1 DEAD, 1 INJURED IN WASTE-TO-FUEL CONVERSION PLANT EXPLOSION AT MAGNEGAS IN TAMPA BAY, FLORIDA

APRIL 17, 2015 

TARPON SPRINGS, FLORIDA

Authorities on Friday identified the worker killed during an explosion at a Tarpon Springs waste-to-fuel conversion plant. 

Michael D. Sheppard, 29, of Safety Harbor, was found dead after the blast Thursday afternoon at MagneGas Corp., 150 Rainville Road, according to Tarpon Springs police.

Another MagneGas employee, 41-year-old Eric R. Newell, of Largo, was taken by medical helicopter to Tampa General Hospital for treatment of injuries sustained in the explosion. He was in stable condition, police said.

There was still no details on how the blast occurred.  This facility creates explosive material (mostly methane gas), so obviously something went wrong and the workers ignited gases or there was aleak somewhere that released the explosive gases, mostly methane.

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Authorities say one person is dead following an explosion at a Tampa Bay area gas plant.

Tarpon Springs police say the accidental explosion occurred Thursday afternoon at MagneGas Corp., an alternative energy company.

Officials say one man was found dead, and another was flown to a St. Petersburg hospital with serious injuries. Police weren’t immediately naming the victims. About two dozen other workers were evacuated from the area.

Tarpon Springs Fire Rescue reports the scene is secure. The State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause of the explosion.

According to the MagneGas website, the company converts liquid waste into a hydrogen-based fuel, which can be used for metal cutting, cooking, heating and powering natural gas bi-fuel automobiles.

“Our deep sympathy goes out to the immediate family, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family and all friends,” MagneGas spokesman Shepard Doniger says, in a prepared statement. “We are grateful for the efforts and immediate actions of the emergency responders. We are working closely with responders and local officials to determine the cause and circumstances surrounding the accident.”

The explosion happened just after 2 p.m. at the warehouse that a subsidiary of MagneGas purchased in 2007 for $700,000, according to property records. The facility was built in 1986, and MagneGas had long outgrown the space. 

Company officials previously announced plans to move to Pinellas Park later this year.

“Our top priority is to the health and safety of these people who, as we said, are considered family,” Doniger says. “We have strived to create a culture of safe, compliant operations. We take this matter very seriously, and are dedicating all the necessary corporate resources to assist in the investigation.”

MagneGas, trades on the Nasdaq using the symbol MNGA.  It reported a loss of $7.2 million, or 23 cents per share, in 2014 on revenue of $1 million, compared to a $6.3 million, or 29 cents per share, loss the year before on revenue of $989,000.

TRAINS TO GET SMARTER, SAFER IN AFTERMATH OF DEADLY CRASHES. CONGRESS MANDATED THE NEW SAFETY SYSTEM, CALLED POSITIVE TRAIN CONTROL, OR PTC, AFTER A DEADLY TRAIN COLLISION IN CHATSWORTH IN 2008 KILLED 25 PEOPLE AND INJURED MORE THAN 100. INVESTIGATORS DISCOVERED THE ENGINEER WAS TEXTING WHILE ON DUTY.

