Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
(OP)
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Recently, a train car explosion wrought havoc in a community in Quebec, Canada (see link). Developers in my area are now wondering if steps should be taken to mitigate potential disasters of this sort (blast walls etc.). Is this common practice anywhere in North America? Have any of you provided train blast protection for any of your building projects? If so, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks for the help.
KootK
Recently, a train car explosion wrought havoc in a community in Quebec, Canada (see link). Developers in my area are now wondering if steps should be taken to mitigate potential disasters of this sort (blast walls etc.). Is this common practice anywhere in North America? Have any of you provided train blast protection for any of your building projects? If so, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks for the help.
KootK






RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
And the situation wasn't so much blast effects as a barreling train jumping the tracks. Not sure how you one could design screen walls to stop a train.
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
I'm sure once your developers saw the costs of building to those kind of requirements they would change their tune.
Should buildings near chemical production facilities be designed for explosions?
How about that fireworks plant that exploded, same issue.
You design for what is a realistic situation. Otherwise why aren't all bus shelters designed to take a vehicle impact at full speed.
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Where you build walls or add extra cost needs very careful consideration or you're just wasting money for no decrease in risk. As cold hearted as it might appear, human life in terms of cost / risk impact has a value, somewhere about $5 million per life saved. However this is factored over many locations where incidents statistically won't happen so it doesn't take much extra cost in loss of places to add up to that. All hazardous substances have the same debate and issues, my experience comes from liquids and gas pipelines and the issues are similar, risk reduction versus cost.
My motto: Learn something new every day
Also: There's usually a good reason why everyone does it that way
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
My motto: Learn something new every day
Also: There's usually a good reason why everyone does it that way
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Along the way, the tracks ran as short as possible, ran as flat as possible, crossed each valley, ridge, and river as short and flat and direct as possible: which IS the way the roads went - or if the tracks were going before the roads did (which also happened) then the roads parallel the train tracks because that was were the traffic and people wanted to go - as short, flat, and direct as possible works both ways.
The potential destruction by a [train wreck -> gas or chemical release - explosion] is real.
BUT the explosion release area (the safety area around a potential explosion) needs to be too large to be isolated to try to minimize hazards of potential explsoions. And, though multi-billion dollar "blast walls" (or a submerged track below ground level) might help if the blast were small enough, then the enviro impact would be another 10x billion dollars. Worse, any release of "gaseous" (explosive or toxic!) substances WILL NOT be contained by the blast walls. (A fire would not be contained either, though a fire by itself would not be as hazardous as a fire -> explosion combination. But the blast walls would not stop the fire -> explosion of a nearby train car. )
So the whole attempt is expensive, useless, and meaningless. But sounds good. To soebody who can make a name (or get money!) by "trying" to do something - which ends up useless and expensive by using somebody's else's moeny.
Which is why it is a typical government "investigation" by a nanny state for nanny-staters catering to nanny-stators.
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
I'm not aware that cuts have ever been made for that reason.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
In answer to the original inquiry, train explosions like that are fairly rare, but derailments are more common. Even if it's a unit coal train, the coal won't explode, but flying gondolas full of coal can wreak some havoc in the general vicinity of the track, and that would probably be a more worthwhile concern than explosions.
The way they handle this on US highways is that they have designated "Hazardous Cargo" routes, so theoretically, you shouldn't be driving your dynamite truck through downtown Dallas. The problem with railroads is, they don't have a lot of optional routes, and a lot of large towns sprung up specifically because the railroad was there.
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Choose the right rail cars for the load, and the hazard is greatly reduced. No concrete necessary.
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Dik
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
I'm not a railroad person, but I suspect this sort of systemic approach would be cheaper than lining all urban railrioads with blast walls. The FRA and equivalent agencies in other countries could look into derailments and determine what geometric design features and rail conditions tend to have frequent derailments, then fix those first. If for some reason, the geometry can't be fixed, then it might be a candidate for blast walls or whatever.
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Was there something else in the crude?, was there other fluids in the middle of this train?
My motto: Learn something new every day
Also: There's usually a good reason why everyone does it that way
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Most of the explosive storage/handling sites I've been to relied more on earthen banks/berms/holes in the ground...
So, where the track isn't already in a cutting, then if feasible add berms which could also double for sound abatement etc.
However, most of the above comments still stand.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Thanks for the info.
My motto: Learn something new every day
Also: There's usually a good reason why everyone does it that way
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
I'm now looking to assemble a list of significant projects that have trains running next to or beneath them. Or over them I suppose... I'd like to share the list with my client in order to increase their comfort level with the situation at hand. So far, thanks to this thread, I've got:
1) The Alamodome
2) The Dallas Convention Centre
3) The Georgia World Congress Centre
Can anyone help me expand my list?
Thanks again,
KootK
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions
Almost every industrial area with railroad track running through it, particularly those with main line tracks, much switching and waiting/standing trains. Main line trackage from and to RR switching and sorting yards, very high traffic. Lines into and out of major industrial complexes such as refineries. Every major port and the neighborhoods around them. Los Angeles and its ports actually have an open-cut tunnel system of main line tracks which keeps the train traffic separated form the surface traffic and activity. As I said in my earlier post, ‘when you think of the millions of ton/miles or gallon/miles which are shipped by rail, it is actually a pretty darn safe transportation system.’ We have never really tried to do anything to contain this type of event; rather have improved safe train handling; improvements in tank car designs such as head shields, F-type couplers, valve and fittings protections, etc. I don’t think anyone has been able to justify the risk vs. cost of doing much more. Without a doubt, there may be a situation where someone would want to (be willing to) pay the cost to protect something they valued enough. And, I don’t mean to downplay the tragedy or significance, to the people immediately involved, when something like this happens. It’s just that you can’t afford to put every mile of RR track in an enclosed, explosion proof structure/tunnel. They do control the routing of nuclear waste, and the like, and the containers in which it is shipped. But, you could never afford to ship a bulk product that way.
RE: Protecting Buildings from Train Car Explosions