Montana Train Derailment

[NDwalleyes]

This is near Columbus....Let's hope they get this contained in a hurry!

https://www.foxbusiness.com/industrials/train-derails-montanas-yellowstone-river

 

[Pheasant 54]

And of course hauling petroleum products

 

[Fester]

Remember how I said it was going to get worse????? It will get worse..that is until the general public starts holding the executives of these companies responsible on how they are running the railroads..absolutely everything is at a minimum with these companies right now.

 

[Fester]

And of course hauling petroleum products

It's not about the products. These rail co panies if they wanted to could make shipping on rail just as safe as a pipeline...but that would cut into their profits.

I pulled my investments from these companies a little bit back and won't re-invest until I start hearing a change in the earnings calls. So far it's all about profits and nothing about fixing the problems they have.

 

[FightingSioux]

And of course hauling petroleum products

Just asphalt and molten sulfur, could be worse

 

[espringers]

Tell me again how great deregulation and reliance on companies policing themselves cause accidents are bad for the bottom line is

 

[SlickTrick125]

First of all, I don’t work for the railroad and I don’t disagree with anything stated so far. I fully agree with companies being held accountable for damages to the most precious assets that this country has, like rivers and land. On the other hand, this same company has been trying to tear down a well over 100 year old bridge across the Missouri River and replace it with a new, modern one for several years, and half the town of Bismarck is fighting them tooth and nail. It appears as though “The friends of the Missouri River bridge” have lost their battle of protecting this worn out disaster waiting to happen, and what I presume would have been a useless tax burden on the city of Bismarck when the bridge finally did fall down. Just imagine if that same train were crossing the Missouri and the bridge collapsed. Instead of a couple of cars leaking in the river it would be 10 times that. All you would hear on the news is how the railroad allowed that to happen. No one would mention that they have been in court for the last however many years trying to get the replacement done. My point is that it’s not easy to get anything done even if it’s for the good of everyone. Some bullshit special interest group is going to fight it. Whether it’s a bridge, a power line, a dam, or whatever. For all I know the railroad maybe wanted to replace the bridge that collapsed 10 years ago but the “ friends of the piping plover” got the project stuck in court. In most cases people don’t want things in their back yard but other times people can’t let go of the past either. Anyway sorry to rant, I just do not want something like this to happen on a much larger scale on a much larger river.

 

[svnmag]

Remember how I said it was going to get worse????? It will get worse..that is until the general public starts holding the executives of these companies responsible on how they are running the railroads..absolutely everything is at a minimum with these companies right now.

Warren Buffet.

 

[svnmag]

Tell me again how great deregulation and reliance on companies policing themselves cause accidents are bad for the bottom line is

Ask Stalin. It's a pendulum E not linear.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Seems like the majority of these derailments are near water or steep inclines, with all the technology we have now days with microseismic and other E UGS monitors there are ways to monitor track movement ground density and vibration in these trouble areas while they are chugging down the line . A graph with a data entered with every pass would be a good tattletale but like others have mentioned, their goal is to make money not spend it.

 

[Fester]

First of all, I don’t work for the railroad and I don’t disagree with anything stated so far. I fully agree with companies being held accountable for damages to the most precious assets that this country has, like rivers and land. On the other hand, this same company has been trying to tear down a well over 100 year old bridge across the Missouri River and replace it with a new, modern one for several years, and half the town of Bismarck is fighting them tooth and nail. It appears as though “The friends of the Missouri River bridge” have lost their battle of protecting this worn out disaster waiting to happen, and what I presume would have been a useless tax burden on the city of Bismarck when the bridge finally did fall down. Just imagine if that same train were crossing the Missouri and the bridge collapsed. Instead of a couple of cars leaking in the river it would be 10 times that. All you would hear on the news is how the railroad allowed that to happen. No one would mention that they have been in court for the last however many years trying to get the replacement done. My point is that it’s not easy to get anything done even if it’s for the good of everyone. Some bullshit special interest group is going to fight it. Whether it’s a bridge, a power line, a dam, or whatever. For all I know the railroad maybe wanted to replace the bridge that collapsed 10 years ago but the “ friends of the piping plover” got the project stuck in court. In most cases people don’t want things in their back yard but other times people can’t let go of the past either. Anyway sorry to rant, I just do not want something like this to happen on a much larger scale on a much larger river.