APRIL 16, 2015 

A single Metrolink train bears down on Fullerton after nightfall. Its passengers: dozens of 155-pound sandbags.
The train is among several testing a new wireless technology that promises safer travel in Southern California and across the country. On this night, the sandbags, each stationed where a commuter’s foot would rest, are meant to simulate a load of passengers.
The technology, in the simplest terms, takes control and stops trains when engineers make mistakes, such as ignoring warning signals. Congress mandated the new safety system, called positive train control, or PTC, after a deadly train collision in Chatsworth in 2008 killed 25 people and injured more than 100. Investigators discovered the engineer was texting while on duty.
“It would have definitely prevented an incident like Chatsworth,” Metrolink spokesman Jeff Lustgarten said. One of Metrolink’s trains was involved in the deadly collision.
In 2002, two people were killed and 270 injured in Placentia when a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train ran a red signal light and crashed into a stopped Metrolink train. More recently, a train engineer in Spain appears to have been talking on the phone while speeding in a train crash that killed 79 passengers and crew.
Metrolink has spent more than four years and $216 million installing PTC in the 169 trains it operates. Testing on the Orange County line, which started this week, is expected to last three to four weeks.
STARTING IN SUMMER
Orange County lines will likely begin running with PTC by this summer. Other Metrolink lines, like those in Ventura County and the Antelope Valley, are expected to begin operating the new system later this month.
In all, freight and commuter rail companies are spending upward of $10 billion on PTC. Congress is requiring all U.S. train operators to install PTC by the end of the year, although pending legislation could extend that deadline.
But when it comes to rail safety, experts agree that technology can only do so much.
Sitting in a Metrolink train simulator in Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, Jay Ellis pulls back on a throttle. A computer screen to his left shows the train’s speed: 45 mph. That’s too fast, according to a series of real-time calculations made by an array of communications units in the train and along the tracks. They take into account the train’s speed, weight and length and the track’s conditions.
This is PTC at work. Metrolink train engineers are using the simulator to learn the new system.
Ellis points to a flashing yellow warning.
“So if I don’t stop, it’s telling me it will take over in 27 seconds,” says the field operations manager for Metrolink.
In this track maintenance simulation, the computer has calculated to the second when the train must stop to avoid the damaged tracks. PTC, Ellis explains, is meant to prevent engineer errors. Between 2003 and 2012, human error accounted for 38 percent of train accidents, according to Federal Railroad Administration data.
If an engineer operating a PTC-equipped train fails to heed a warning, the system takes over and can shut down the train in time to avert a collision. The engineer’s supervisor is notified, and an investigation ensues.
But these safeguards, experts warn, won’t end all train-related deaths.
The Federal Railroad Administration estimates that 95 percent of train-related deaths are caused by individuals or vehicles on tracks – put there by accident or on purpose. PTC can’t adjust for that.
Just a few months ago, video footage captured a fitness instructor running between Burbank train tracks moments before he was hit and killed by a Metrolink train. Investigators were told the man, Greg Plitt, was filming a sports-drink advertisement without authorization. The train conductor and engineer sounded the horn multiple times to warn Plitt, authorities said, but couldn’t stop in time.
SAFETY IMPROVING
Overall, rail travel safety has steadily improved since the 1980s. The nationwide rail accident rate dropped 50 percent between 2004 and 2012, according to FRA officials and their data. In California, the state Public Utilities Commission reported that the number of train accidents fell from 625 in 2008 to 486 in 2012.
“We tend to focus on very rare, but very horrific incidents like the Chatsworth crash,” said Albert Churella, an associate professor at Southern Polytechnic State University and author of several books on the railroad industry. “In reality, the majority of fatalities would not be prevented by PTC.”
In the freight industry, the latest statistics show that human errors account for just 4 percent of freight train accidents, an official said. One of the most horrific freight accidents in recent memory, a fiery oil-tanker train explosion that killed 47 people in a remote Canadian town in 2013, was due in part to human error and brake failure, a Canadian transit report concluded.
Churella is concerned that the technology’s steep price tag will translate into higher fares, forcing some commuters back into their cars.
Lustgarten, the Metrolink spokesman, said passengers won’t foot the bill. Instead, the money is coming largely from state bond funds earmarked for transportation projects.
Commuters, however, could see more time between trains, Lustgarten explained, because the details for each leg of travel must loaded into the system before the train can depart. He said Metrolink has already begun building in more time between trips.
Emerging sensor technologies may eventually cut down on vehicle and pedestrian train accidents.
“We’re not there yet,” Lustgarten said. Even with the latest advances, trains remain in the hands of humans.

Source: http://www.ocregister.com

THIRD MAN DIES IN DESOTO PARISH VEHICLE-TRAIN COLLISION IN LOUISIANA

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

LONGSTREET, DESOTO PARISH, LOUISIANA

A third man has died as the result of injuries sustained in a train-truck collision Monday, confirmed Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle.

Herbert Barras III, 35, of Charenton, was transported from the crash scene to University Health. He died overnight, Arbuckle said. 

