More: North Dakota Department of Emergency Services spokesperson Cecily Fong said it appears that a train carrying grain derailed and was hit by the train carrying oil at about 2:30 p.m. She said about a dozen train cars are on fire and that at least one of the trains is operated by BNSF Railway.
What in hell is causing all that black smoke??!!
But the NDP want us to ship by rail instead of pipelines… What could go wrong?
Don, I had wondered the same thing as you did as it looked to me like a potash train. However, I suspect the consist was mixed with maybe some crude tankers in it as well. Just pure specualtion on my part. I hope the crew is alright!
Is it a Warren Buffet oil-sands train?
Just off hand the cars that can be seen are oil tanker cars, but either grain or some other bulk dry commodity.
andycanuck:
It’s Burlington Northern, I believe, which Buffett owns a part of.
hope it wasn’t done by antioil/rail/pipeline folks.
Should have said are not oil tankers.
(?)
Those cars that are visible are grain cars. I live in Montana and we get 3 or 4 oil trains a day from North Dakota. Those trains are all crude oil cars except right behind the engines and that is always a box car. I have never seen crude cars mixed with grain cars.
I have a habit of looking at hazmat diamonds which must have the 4 digit code of whatever hazardous material the car is loaded with. If I had to guess, the tank cars, if there were any, might have carried LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) which is propane. If one of those go there is a 1,000 blast radius. A railroad tank car with LPG carries about 3 times as much propane as an 18 wheeler so they are very dangerous.
Some of the stuff that goes through my town in tank cars is far more dangerous than LPG.
Look like driving in Casselton must be fun:
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/422118/
…..and another one
https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=1&article_id=377231
I think that Berkshire Hathaway (the company that Buffett heads) owns the whole thing, actually. I used to own Burlington Northern stock, and I had the choice of selling it or exchanging it for Berkshire Hathaway stock some years back.
From the video Kate posted that explosion looks like the type of thing you see from a Hollywood gasoline flash pot, just tremendously bigger. Not much blast because the combustion is too slow, lots of heat to take the unburned fuel higher and higher.
By contrast I’d expect an LPG explosion to have a lot more blast wave than what we saw here. Like the car would get hit with a hell of a bang, possibly roll over from it. Also I’d expect much more debris in the air.
But the hipsters tell us trains are -safer- than pipelines.
Listening to KFGO Fargo ND (just East of Casselton) they confirmed it is bulk oil, coincidentally about a mile West of the wreck is the “7th largest” ethanol plant in the USA, and they have a spur line into their facility, so this could have been an even bigger mess.
http://www.tharaldsonethanol.com/
http://kfgo.com/listen-live/
Thank you, rabbit.
Meanwhile farmers go deeper into debt, waiting for grain cars to sell grain because the rail is making more money hauling crude, thanks to the great Obungya and his dem-crony, eco commie/phoney capitalist friends blocking pipelines. Better to level towns and kill 50 at a crack, pollute the atmosphere like this, shipping oil by train, than to have a “pipeline” a horrible pipeline transporting millions of gallons of petrol mostly flawlessly 24 hours a day. F… these eco whacos and lefties are transparent and callous in their quest to be the chief of the reserve of idiots. Que up Justy and Angry Tom for their hatred of pipelines and glowball warming for this evenings news there MSM, quick.
You beat me to that comments, andyC.
Q: What do Casselton and Gainford have in common?
A: I have driven through both, and managed to not to have a wreck. The railroads, not so much.
Many “progressives” object to the movement of domestic oil by any means, while others, as has been said here, argue in favour of shipping by rail; the left have had a soft spot for railroads once they were unionized, even more so if they are publicly owned.
From the size of the explosion and fireball, probably Bakken oil, very light and volatile crude. Tar sands oil would be difficult to ignite, and would just burn.
Kinda makes that Keystone pipeline look like a good idea, eh?
Once the Sheriffs get people to evacuate are they going to kick in doors and seize firearms?
mid island mike
Few people know it but grain dust is tremendously explosive, really.
My guess is that the fireball is from the grain, not the oil.
That said, I’ve never heard of a grain train hitting an oil pipeline, and NO I don’t think that pro-pipeline people caused 2 trains to coincidentally wreck in the same place.
Great footage.
Never mind those wimpy pipelines, I want more trainloads of oil going through bigger cities.
I am sure Just-in and Ranting Tom will agree, Toronto first I say.
A number of years ago the green movement was trying to get people to only eat food grown within 100 miles of your house. Perhaps we need to apply that to oil. Let them freeze in the dark.
iurockhead;
What makes Bakken crude so volatile? It is a light crude but not particularly ‘explosive’. Once burning it feeds itself but fumes from a tanker would be negligible.
I used to flip lighted matches into a open pail (always went out) of diesel fuel as a demo to show that a proper mix of oxygen and vapor were needed for ignition. If cars were ripped open from a collision there would be lots of fuel.
Bakken Oil I read somewhere, has dissolved propane and butane in it from the fracking. Looks like Casselton just got to see Lac Mégantic up close and personal.
Phil, your devotion to your campaign against farmers is quite remarkable. How do you boycott farm-produced food? Grow your own, or only buy it from grocery stores?
TheTooner;
People like Phil choose to ignore what the prairie farmers have sacrificed in input costs to support eastern based manufacturing. Pretty much back to John A. Macdonald the country created a import tax structure that prevented western farmers from sourcing cheaper farm implements and inputs from the USA. That topped by the Canadian Wheat Board which simply allowed Lieberal lackies to skim even more money through fake storage contracts and kickbacks from 3rd world despots who brokered wheat deals. Sickening history that continues on.