02-05-2023, 09:30 AM
Good morning.
The tank cars full of vinyl chloride are still burning and half the town is still evacuated. I watched the local press conference yesterday and was not at all surprised how clueless the local officials were. At the time of the conference, which was 17 hours after the derailment, they still claimed they did not know what was in the cars that were derailed. To let my friends here know, the railroad is required to have a manifest available in the locomotive with a list of every car, the position in the train, the commodity, and the destination among other things. They have this on the computer in Atlanta available instantly for first responders in just such an event, and the train is scanned as it leaves the yard to make sure it is accurate. It there is a discrepancy they get a call on the radio and are given the corrections so they are up to date.
They have dropped foam from planes to assist with putting the fire out, and one of the locals has some drone footage posted and it appears there are some covered hoppers burning billowing black smoke. My guess is they contain plastic pellets. Another post shows the train on a ring video as it went through the village west of us and there was a journal burning so most likely the cause is a burned off axle.
We have a warm up today so if there is no more excitement I will work on some trains. I assembled a Russel snow plow the other night and the decalset I had was too large to finish it so I scanned it and resized it and printed s smaller sheet of decals that will be ready to use today.
Everyone stay safe and warm. I won't be watching any channel that has a remote chance of mentioning the "Big Game". Another reason I gave up is the NFL insisting they own the words supper bowl. frankly there is nothing supper about it
Cheers
Charlie
The tank cars full of vinyl chloride are still burning and half the town is still evacuated. I watched the local press conference yesterday and was not at all surprised how clueless the local officials were. At the time of the conference, which was 17 hours after the derailment, they still claimed they did not know what was in the cars that were derailed. To let my friends here know, the railroad is required to have a manifest available in the locomotive with a list of every car, the position in the train, the commodity, and the destination among other things. They have this on the computer in Atlanta available instantly for first responders in just such an event, and the train is scanned as it leaves the yard to make sure it is accurate. It there is a discrepancy they get a call on the radio and are given the corrections so they are up to date.
They have dropped foam from planes to assist with putting the fire out, and one of the locals has some drone footage posted and it appears there are some covered hoppers burning billowing black smoke. My guess is they contain plastic pellets. Another post shows the train on a ring video as it went through the village west of us and there was a journal burning so most likely the cause is a burned off axle.
We have a warm up today so if there is no more excitement I will work on some trains. I assembled a Russel snow plow the other night and the decalset I had was too large to finish it so I scanned it and resized it and printed s smaller sheet of decals that will be ready to use today.
Everyone stay safe and warm. I won't be watching any channel that has a remote chance of mentioning the "Big Game". Another reason I gave up is the NFL insisting they own the words supper bowl. frankly there is nothing supper about it
Cheers
Charlie