Here's a news story from the Trains Magazine newswire: One NS freight rear-ends another; fire erupts, hundreds asked to evacuate LINCOLN, Ala. - About 500 residents here were asked to evacuate their homes Wednesday evening after a Norfolk Southern freight train containing cars carrying sodium cyanide caught fire when it rear-ended another NS freight train that was pulling into a passing siding, according to an Associated Press story in The Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus, Ga. The collision, which occurred about 5 p.m. on NS’s Birmingham-Atlanta main line, sent flames and a plume of black smoke into the air that could be seen 40 miles to the west, in Birmingham. Susan Terpay, spokeswoman for Norfolk Southern, said it did not appear that the freight car carrying the chemical had been breached. Terpay said the first train was carrying automobiles and had pulled into a siding in order to let the second train pass, but not all of the 81 cars of the first train cleared the main line into the siding. She said all three crew members on the second train were taken to an area hospital for treatment of what appeared to be non-life threatening injuries. According to the Centers for Disease Control web site, sodium cyanide is not combustible but it forms flammable gas on contact with water or damp air and can give off irritating or toxic gases in a fire. Effects of sodium cyanide inhalation include: headache, dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath, irregular heart beat and unconsciousness. Amtrak’s New York-New Orleans “Crescent,” which uses this line, was affected. The Washington-bound train of the 19th had cleared the area prior to the incident, but the southbound train had not.
Here's something else I received: Write these three off of the NS gp60 roster: 7137-7138 and the 7143. Totaled in the derailment in Alabama. Harold
If that is true, I really hate that... # 7138 was reapinted in the Horsehead scheme with the white cab "brow"...one (if not the only) GP60 to receive that treatment... Harold
7143 was involved in the derailment in South Carolina last year. Looks like she didn't fair so well this time.
So was the train taking siding, still pulling in? Or was it too long for the siding, to clear? Anyone hearing more information, I'm curious! Boxcab E50
We used to use Potassium Cyanide to case harden steel tools back in the 30's and 40's. I remember using it in High School to put in fruit jars to collect butter flies and bugs for school projects. It was deadly poison, so I wonder if this Sodium Cyanide is not as deadly?
Here is what happened, I was only a couple miles away on another train. The autorack train was heading to Atlanta, and was going to take the siding so a faster train could run around it, also heading for Atlanta. NS was having signal problems that night, and after the first train ran into the siding and stopped, the train behind was given permission to run past a red stop indication. When given this permission, by rule, you must proceed to the next signal at restricted speed, and then if it gives a more favorible signal, you can take that signal after the leading wheels of the headend pass it. For some reason, after passing the signal, the second train accelerated to 53mph, and when they came around a curve, there was the first train, in the siding, but not quite clear of the main track. The second train's engineer dumped the train into emergency, and at 40mph the three crewmen on the second train jumped, and the train continued on, clipping the rear of the first train and piling up, causing the fire, (from the diesels fuel). The worst injury was a broken ankle from one of the jumping crewmembers. Why they accelerated to such a high speed is unknown, and unfortunate, as they will no doubt be fired.
