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Prior detector failure? Video shows car sparking & flaming before it passed the Salem detector 20 miles east of the derailment
Author: Sherlock
Date: 02-16-2023 - 18:39
i see a hotbox detector in Salem, Ohio. 0.1 mile west of S. Lincoln Ave. Across from Fresh Mark meat plant where security video shows the car flaming. Further west security video from Butech Bliss also showed the same. So the car was flaming before it reached the Salem detector. I haven't seen anything saying it's alarm went off. All I see is that the detector 20 miles to the east in E. Palestine announced a defect. Just before the derailment.
Did the Salem detector fail? I haven't seen any reporting of an "Integrity failure" message from it. Was the heat threshold trigger set too high? Why did it not announce a defect?
I don't think it announced an alarm or the crew would not have been running the reported over 40 mph as it approached E. Palestine.
The video in the story is from Butech Bliss. More than a half mile before the train went over the Salem detector.
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2023/02/10/east-palestine-train-derailment-video-fire-axle-alert/stories/202302100070
The Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, last week, setting aflame tankers of hazardous chemicals and prompting an evacuation of thousands of residents for almost a week, had traveled at least 20 miles with a malfunctioning axle, according to security camera footage from businesses in Salem, Ohio.
At 8:12 p.m. on Feb. 3, the southbound freight train passed by Butech Bliss, an industrial equipment manufacturer in Salem. One car, a few dozen behind the first locomotive, glowed brightly on the bottom as it passed.
A minute later and a mile down the track, a camera at a meat processing plant called Fresh Mark captured the same fiery axle.
On the railroad tracks in front of Fresh Mark, there is an instrument called a hot box detector, which scans the temperature of the passing train axles to ensure they are not overheated. If the device finds a problem, a defect detection alert sounds over the train radio.
Detecting a defect so hot that it would appear to be on fire would require the crew to stop the train immediately and inspect the problem, said Scott Wilcox, a retired Norfolk Southern engineer who worked on the Fort Wayne line, where trains travel between Chicago and the big railyard in the Beaver County town of Conway.
Hot box detectors are typically spaced every 10 to 20 miles apart, Mr. Wilcox said. On this particular track, the next detector after Salem was in East Palestine. The train would have passed that one less than a mile before derailing on Feb. 3.
If the train crew heard an alert shortly before braking, it is likely that the warning came from the detector in East Palestine.
Did the Salem detector fail? I haven't seen any reporting of an "Integrity failure" message from it. Was the heat threshold trigger set too high? Why did it not announce a defect?
I don't think it announced an alarm or the crew would not have been running the reported over 40 mph as it approached E. Palestine.
The video in the story is from Butech Bliss. More than a half mile before the train went over the Salem detector.
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2023/02/10/east-palestine-train-derailment-video-fire-axle-alert/stories/202302100070
The Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, last week, setting aflame tankers of hazardous chemicals and prompting an evacuation of thousands of residents for almost a week, had traveled at least 20 miles with a malfunctioning axle, according to security camera footage from businesses in Salem, Ohio.
At 8:12 p.m. on Feb. 3, the southbound freight train passed by Butech Bliss, an industrial equipment manufacturer in Salem. One car, a few dozen behind the first locomotive, glowed brightly on the bottom as it passed.
A minute later and a mile down the track, a camera at a meat processing plant called Fresh Mark captured the same fiery axle.
On the railroad tracks in front of Fresh Mark, there is an instrument called a hot box detector, which scans the temperature of the passing train axles to ensure they are not overheated. If the device finds a problem, a defect detection alert sounds over the train radio.
Detecting a defect so hot that it would appear to be on fire would require the crew to stop the train immediately and inspect the problem, said Scott Wilcox, a retired Norfolk Southern engineer who worked on the Fort Wayne line, where trains travel between Chicago and the big railyard in the Beaver County town of Conway.
Hot box detectors are typically spaced every 10 to 20 miles apart, Mr. Wilcox said. On this particular track, the next detector after Salem was in East Palestine. The train would have passed that one less than a mile before derailing on Feb. 3.
If the train crew heard an alert shortly before braking, it is likely that the warning came from the detector in East Palestine.
Prior detector failure? Video shows car sparking & flaming before it passed the Salem detector 20 miles east of the derailment