Pennsylvania town evacuated after train carrying hazardous materials derails

[factfinder_77]

Source: cbsnews

All residents of a small Pennsylvania town were evacuated hours after a freight train carrying hazardous materials partly derailed, setting some cars ablaze. Officials tell CBS Pittsburgh that at least 32 cars on a CSX freight train derailed early Wednesday morning in Hyndman, Pennsylvania, about 100 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. CBS affiliate WTAJ-TV reports one of the cars crashed into a home, starting a fire in the garage. Federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board arrived on the scene late Wednesday afternoon but can't assess the situation because train cars are still burning. Officials say the safest thing to do is just to let the cars burn themselves out. There's no estimate on how long that will take. There are two other cars in danger of catching fire.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hyndman-freight-train-carrying-hazardous-materials-derails/

[bora13]

1. a live action

occurrence of "UNSTOPPABLE . in PA even.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. That was a great movie

and Denzel Washington played such a different type of part than his usual.

[pansypoo53219]

4. yeah. good movie.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. ACT 2: watch CSX fight the lawsuits till all the plaintiffs are dead.

This is the umpteenth time this has happened, despite years of warnings and protests.

[FakeNoose]

5. About halfway between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg

For reference:

[BumRushDaShow]

6. What's funny

is that I did the same - looked up exactly where it is because I assumed there had to be some medium-sized city closer to it to cite rather than the article's defaulting to "100 miles SE" of Pittsburgh, although I correctly assumed it was near the MD border somewhere (and as a reference, we in Philly are almost "100 miles SW of NYC" ). They could have used Altoona or Johnstown (Hyndman is about 56 miles from either one and people have heard of Johnstown - re: floods).

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. I've been to Hyndman many times.

It's on the old Baltimore & Ohio Railroad mainline between Cumberland, Maryland, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's the start of the grade for westbound trains.

Trains headed west toward Chicago from Cumberland follow Wills Creek out of town. At Corriganville, Maryland, they make a turn to the right and head north. They soon cross the Mason-Dixon Line, with Hyndman the next population center. So far, the trains aren't gaining much altitude. At Hyndman, though, some trains have helpers (extra locomotives) added so they can make the climb to the top of the grade, at Sand Patch, Pennsylvania.

Cumberland is at about 540 feet altitude, and Hyndman is probably 600- or 700-something feet up. Sand Patch is over 2200 feet in altitude, so there's some serious climbing ahead.

Q388 was an eastbound train, headed downhill. He would have been in Cumberland in another half-hour or so.

Forty years ago, I could go up there and have the place all to myself. I could spend the entire weekend and not see another railfan, or train enthusiast.

Since then, the line has become popular with railfans. A website, Trainorders, has a video camera stationed there so that people at work - I mean, at home - can watch trains going through Hyndman.

Here's the link to the webcam: https://www.trainorders.com/videos/sandpatch/. In some of those scenes, you can see the stopped train. You are looking north, toward the rear of the train. You can see smoke from the burning cargo in the distance.

Here's the story at Trainorders: Eastern Railroad Discussion > CSX Q388 on the ground & on fire

The article will help you find a scanner feed so that you can listen to the agencies responding to the derailment.

Full disclosure: I own shares of CSX.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Pretty cool

Have been on a bunch of the rail enthusiast sites over the years and admire the passion. My "rail" experiences began at age 8 through age 14 going to/from school every day on the local Penn Central commuter trains (never had any yellow school bus to go to school) - and that was back when the engineers would let us kids stand in the cabin with them. Got to learn some of the hand signals they used too. I could literally doze on the train and know where we were based on the "sound and feel" of the tracks.

Bucket list includes a cross-country and back (southern/northern) rail ride.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

9. Good morning. I'm taking the week off.

Last edited Thu Aug 3, 2017, 09:00 AM - Edit history (1)

I'm spending my vacation days decluttering. Someone has to do it, and since there's no one else here....

Yesterday I found the complete Microsoft Office suite for Windows 3.1. I don't know how I had missed it, but there it was.

Interested DUers, here's your chance. Just pay for the shipping. Warning: I haven't checked to see that there actually any diskettes in the boxes, but if there all, the weight will quickly add up. At least those are 1.44 MB diskettes. I think.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Hope you enjoy!

Before I finally retired, I had to purge an old set of DOS 6.0 disks that had fallen behind a cabinet so know the feeling.

[hexola]

10. Im about an hour from Cumberland - traintown!

Always take your camera!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. Near Corriganville?

Either between where the highway splits at the Cumberland Narrows and Corriganville, or between Corriganville and Hyndman. The lighting doesn't look right for that second guess, unless it's in the afternoon.

Maryland Route 35, near Ellerslie, or Pennsylvania Route 96, just across the border?

I have slides of Western Maryland F-units west of Meyersdale. That was in my pre-scanner days. I didn't get a scanner until 1980. It was a Montgomery Ward 856 four-channel scanner, made by Sharp. It still works, and I think it has better "ears" than any scanner I've bought since. 160.230 MHz was among the first four crystals I bought for it.

Thanks for the memories.