At least 50 drinkers in bar feared dead after runaway train devastates Canadian town

[FarCenter]

The Musi-Cafe, a popular live music hangout in the town of Lac-Megantic, was hit by blasts "like an atom bomb" after an oil tanker train derailed on a bend on the nearby railtrack in the small hours of Saturday morning. The train, which had been parked overnight at the top of a nearby hill, came barrelling into the lakeside town at speed after its brakes apparently failed, sparking at least six massive explosions as it derailed.
...

Bernard Théberge, 44, who was smoking a cigarette outside the cafe, told how he fled just in time after hearing the sound of the approaching train and realising that it was about to crash.

“It was going way too fast,” Mr Théberge told the Globe and Mail newspaper. "I saw a wall of fire go up. People got up on the outside patio. I grabbed my bike, which was just on the railing of the terrasse. I started pedalling and then I stopped and turned around. I saw that there were all those people inside and I knew right away that it would be impossible for them to get out."

Mr Théberge, who said he owed his own survival to being outside at the time, added: "There were maybe 60 people inside. This is a first. Smoking saved my life."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/canada/10165124/At-least-50-drinkers-in-bar-feared-dead-after-runaway-train-devastates-Canadian-town.html

In another story, a fireman said that they were unable to identify the gender of two bodies recently found. In many cases they expect to only find teeth.

[Warpy]

1. Yes, the blast rolled over the entire center of that town

DNA from teeth looks like about the only chance they'll have from the pictures I've seen of a few smoking slabs and not much else left.

Giving this a rec because there's just too little news about this from the usual corporate suspects in the US.

[niyad]

2. how utterly horrible. I heard about the crash yesterday, but did not know the extent of the

damage and destruction and loss of life. my heart aches for all the grieving families.

[WinkyDink]

3. "Drinkers in bar"? Once upon a time we'd write "patrons" or "customers."

[niyad]

5. I was just looking at that, as well. what an odd way to say it.

[siligut]

6. Seems like negative spin

And stupid at that.

[East Coast Pirate]

7. It sounds like the first line of a joke.

[npk]

11. It also assumes that everyone in the bar was drinking

Which is not necessarily true.

[Posteritatis]

18. I'm assuming it's just a "British terminology versus N.American terminology" thing. (nt)

[lastlib]

24. "Canadianese", maybe?

[Posteritatis]

25. Nah - OP's linking a British source. We use (mostly) similar terminology to you guys by default. nt

[TrogL]

23. Likely a translation from French

Or an English speaker thinking in French

[malaise]

31. This is the fucking so called Christian perspective

I hate self-righteous scumbags.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. No, I think it's the perspective of a paper that has no problem with people drinking

It's not realistic to think that the Telegraph disapproves of people who drink in bars. It would call such disapproval "political correctness". It's part of the heavy-drinking Fleet Street culture (the Private Eye satirical magazine calls its made-up reporter 'Lunchtime O'Booze', for instance). It has a Good Pub Guide, for instance. It publishes a book on pubs with no piped music.

[niyad]

4. kicking it to greatest for the horrific news

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Every little town in this half of the state has a RR running thru it.

and no one has any idea of what the freight trains carry.
This recent disaster could so easily happen here.

[cali]

10. It certainly could. trains are now carrying more crude than pipelines

last year they carried 10x the amount of the year before, and this year has increased over last year. Particularly in the Northeast and South, this is huge potential problem as the infrastructure is so abysmal.

[wordpix]

13. Important post, thanks. This entire oil industry including transportation is a disaster

But I'm sure whoever's responsible for the train's brakes if that's what caused this accident has a "perfectly safe" record, just like BP, ExxonM and the rest.

[cali]

15. You're welcome

to get an idea of the devastation, here's a link to some mindblowing pictures.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2357828/Lac-Megantic-Death-toll-rises-5-massive-STILL-burning-day-unmanned-train-carrying-oil-derailed-exploded-Quebec-town.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[CrispyQ]

28. Incredible images.

The train that passes about 1.5 miles from our house, always has cars that look like the round black ones in the photos. I wonder what they are carrying, when I'm waiting at the tracks, for the train to pass.

[panader0]

35. Wow. Mindblowing indeed.

Hard to look at, but thanks for posting these as they are the first I've seen to show the extent of the devastation.

