Quebec explodes again
 

Small town of 6,000 people, in Quebec's Eastern Townships, has a bunch of petroleum rail cars burn and explode in-town. Five are known dead and about 40 are missing. Reports say that there was a small fire earlier on, that was dealt with, and then later on the petro cars came loose, rolled down hill back into town, then blew.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/fears-t...ster-1.1357612

Is it me or is there a lot of shit going down with trains the past few years? We had a train carrying propane and chlorine derail and explode into a huge fireball a few years back.

No, I don't think that you're imagining it. More and more petrochemicals are being moved by rail these days, when they really should be moved by pipeline.

Heartbreaking. Pipelines would seem to be the way to go.

Horrible.

The most interesting man in the world once parallel parked a train.

This train would have eventually crossed through Maine and then here to New Brunswick.

A few days before this happened I was in Bangor and they were showing protests all over the news. People didnt want these trains passing through their towns. Their concerns were justified in a hurry.

I guess this is just one more reason to have this Alberta to N.B pipeline done.

Some people are asking if this might not have been sabotage, but they aren't asking very loudly.

Pipelines are the way to go. I'm in that industry and our issue of failure is far less than other methods of transportation. However, that being said, even we are into rail transportation due to the bakken boom in the Dakotas and lack of pipeline out of that area.

The primary issue with rail transport seems to be that there's no real standard for the rail cars used. We've got multi-hulled tankers, redundant shells on pipelines, but no standards for rail car safety? Duh. Pipelines tend to go across open country. Rail lines frequently run right the hell through the centre of major cities.

This is going on in pretty much the center of town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRb3J...&feature=share