal
1267 petroleum crude oil
1268 Petroleum distillates
1301 vinyl acetate
1402 calcium carbide
1789 sodium cyanide
1824 sodium hydroxide
1830 sulfuric acid
1863 aviation turbine fuel
1993 flammable liquid NOS
2005 magnesium diphenyl
2015 hydrogen peroxide
2055 styrene monomer
2312 molten phenol
2346 butanedione
2426 ammonium nitrate
2436 Thioacetic acid
3082 liquid NOS
3257 elevated temperature liquid NOS
3475 ethanol – gasoline mixture
June 11, 2014 at 10:23 am
The saboteur theme really doesn’t carry much weight. An individual could spend no more than a couple of days watching the ebb and flow of the trains, the 1267/1268 express is pretty easy to identify and with respect to timing all you would need is someone to let you know when the train passed a certain point an hour ahead. I don’t think there is a need to real time information to communities on the contents of every train that will be passing pass through their town that day, but the information should be available within minutes should an event occur.
Let’s not start with the issue of red tape. The railways have not been filing derailment events with Transport Canada, a serious breach of their obligations. And these railways have billions (billions) of dollars in revenue and billions of dollars of profits, they can afford a clerk to consolidate and issue a regular report on what is being shipped. The CEOs earn millions each year, I’m sure there are a few bucks available for a clerk.
Perhaps we should ask the Chinese Government for the information. It seems they regularly monitor private companies and doubtless have that information already.
No, the railways just don’t want the responsibility and accountability that comes along with the very significant privileges they enjoy at the expense of the Canadian public.
June 11, 2014 at 10:43 am
I wouldn’t describe the conditions railroads operate in as having “significant privileges “.
They haul what we pay them to haul, nothing more, nothing less. They built this country with that capability and it continues to support the lifestyle we all enjoy. I don’t see big business as the enemy, I see them as providers for our families. They put food in our mouths and roofs over our heads, quite literally.
Our class 1 railroads take prevention seriously and manage the risk quite effectively. The army of foremen, work gangs, wheel detectors, track evaluation trains, third party rail xray vehicles that it takes to keep the railroad safe comes at a staggering cost. They are doing everything practical they can do.
Adding government bureaucracy has done little to solve any problem; and in this case I don’t believe there is a problem to solve.
The minute people stop consuming, the goods will cease to flow. Rail accidents are a direct result of our choices to consume and we should take responsibility for that instead of blaming a railroad.
June 11, 2014 at 1:49 pm
Where to start?
1. They file incorrect, misleading and incomplete safety reports and receive no more than light censure. Other industries receive millions and billions of dollars in fines for these types of transgressions in an attempt to secure ‘better behaviour’.
2. They are not subject to any reasonable noise or pollution regulation. The airline industry, also an economy critical business, is constantly upgrading their assets and performance.
3. A lack of responsibility for their damage to private property. Derailments damage public and private property, but the railway is the sole arbiter of what is good enough. That’s sort of the way it was when the Exxon Valdez dropped its load of oil. The shipping industry has since been required to operate to better standards and become better stewards. How is the compensation of private and public parties going at Lac-Megantic? Oh, the company has declared bankruptcy and the public left holding the bag of doo-doo.
4. No local taxation for assets and property. They have millions of dollars of assets just in Parry Sound for which they pay no local property or school taxes. WalMart would like the same deal, as would all other companies.
5. Train on a crossing blocking traffic and commerce? Get over it, the railways are the law.
… and it goes on and on.
The privileges afforded the railways are many. Because they aren’t forced to they do as little as possible hoping no one notices.
It’s all about being a good neighbour and partner. The railways choose not to be either, from sharing ecpenses, to reducing the impact of their operation on local communities, to paying their share of taxes. This is not your grandfather’s rail industry when the equipment was matched with the rails. Something has to give and right now it’s the Canadian (and American) public.
This seems less like an attack on free enterprise than it does a state protected industry (like China and the former USSR), where the individual has no rights. Shut up and suck it up, or we have ways of dealing with you.
I’m all for free enterprise, but as we are finding no-rules leads to abuse and losses for all but a select few. It’s the Tragedy of the Commons, right here, right now.
June 11, 2014 at 2:43 pm
The rail line through Lac Megantic was operated by a small company that was nothing like a Class 1 railroad. A single incompetent person (who was trained) that did not follow standard procedures and left an unsecured train parked on a 1.2% grade and the complete incompetence of a yard worker who shut down a locomotive without any understanding of the possible results. I am not a railroader, but these facts are simple and carry absolute blame. If your fully trained airline pilot noses into the runway and kills all aboard, there is no amount of training or safety that can prevent it. It is a fact of life that certain people hold the lives of hundreds in their actions and daily duties.
