Level crossing incident - Mer Rouge USA

[Paul-2mm]

I came across this video of quite a nasty collision on a level crossing leading to the derailment of the train.

 

http://youtu.be/AuH1Ogdx4cg

 

Here's the news story too, I hope those on board make a good recovery http://www.knoe.com/story/26718967/eye-witnesses-of-the-mer-rouge-train-derailment-speak-with-knoe.

[cromptonnut]

So they, and others, just stand there looking without actually seeing if they can help - then drive off to find another route to their destination.  More interested in getting some good film of it (and maybe making some money) than being good citizens.

 

Unbelieveable.

[TheQ]

With those clouds of chemicals coming off of the tanks I'd be leaving too.!

[roundhouse]

So they, and others, just stand there looking without actually seeing if they can help - then drive off to find another route to their destination.  More interested in getting some good film of it (and maybe making some money) than being good citizens.

 

Unbelieveable.

That's what I thought till reading the news article in the link. It turned out the leaking gases were harmless but you wouldn't have known that at the time.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

....it would be much safer and more constructive for the drivers of abnormal loads to actually plan their route in advance, so that potential issues can be safely identified beforehand. Experienced drivers of such vehicles can easily recognise where they might have difficulty. Relevant phone numbers for potential trouble spots along their (planned??) route should be carried too....that way the signaller could have been alerted. Also, why didn't the lorry have a second person in the cab who could have checked the progress of the low trailer over the grade...handsignalling to the driver as necessary??

 

I've seen various overheight lorries drive straight into low railway bridges in the UK and their drivers then attempt to excuse themselves by saying that they didn't even know the overall height of their vehicle. I have a coach licence which I use several times during the year for fund raising trips...all potentially difficult routes are checked out beforehand. A ferry lift is fitted to most new coaches, to allow the body to be raised in uneven situations...the technology is available so why isn't it required on low loader trailers?

 

The lorry is the potential and actual hazard in this incident too...that is where the responsibility lies....a few prosecutions with hefty fines would help road transport companies to raise (pardon the pun) their game.

 

Dave

[DanielB]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuH1Ogdx4cg

 

Ouch. Hope the loco crew are okay.

[Not Captain Kernow]

Is it just me or is that typical of people today?  First thought - is the camera running, have you got it etc etc etc.  At no point do they say "call the emergency services"...

[Arthur]

Bit more here;

 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LA_MER_ROUGE_DERAILMENT_LAOL-?SITE=ILROR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

The two loco crew are in a 'serious condition', the truck driver escaped unscathed, and the leaking gas was argon.

 

Still utterly staggering that the drivers of large trucks can get themselves stuck half way across a grade crossing.

 

Hope that the train crew make a full recovery.

 

 

Edit; a bit more here,

 

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2014/10/northeast_la_homes_evacuated_a.html

 

Seems that the engineer was taken to a local hospital and the conductor air lifted to another. Neither have life threatening injuries.

[DanielB]

I agree with all that's been said though - "call 911" would have been the first words out of my mouth.

 

Big loads on trucks like that, if there's even a slight chance of them not being able to clear the crossing, should be forced to call the railroad at the crossing to see if it is clear for them to proceed.

[cromptonnut]

With those clouds of chemicals coming off of the tanks I'd be leaving too.!

 

To me it looked like dust thrown up by the derailment, not clouds of chemicals, but I guess unless you are there it's hard to be sure what exactly it looked, sounded and smelt like.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

....can't see the clouds of chemical??...then watch the end of the video....I'd have been heading for the long grass too...and probably in front of the car drivers!!

 

Dave

[roundhouse]

Wow, the merged threads make some odd reading now!!

 

This accident reminds me of one that I saw the aftermath a few days later between a low loader carrying a generator near Orlando back in about 1993.

 

It derailed an Amtrak train and there were no deaths. here is the report.

 

https://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/1995/HAR9501.pdf

[jon_1066]

So they, and others, just stand there looking without actually seeing if they can help - then drive off to find another route to their destination.  More interested in getting some good film of it (and maybe making some money) than being good citizens.

 

Unbelieveable.

 

 

What could they do to "help" at the level crossing.  It only needs one person to call 911.  Should the rest just get out and gawp?  Start clearing the debris? There is literally nothing they can do other than check if the truck driver is alright.  But the truck driver had got out already and the only other casualties are 2 miles further down the track.  The blue pickup could even be going to find a route to the head of the train to check the driver.

[Adrian Wintle]

....it would be much safer and more constructive for the drivers of abnormal loads to actually plan their route in advance, so that potential issues can be safely identified beforehand. Experienced drivers of such vehicles can easily recognise where they might have difficulty. Relevant phone numbers for potential trouble spots along their (planned??) route should be carried too....that way the signaller could have been alerted. Also, why didn't the lorry have a second person in the cab who could have checked the progress of the low trailer over the grade...handsignalling to the driver as necessary??

 

I'm not sure why he would have had an issue with that grade crossing - although the positioning of the rig suggests he might have cut the corner. It would almost certainly have been single-manned, although there might have been an escort vehicle for a load that wide.

