General railway discussions

[smallspy]

The ideal for cross border train travel would be "sealed" train cars which speed up pre-clearance. Allow passengers from Toronto to clear at Union, and enter a sealed train car. Any passengers heading to the US who board between Toronto and the border (say, at Oakville or Hamilton), could enter a different "sealed" car which only allows boarding, with an on-board customs officer clearing these people. By the time the train gets to the border, hopefully most have cleared and the stop is minimal to clear any stragglers. After crossing the border, these train cars can be "unsealed" and operate as normal, with American passengers being able to purchase tickets in the cars.

For the opposite direction, the opposite case. Have a customs officer travel from NYC to Niagara Falls on a "sealed" car or two, clearing anyone who boards the car. Those making domestic trips have unsealed train cars they can use.

If there are any issues with passengers which can't be cleared prior to the border, they get ejected at Niagara Falls for further clearance and have to take the next train to complete their trip, be it a GO train or another domestic Amtrak train.

How would you implement these "sealed cars"? In most other places, the cars are locked and so can't be accessed from the rest of the train, but for safety reasons Transport Canada will not allow that anymore. It has to be either all or nothing - all cars sealed (and so the train doesn't make any intermediate stops), or none of them sealed.

Dan

 

[Allandale25]

Unique shots.

 

[Allandale25]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/field-cp-train-derailment-tsb-report-1.6401377

 

[Allandale25]

 

[Allandale25]

Rail transportation safety investigation report R19C0015 - Transportation Safety Board of Canada

www.tsb.gc.ca

"Released today: Investigation report R19C0015 into the derailment near Field, BC, in Feb. 2019"

 

[drum118]

March 31
Don't see this every day sitting in CP Lambton Yard

 

[Northern Light]

March 31
Don't see this every day sitting in CP Lambton Yard

That is different..........

Related observation.........this yard has certainly gotten smaller over the years...............its even been closed/empty a couple of times first in '89, then again in '09

But it never seems to stay closed.

I'm just entirely amused to see it humming 23 years afters its first 'closure'

 

[drum118]

That is different..........

Related observation.........this yard has certainly gotten smaller over the years...............its even been closed/empty a couple of times first in '89, then again in '09

But it never seems to stay closed.

I'm just entirely amused to see it humming 23 years afters its first 'closure'

The yard is haft the size that it used to be with more long run through tracks. Most stuff theses days are drop off in blocks that reduce the switching in the yard.

Was looking at the old turntable today and sad I never got to see it in place with the roundhouse.

The 2 switchers were switching the east end when I was there.

Was looking for the 3 streetcars in the yard, but couldn't see them unless they were at the west end of the yard or between cars that couldn't been seen.

The yard reduce the need to do mainline use from Agincourt to X siding. One has to factor in the cost of extra travel time to/from Agincourt, the impact on moving mainline trains in/out of Toronto, wear and tear on everything.

A number of US RR have gone back to open some close yards or build new ones as industrial parks as well close lines.

No idea, but other than Montreal, London and Lambton, where can CN interchange with CP easy??

The question these days, what will CP do about Horseshoe Curve?? Its on my do list to see for either this year or next as it been years since I last time saw it.

 

[Allandale25]

The yard is haft the size that it used to be with more long run through tracks. Most stuff theses days are drop off in blocks that reduce the switching in the yard.

Was looking at the old turntable today and sad I never got to see it in place with the roundhouse.

The 2 switchers were switching the east end when I was there.

Was looking for the 3 streetcars in the yard, but couldn't see them unless they were at the west end of the yard or between cars that couldn't been seen.

The yard reduce the need to do mainline use from Agincourt to X siding. One has to factor in the cost of extra travel time to/from Agincourt, the impact on moving mainline trains in/out of Toronto, wear and tear on everything.

A number of US RR have gone back to open some close yards or build new ones as industrial parks as well close lines.

No idea, but other than Montreal, London and Lambton, where can CN interchange with CP easy??