When CN or CP derails; a huge number of contractors such as Hulcher ( http://www.hulcher.com/ ) show up with millions of dollars in cleanup equipment and get to work. Most derailments are stabilized and shipping resumes in a half a day. Both railroads spare no expense in cleanup and do everything possible to restore the site.
Locally I have casually observed the clean up of a few derailments. 1) The CN derailment at Otter Lake which they have restored the private property effected to a better than original state. 2) The CP derailment in Severn Falls where every last possible crumb was vacuumed up and the site was restored to good order. 3) The CP derailment and resulting bridge collapse in Wanup – everything is back in place & the landing they used in the clean up was beautifully leveled and seeded. In all three locations, the end result is better that before the accident.
Railroads are under federal jurisdiction for lots of good reasons (too many to get into). I am sure the railroads now regret founding all these little towns from coast to coast only to have them grow around their line and provide constant pressure over safety concerns. It maybe useful if they were to levy a founders tax to each town founded and grown through use of the railroad – it could pay for a lot of safety!
As for #5 – they are very conscious of blocking traffic and when situations cause a blockage for more than 15 minutes, they contact the local authorities and advise them. Most of the crews I have encountered go to great lengths to avoid blocking a road crossing and do what they can to reduce the traffic wait times. Some times it is unavoidable. For #2 – each and every house built within a stones throw of the rail line was built after the line was. Trains are loud and they always have been. Each person made a choice to build or buy a house close to the existing railway.
They are doing OUR dirty work, for that we should take a good portion of the blame and responsibility.
Instead of assuming the worst from the mystery of railroads, you should pickup a radio scanner, go to ( http://www.radioreference.com/ ) and get the frequencies for CN 1, CN 8, CP 5 & MOW channels and listen into these publicly owned frequencies; I guarantee in time you will have a better understanding of what they do and why.
Jason
June 11, 2014 at 4:16 pm
Jason:
The challenge with most organizations is not what is done on the ground, the real work. It’s what happens higher up in the organization, balancing profit, performance and the public good. The management of too many companies are too well incented to maximize net profit and collect their bonus and cash in their stock options. It happens time and time again, from people who manage equities, to resource companies, to healthcare companies to transportation companies. The people in the field see it every day, the corners they are asked to cut because it helps the bottom line.
At one point CP was considered the safest railway in North America. How are they doing now that an activist investor insisted they bring in the former CEO of CN to enhance the financial performance of CP (which was making a profit, but they wanted more)?
Oh one other privilege the railways are afforded; their own army, oops I mean police force. Just that tells you they not only are above the law, they are the law.
Local municipalities have the privilege of operating their own police force so long as they are in compliance with provincial and federal regulations. The railways only have to deal with very limited federal regulations. And when these are tightened up they scream and complain.
I understand the business of the railways, I just wish they would invest more in the communities they impact. Not only have communities grown around the railway, the railway has grown within the communities. There was a time when a lead additive was used to enhance the performance of gasoline. We decided that needed to be changed for the benefit of all. That’s how life works, you give and you receive, not always in equal measure. Railway management believes it’s all their’s to take. Eminent domain. Did I mention their army, oops police force? Perhaps they are a little more like a Central American or Central African dictatorship than a communist organization. Well perhaps North Korea, or ……
June 11, 2014 at 5:13 pm
Railway police are just that, police officers. Yes, they have a mandate of protecting people and property with respect to the railway but they are police officers just the same as local police (say City of Barrie), the OPP or native police. Inferring that there is something sinister going on because they have their own police force is fear mongering at best.
Security guards do not work in railway yards or under bridges where homeless drug addicted people hang out; they need the authority and the gun to do their jobs safely and effectively. I have spoken to a few railway police officers from both CN and CP; they all seemed polite, personable and above all, professional.
Private enterprise is the only way to conduct business; profit is what ensures the continuance of business for the foreseeable future. It isn’t something evil or misguided to make profit. Also, public companies offer each and everyone of us the opportunity to share in their profits by holding stock.
Derailments are VERY expensive considering the cost of cleanup and loss of equipment; no business in search of profit would do so at the expense of causing more derailments.
Did you know that the railway uses only 1HP per tonne to transport goods? & 1 US gallon of fuel can move a ton of cargo 337 km by rail?
If you know of a safer, better way to transport goods, I’d sure like to hear it.
June 11, 2014 at 8:31 am
Look up UN codes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UN_numbers
June 15, 2014 at 11:39 am
Interestingly, it comes out that the engineer set NO handbrakes when he left the train unattended and parked on a grade. It would appear that one man alone is fully responsible for the Lac Megantic disaster.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/lac-m-gantic-unsealed-documents-233011525.html
June 16, 2014 at 9:29 am
A couple of thoughts.