If the railroad knows the bridge will collapse why would they continue to run trains over it? And yes they know when a bridge will collapse(engineers, inspections etc). This bridge from my understanding did not collapse because of direct bridge failure but because the train derailed prior to the bridge then ran into the bridge causing the failure. So in this case I would guess this is a track related and bridge collapse due to secondary impact.
I have been watching this friend's of the rail bridge fairly closely as one of the guys spear heading it is Mark Zimmerman....imagine that. Anyways from what I have seen..so far is this has not held up the replacement of the bridge and has continued to be on schedule...now if they sued in court yes that could change things at this point. What i could see is the railroad shutting down the line if this happened and if that happened it probably would inact the feds and friends of railroad would be told to take a hike....railroads are very powerful and ruthless. I could also see the railroad if in some way they wanted to go after friends of the rail bridge and anyone involved financially....not sure how that would all play out but it sure wouldn't surprise me.

Not 100% sure on the whole secondary bridge impact thing. Thought I read it someplace...read another article saying they are not sure which occurred first...we will see. I would find it very hard to believe it was a bridge issue first.

 

[wslayer]

I did work for the railroad and was sent to bridge school for basic understanding, inspections are very thorough. I was "the guy" that took them (FRA and specialists ) on inspections. Learned alot from these people. There is different classifications of defects noted to any bridge, the biggest, being preventive. Never, did we have an "immediate" classification because of this. Any defect is put into a program and dated, with timely followup inspections. Heavy fines are accessed to RR if not complied too, or OOS (out of service).

 

[FightingSioux]

It is strange that the one foundation looks like it has shifted quite a bit. That doesn’t seem right for many reasons. Those foundations should not move and may never move even when the bridge is replaced. Son many of them are left in play because of how hard it would be to remove them

 

[Davey Crockett]

It is strange that the one foundation looks like it has shifted quite a bit. That doesn’t seem right for many reasons. Those foundations should not move and may never move even when the bridge is replaced. Son many of them are left in play because of how hard it would be to remove them

I wonder how old the bridge and columns are ? I realize there must be a ton of iron in that column but I can imagine water penetrating and freezing and fracturing ahead of itself year after year once enough water is deep enough theres more than enough force from the freeze to split the column. I'm just throwing snowballs but in theory it seems possible .

 

[NodakBob]

I probably missed something but the center pier appears to be missing…excessive scour? Bridge appears to be 100 years old or more, probably shallow spread footings, which are susceptible to scour. Highway bridges are on a four year inspection schedule (fracture critical on 2 year I think? Been retired too long to be sure) …don’t know what schedule is used for rail bridge inspection…

 

[Davey Crockett]

That makes sense .

 

[Fester]

I probably missed something but the center pier appears to be missing…excessive scour? Bridge appears to be 100 years old or more, probably shallow spread footings, which are susceptible to scour. Highway bridges are on a four year inspection schedule (fracture critical on 2 year I think? Been retired too long to be sure) …don’t know what schedule is used for rail bridge inspection…

Inspections are 2 times a year and it was inspected in May.
I am still thinking it was a derailment first.

 

[CAH]

Lets not forget the flooding that occurred kver there last year. Could be possible, the piers were damaged during that.

 

[FightingSioux]

Let’s not forget the flooding that occurred kver there last year. Could be possible, the piers were damaged during that.

It’s been flooding pretty bad the last month too. Piers don’t bend over like that for no reason

 

[CAH]

It’s been flooding pretty bad the last month too. Piers don’t bend over like that for no reason

right, you would think the pile was driven plenty deep. I know around here they go 150’ plus before they stop.