 

Crossings where there is the potential for a rig to get hung up (or where it has happened in the past) can be marked:

https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=44.225505,-76.629488&spn=0.000031,0.019205&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=44.225472,-76.629393&panoid=xPv1Yf9BLgR2BbcMRCq3OA&cbp=12,4.4,,1,14.15

 

Edit: Having read the second article, it appears that there have been previous local incidents of low-boy trailers hanging up, although it is not clear whether it was at that crossing.

 

Edit 2: There is a pretty good hump over the line there - there don't appear to be any warning signs about it:

https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=32.775384,-91.792427&spn=0.000005,0.002401&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=32.775384,-91.792427&panoid=NaUPb1gP2-YMH0Hx7yHdiA&cbp=12,2.31,,0,41.93

 

Adrian

[Titan]

And thats the thing, if everyone thinks someone else will call 911, then there is a chance no one will. Emergency services would rather have dozens of calls rather than none or even just one - it helps show that it is not a hoax call and the number of calls emphasise the severity of the incident.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

...there is a reference in the 'linked' news text to an earlier identical incident on the same grade.

 

911 is not necessarily the best number in these situations...a little planning by the truck driver would have seen him carrying the signallers numbers for the route that he wanted to take....railway grades are after all classic obstacles for low loaders to negotiate. He had to be sceptical of this one as he approached it and could have conversed with the signaller first to ensure that any attempt to cross was done safely.

 

Dave

[Adrian Wintle]

Looking around the area it would appear that there aren't many options for crossing the tracks. Assuming the truck was coming south on US165 and turning left across the tracks to get to either LA2 or LA133/US425 (based on its positioning), the previous crossing (north of town) seems to have more of a hump and crossings before that don't allow access to those roads. The only other crossing in town looks worse. There is a flat crossing at Nip Eckles Road south of town, but is is an acute turn onto it and it only sensibly provides access to LA133/US425, not LA2. I'd say he was using that crossing because it was the only real option.

 

As for having the signallers' number, it is better to call 911 - they will have the emergency contacts for the railroads and will get a quicker reaction. You'd also have to know which railroad to call - based on the second news article I'm assuming this is UP, even though the lead loco was NS (the second was a UP patch ex-SP).

 

While it is the trucker's responsibility, he was not local and probably had a not unreasonable assumption that it would be possible to turn safely from US165 onto US425, especially since there don't appear to be any warning signs (based on Streetview).

 

Adrian

[Glorious NSE]

Just a quick note that this is now in the US and Canada section, moved from UK Prototype, for readabilty i've gone through and culled most of the posts and references to the merging of the two threads. 

 

Carry on.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

...there can be no excuse for failing to converse with the signaller before endangering both road and rail traffic as well as local residents. If there isn't a law for this already...then there needs to be one.

The rail signals could have been maintained at danger until the driver advised the signaller that he was clear of the crossing. This type of rig will have similar grades to negotiate on many journeys that it makes.

 

Dave

[Adrian Wintle]

...there can be no excuse for failing to converse with the signaller before endangering both road and rail traffic.

 

Dave

 

How would you know that there was going to be a problem before it happened? I can't see any way of finding it out. How would you know who to call? There isn't a signaller per-se, and I doubt if you would have a number that would get direct to the dispatcher. You wouldn't necessarily know which railroad to call either.

 

Adrian

[DanielB]

 

 

...there can be no excuse for failing to converse with the signaller before endangering both road and rail traffic. The rail signals could have been maintained at danger until he advised them that he was clear of the crossing.

 

This. ^^^^

 

No excuse for not doing it. I mean, if he does this for a living he should either be pretty used to what the low loader can and cannot manage, or pretty green on low loaders, in which case doubt/uncertainty should have seen him contact someone before attempted to cross - even if it was just his boss. 

[Glorious NSE]

If it helps, there's a lot of info in the report that Ian linked to (which was scarily similar to Hixon when you read it) about how oversize loads move (or at least, how they did in the 90s) and the permissions they are supposed to get, it would appear that in the US much more emphasis is placed on pre-move planning and paperwork than I suspect we would in the UK. 

 

One thought, in the UK at all public crossings we have a sign that says something like:

 

 

Something that says "Call xxx railroad dispatcher on xxx-xxxx for permission before crossing with oversize loads" might be worth a thought?

[Glorious NSE]

There isn't a signaller per-se, and I doubt if you would have a number that would get direct to the dispatcher.

 

There will be "a signaller" - dispatcher is just different terminology. 

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

Re post 21

 

....planning is the key to this one Dan. Whoever arranged for this load to be on this trailer should also have considered the route that it would need to take. A trailer with a raise facility is all that was needed to avoid the whole sorry situation....and if the company didn't have one then they should have hired one. Drivers are often put in difficult situations by semi-competent planning staff but there were still steps as indicated above that would have allowed a safe attempt to cross, however, I do have a gut feeling that the combination of limited ground clearance and level of uneveness of the grade, would have prevented it being successful. 

 

Dave

[Adrian Wintle]

....planning is the key to this one Dan. Whoever arranged for this load to be on this trailer should also have considered the route that it would need to take. A trailer with a raise facility is all that was needed to avoid the whole sorry situation.

 

Dave

 

You are making a huge assumption that there was a way to determine in advance that this wasn't a viable route. I'm not even sure it would have been obvious from the cab while waiting to turn left across the crossing that there would be a problem. That is not an exceptionally large or slow vehicle, and was not a hazmat load, although it was a wide load.

 

Adrian