1. Handbrakes were applied – here’s the wording from the link you supplied: “The documents, which are redacted police reports that the Quebec provincial police used to lay charges against MM&A Railway and three of its employees, state that locomotive engineer Thomas Harding applied seven handbrakes. That information comes from the statement Harding gave to police on July 6, following the derailment. MM&A rules require nine handbrakes to be applied for a train with 70 to 79 railcars. Some experts say that because the train was parked on a slope, 15 handbrakes should have been applied.” Just not as many as required or the perhaps some additional ones, on the tankers, that should have been applied.
2. It’s always a failure of a man, woman or team that causes any crisis. The goalie who misses an easy save, the winger who misses the open net, the receiver who drops the ball, the driver who doesn’t see the child dart out, the accountant who misses the obvious fraud, the construction worker who doesn’t see that that the ladder is properly secured. But it’s really the system, and more often the company, that fails. The lack of internal controls, the decision to reduce the number of people responsible for safety, the focus on profits over safety or environmental safekeeping. People are only human but systems are capable of reducing risks and accidents. Companies and CEOs are not rewarded for safety, they are rewarded for profit which often results in a culture of shortcuts and ‘why should I give a damn’.
Our systems are incentivized to reward risk. And that’s what we get. Measured risk perhaps, but risk none the less. In the case of Lac-Megantic the odds played out. Didn’t the railway earlier get approval to reduce the number of staff operating the trains? Would an additional person have made the difference? Another pair of hands to apply more brakes, or perhaps someone to remind the other what should be done? A conscience?
June 16, 2014 at 11:33 pm
I think you missed the part “The police documents also state that, contrary to the recommended procedure, no manual brakes were applied on any of the 72 oil-filled cars.”
Any action by an employee of any railroad that could result in a run away train when discovered would result in immediate dismissal. It is not a failure of training or a an honest mistake; it is the refusal by an employee to do what they are required to do. Even IF he had set 7 or 9 handbrakes; he absolutely must test those brakes by powering the locomotive against them; if the brakes don’t hold, he must set more until the train is secure.
The magnitude of the situation at hand would not be lost on any engineer. As an engineer he knew he was parking his train on a steep grade, he knew there was a sharp curve down the hill going through town, he knew he was hauling light crude and he knew exactly what would happen if that train ran away.
Setting of hand brakes is not something you forget, it isn’t something you overlook and it is not something you would skip. It was blatant, intentional and reckless. He will go to prison for his actions.
June 17, 2014 at 7:49 am
No, I understand that the engineer did not apply as many brakes as was necessary to stop the train from running away on a hill, especially after the engine was later shut off. That’s the way accidents happen, it’s never just one error it’s a series of events, in this case parked on a hill, one employee only, not enough handbrakes applied, the engine braking turned off (when the engine turned off), a train carrying mislabeled combustible material, a town with a sharp curve, and so on. Had any one of these circumstances been different the same accident, and certainly a similarly tragic accident, would not have occurred.
My issue is with the apparent, note the word apparent, culture of disregard for the impact on Canadian and US public that the railways have consistently shown, from a focus on safety, to noise, to pollution, to cost sharing, to …. There are more informed people than I to make the argument of how the rail industry is not keeping up with their social responsibilities as their operations expand and their systems remain stuck in the 20th Century.
Concerning corporate culture, let me share how it can impact ‘operations’. There are 30 teams in the NHL, this suggests any one team should win the Stanley Cup every 30 years or so, and make the Stanley Cup finals every 15 years or so, and the playoffs every couple of years. In the case of the playoffs it might not be every couple of years, but perhaps 5 out of 10, with perhaps some streaks of 5 years in a row,and then 5 without. This leads me to mention the Toronto Maple Leafs a team that seems to be the very embodiment of a failed performance. It certainly is possible to accuse each and every one of the players of being incompetent and negligent in their performance. Obviously it’s not the management of the Leafs that failed because they are not responsible for applying the brakes, sorry stopping the shots; it’s the players. But it is management that decides what players are on the team and who gets to play and how they are trained and rewarded. Management is the ‘decider’ and the management of the Toronto Maple Leafs (I’m a Senators fan) seems to be remarkably incompetent, much more so than their players. Often it’s how management operates that has a bigger impact on the outcome than the players on the ice or in the workplace.
And like the railways the Maple Leafs are a very profitable organization with the resources to do better, but they don’t, partly I suspect because they are making money and that’s all that really matters to those senior management types who are compensated for profits not performance.
Have you sen how Google, Apple and Amazon regularly get taken to the woodshed for their lack of ‘social conscience’? They, like the railways, also are critical pieces of today’s economy. In comparison to the Canadian railways they are the Mother Theresa of the business world. Yes, shipping goods is an important, necessary, and challenging business, but it should be better managed to balance profits with social responsibility.