[marmar]

9. Awful.

[cali]

12. Unfuckingbelievable pictures at link

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2357828/Lac-Megantic-Death-toll-rises-5-massive-STILL-burning-day-unmanned-train-carrying-oil-derailed-exploded-Quebec-town.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[madinmaryland]

16. Holy shit. The town center was flattened.

[Arctic Dave]

26. An explanation of the explosions

BLEVE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLEVE


I just gave a fire extinguisher class to day describing the BLEVE phenomena and when to GTFO and run.

[CrispyQ]

30. That was fascinating.

[Egalitarian Thug]

14. Such a tragedy.

OTOH, smoking saved this guy's life.

[dead_head]

17. There was no conductor in the train.

It seems no one was aboard the train.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/07/07/quebec-train-derailment-explosion-lac-megantic.html

¨Runaway train was parked on hill

A statement released Sunday by Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, said it is possible the train's air brakes released after it was parked for the night, allowing it to roll out of control until it derailed at the centre of Lac-Mégantic.¨

It's creepy.

Then I read comments on web sites and people were saying that a pipeline would be much more safer.





www.deadheadcomicks.com
so underground it's rotting.

[cali]

19. right. and sabotage has not been ruled out

I'm sure this is on the mind of investigators:

http://rt.com/usa/canada-terror-plot-railroad-227/

[dead_head]

20. Hum....

Hopefully it's truly an accident and hopefully it won't help pro-pipeline people.....




www.deadheadcomicks.com
so underground, it's rotting.

[cali]

21. hopefully, but it will undoubtedly help the pro-pipeline people

[dead_head]

27. Here's something that's popping on my facebook.

It seems it's close to Lac Mégantique.

I'm from Montréal and I usally speak french. The guy is basicly describing that the train is unlocked and has parrels of oil.

Weird....

[pinboy3niner]

32. REUTERS: Fire was doused on train before it smashed into Quebec town

By Richard Valdmanis and Julie Gordon

LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec | Mon Jul 8, 2013 2:03pm EDT

(Reuters) -

...

Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert said his crew had switched off the locomotive late on Friday as they extinguished a "good-sized" blaze in the motor, probably caused by a fuel or oil line break in the engine.

"We shut down the engine before fighting the fire," he told Reuters in an interview. "Our protocol calls for us to shut down an engine because it is the only way to stop the fuel from circulating into the fire."

The tanker train's operator, the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, said the engineer had parked the train in Nantes on Friday night and left one locomotive running to ensure the air brakes worked properly.

The company's chairman said the brakes will not work if a train is switched off.

"If the operating locomotive is shut down, there's nothing left to keep the brakes charged up, and the brake pressure will drop finally to the point where they can't be held in place any longer," Ed Burkhardt told the Toronto Star.

...


Lambert said once the blaze was out, the Nantes fire service contacted Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway. "We told them what we did and how we did it," he said.

Asked whether there had been any discussion about the brakes, he replied: "There was no discussion of the brakes at that time. We were there for the train fire. As for the inspection of the train after the fact, that was up to them."

...


http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/us-train-idUSBRE96505L20130708

[Gravitycollapse]

34. What the hell? He left one of the engines running? Does that follow procedure?

[mrdmk]

36. The Proceeding would not have happend in the U.S.A.

link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_brake_%28rail%29

Railway air brake

<snip>
An air brake is a conveyance braking system actuated by compressed air. Modern trains rely upon a fail-safe air brake system that is based upon a design patented by George Westinghouse on March 5, 1868. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO) was subsequently organized to manufacture and sell Westinghouse's invention. In various forms, it has been nearly universally adopted.

The Westinghouse system uses air pressure to charge air reservoirs (tanks) on each car. Full air pressure signals each car to release the brakes. A reduction or loss of air pressure signals each car to apply its brakes, using the compressed air in its reservoirs.
<end of snip>

This is very weird at best, trains cross back and forth between Canada and the U.S.A. all of the time. Why have different air braking standardized by the Department of Transportation (DOT)?

Why completely abandon a crippled train on the hill? Who is the idiot who made this decision?

[cali]

22. the fires have now been put out

they can start the search for bodies, though there may not be too many. the fire was that hot.

[ellie]

37. That is terrible!

Those poor people.