The question these days, what will CP do about Horseshoe Curve?? Its on my do list to see for either this year or next as it been years since I last time saw it.

Where is Horseshoe Curve?

 

[drum118]

Where is Horseshoe Curve?

That is what I get for doing too many things at the same time.

That should had been Kicking Horse Pass as Horseshoe Curve is in Penn and a great place to train watch

 

[crs1026]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/field-cp-train-derailment-tsb-report-1.6401377

This is a very long and tortuous read, although I found it written as well as one could make it given the technical complexity especially around train braking systems.

The big takeaway is simply that the prevailing railway industry attitude towards safety is to live with risk, applying workarounds in hopes that these will suffice, as opposed to fixing a problem at root cause. The reasons for this approach are simple: a) any total fix costs money, affecting price of product and shareholder returns; and b) it’s a hugely complicated task to apply fixes to an existing fleet that spans an entire continent and requires almost total interoperability

In this case, the data showed that it was a no-brainer that the train involved consisted of equipment with old braking apparatus (which is inherently less reliable and lacking the most recent improvements), that such equipment is especially unreliable in cold weather, and that the only real defense against failure of the braking system was a set of instructions and guidelines to the operators and hope that they would add up the various stimuli correctly. In the event, it was shown that these guidelines were not sufficient for a cold weather scenario, weren’t that well communicated or practiced, and that the way they were applied inherently worked against a mindset that would support spotting and responding to symptoms of danger. And, most importantly, the train likely didn’t have enough braking power available through the air brake system….. only applying handbrakes would have prevented this runaway. But it met regulatory standards….so they ran it anyways.

CP’s response was basically to say that its existing procedures and processes were applied effectively and all regulatory requirements were met, and there is nothing they could have done within the accepted safety envelope that would have prevented the incident.

The bottom line is, the current state of railway safety is to choose this basic and somewhat inadequate level of risk management,. The better alternative is to set a higher standard and accept its cost impact (which would affect shippers and industries and consumers, not just shareholders or managers). You get what you pay for.

I’m not optimistic that much will change, except maybe a further rewrite of the rules and procedures for operating marginally safe trains down highly risky mountain grades in bad weather. Perhaps over time the physical equipment will evolve, and the older stuff will be retired…. but adding further bells and whistles to a century-old braking technology strikes me a just muddying waters further.

If there ever were a situation that cried for a Vision Zero approach, this is it….

- Paul

 

[Allandale25]

^ just out of curiosity on the hand brake question, did the TSB indicate how many hand breaks would have been needed to have been set to prevent the train from rolling? I assume it would have had to have been at least a few cars and the engine? How long does it take per car to see hand breaks?

Wasn't this a similar situation where hand brakes weren't set for the Lac-Mégantic disaster?

cc @smallspy

 

[crs1026]

^ just out of curiosity on the hand brake question, did the TSB indicate how many hand breaks would have been needed to have been set to prevent the train from rolling? I assume it would have had to have been at least a few cars and the engine? How long does it take per car to see hand breaks?

Wasn't this a similar situation where hand brakes weren't set for the Lac-Mégantic disaster?

cc @smallspy

The report (Appendix E) looked at this, yes. They concluded that at least 98 handbrakes would have to have been set for this train. The answer is a bit "it depends" because under field conditions some key variables - the condition of the hand brakes, and the exact amount of force used to apply each one - could vary significantly.

They then tested how long it would take to apply that many handbrakes. The estimate was a little over 2 hours.

Their conclusion was that the average worker could not have applied enough hand brakes to have secured this train before the air brakes bled off. The train might have rolled away anyways. However, the number of handbrakes that were applied by the time the train ran away was sufficient that they would have significantly retarded its speed.

Both CP and TC did impose rules after this event requiring that a specific number of handbrakes be set after an emergency application on a mountain grade.