Barras was a passenger in pickup truck driven by John Watson, 23, of Centerville. Michael Ryder II, 25, of Goldonna, was a passenger. Both died at the scene. 

The crash took place around 1 p.m. on a private lease road off state Highway 5 that leads to an oilfield site. The railroad crossing is not marked with lights, gates or bells but does have cross bucks and a stop sign.

Watson, driving a 2001 Dodge Ram, was traveling east and pulled into the path of a southbound Union Pacific freight train operated by Kenneth Charles, 59, of Humble, Texas. The truck was hit at the driver's side door and pushed off the tracks. 

Watson, Ryder and Barras were unrestrained. A routine toxicology sample was obtained from Watson and will be submitted for analysis but impairment is not suspected, state police said.

RAILROAD ACCIDENT BRIEF: COLLISION OF UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD FREIGHT TRAIN MSIDV 16 WITH STANDING RAILROAD CARS IN HAYS, KANSAS

Executive Summary On July 16, 2013, at about 1:20 a.m., central daylight time, westbound Union Pacific Railroad (UP) freight train MSIDV16 unexpectedly encountered a hand-operated main tracks witch at MP 288 in the reverse position diverting the train from the main track onto two adjacent tracks at the Sharon Springs subdivision in Hays, Kansas.  The switch was not equipped with technology to warn oncoming trains that it was in the reverse position.  At the time of the accident, the train was traveling in no signaled track warrant territory at a timetable speed of 49 mph.  The lead locomotive collided with standing cars on the spur track.   Diesel fuel leaked from the ruptured locomotive fuel tanks, ignited, and burned.  The three crew members were injured.  Damage was estimated by the UP to be $1.4 million. Probable Cause The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was the failure of the brakeman of train LDG8915 to return a main track switch to the normal position after the crew had secured the train on a siding track.  Contributing to the accident was the inability of the crew of train MSIDV 16 to determine the position of the main track switch in no signaled territory.

Previous NTSB Recommendations  

Following the January 6, 2005, accident at Graniteville, South Carolina, the NTSB made the following safety recommendation to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) (aka: the railroad lobby):

Require that, along main lines in non-signaled territory, railroads install an automatically activated device, independent of the switch banner that will, visually or electronically, compellingly capture the attention of employees involved with switch operations and clearly convey the status of the switch both in daylight and in darkness. (R-05-14)

After completing the Bettendorf, Iowa, accident investigation, the NTSB reclassified Safety Recommendation (R-05-14) from “Open—Acceptable Alternate Response,” to “Closed―Superseded ”by Safety Recommendation (R-12-27), and issued the following new recommendations to the FRA, aimed at addressing the hazard of switch misalignments:

Require railroads to install, along mainlines in non-signaled territory not equipped with positive train control, appropriate technology that warns approaching trains of incorrectly lined main track switches sufficiently in advance to permit stopping. (R-12-27)

Revise Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations Section 218.105(d) (1) to require that, until the appropriate switch position technology is installed on main track switches in non-signaled territories that are not equipped with positive train control, train crews releasing track authority to the dispatcher must hold job briefings with the dispatcher and clearly convey the position of all main track switches that were used prior to releasing track warrant authority. (R-12-28)

Require that until appropriate switch position warning technology is installed on main track switches (in non-signaled territory not equipped with positive train control), when a main track switch has been reported relined for a main track, the next train to pass the location approach the switch location at restricted speed. That train crew should then report to the dispatcher that the switch is correctly lined for the main track before trains are allowed to operate at maximum authorized speed. (R-12-29)

These recommendations are for additional layers of protection intended to prevent accidents due to single point failures.

However, in response to these recommendations, the FRA responded by letter to the NTSB on December 28, 2012, stating in part, “The preliminary cost-benefit analysis conducted related to this recommendation shows that rulemakings cannot be justified as having benefits outweighing cost.”

The NTSB replied to the FRA on April 18, 2013,“…we urge the FRA to consider an appropriate alternate means of warning approaching trains of incorrectly lined main track switches. ”Pending completion of a plan for doing this, Safety Recommendation R-12-27 is classified “Open—Unacceptable Response.”