The issue is similar to Lac Megantic, in the sense that in both events the air brakes were thought to be holding, and rigourous hand brake application was thought to be not really required, when in fact the air brakes bled off (for somewhat different reasons). But in the end, in both cases the trains rolled away when the air brake effectiveness degraded.

The challenge with using handbrakes in the latest scenario is - while setting them assures that the train will stay stopped, it creates a further delay to getting moving again ....even with retainers set, the air brakes only recharge slowly - and in cold weather they continue to leak. Getting to a point where the air brake is ready to control the train, and remains fully applied while the hand brakes are released, is not quick or easy.

- Paul

 

[lenaitch]

^ I gave it a fairly detailed read although did skip a lot because the finer technicalities are simply lost on me. It may sound a little perverse because they often involve loss and tragedy, but I do enjoy reading TSB reports, regardless of the environment or element they are reporting on. I find the forensics and human dynamic elements they analyze to be quite fascinating.

If I recall correctly, the problem at Lac Megantic was insufficient handbrakes on an unattended train when the air failed after an engine shut down.

I have never been a fan of the 'safety management systems' processes that have overtaken many government-regulated activities and industries. Even in areas that are not so procedurally driven, such we have all seen with long-term care, increasing self-regulation under some umbrella of government 'risk auditing, which most often is complaint/incident driven and usually paper-based, has not aged well in a lot of industries and was implemented primarily to shift responsibility and shrink the regulatory bureaucracy (or at least turn it into some desk-based shell). It should come as a surprise to no one that for-profit industries will do and spend the bare minimum to claim to be compliant. A term we will often see tossed around is 'safety culture', and I think common carrier railroads have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not.

I get that corporations will circle the wagons, but this incident in particular has been egregious on a number of fronts. Having your own police service conduct the investigation, and interfere with efforts to have the RCMP brought it, failed everybody's smell test. Now, CP is disputing the Board's conclusion, which are only findings as to risk. No sign of the boilerplate 'we take these matters seriously, blah, blah'.

 

[crs1026]

I get that corporations will circle the wagons, but this incident in particular has been egregious on a number of fronts. Having your own police service conduct the investigation, and interfere with efforts to have the RCMP brought it, failed everybody's smell test. Now, CP is disputing the Board's conclusion, which are only findings as to risk. No sign of the boilerplate 'we take these matters seriously, blah, blah'.

Safety management systems generate an awful lot of “proof of activity”, much of it paperwork, that may not connect to actual attention or action towards correction of problems. As SMS requirements are ramped up, the work tends to get hived off to specialists in the office, which may actually disconnect the effort from the hands-on workers and managers who are central to safety. The terminology and concepts of safety analysis may look good on paper but do not necessarily resonate with anyone in authority. Certainly, it’s clear from this report that CP’s use of SMS didn’t trigger corrective action on grain train air brake issues, despite these being quite visible. In this case the elephant in the room was being fed and groomed without anyone pointing to it..

It’s inevitable that corporations will lawyer up after an incident, but I agree that CP set a new low bar for denial and naysaying, and perhaps avoiding truthfulness, in a situation where by any ethical standard the emphasis should be on ensuring that the truth does out.

What was even more damning to me was the clear evidence that the trains were being operated in unacceptable condition

- when after this event CP began using “cold wheel” measurements to detect grain cars with ineffective brakes, they found 5,000 cars needing repair (page 13)…. that’s a huge number, and suggests that the condition of the fleet as a whole was poor
- the forensic examination of the wreckage established that too many cars had poor or inoperative brakes in relation to regulatory and railroad standards
- the report comments that previous incidents of poor braking condition and performance of the grain car fleet was widely known among operating employees, yet apparently overlooked by CP management
- the Engineer who died had a similar experience on their previous trip, and was in the process of reporting same when this incident happened

The investigation uncovered a number of other things that can be constructively improved (eg engineers’ air flow instrumentation, configuration of braking on DPU locomotives, training and qualifications, operating procedures) - but what’s scary to me is just how tolerant the culture was of a very apparent danger.

- Paul