7 May 2009
Engines Put in Path of Train Carrying Hazardous Materials
Minot North Dakota USA - Authorities are
investigating a dangerous incident over the weekend in Minot involving a pair of CP Railway locomotives.
Sometime between the hours of 3:30 and 5 a.m. on Sunday, someone made entry into two locomotives that were parked on siding tracks
near the 1100 block of Eastern Avenue. The suspect then took the controls of the lead locomotive, which was hooked to the second
locomotive, and moved both onto the main rail line just east of the crossing at Eighth Avenue Southeast and into the eventual path of
an eastbound freight train carrying hazardous materials, including anhydrous ammonia.
The engineer of the eastbound train was able to spot the locomotives ahead and quickly activated the emergency brake, bringing the
train to a stop with only 100 feet to spare, according to Minot police. A CP Railway statement obtained Wednesday by The Minot Daily
News placed the distance at 400 feet, however.
The incident is being treated as a very serious situation in Minot, since it almost certainly would have caused a major derailment and
the potential release of a large amount of hazardous materials.
Jeff Johnson, a CP Rail spokesman, said Wednesday that the company is taking the incident extremely seriously. Investigation by CP
Rail police began immediately after the dispatcher was notified by the freight train's crew.
"This was an extremely isolated incident," Johnson said. "CP has safety appliances, processes, and regulations to
prevent such an occurrence. In addition, CP has further strengthened its procedures as a result of this incident."
According to police docket entries from that morning, some specialized equipment was needed to perform the necessary actions to move
the locomotives, thus raising the possibility of the suspect being an employee of CP Rail.
However, Sgt. Dave Goodman of the Minot Police Department, the investigator assigned to the case, wasn't quite ready to say Wednesday
that it would not be possible for "Joe Blow off the street" to move the locomotives.
"It shouldn't be (possible)," he said, stopping short of saying that it was impossible.
Goodman said he was taken aboard a CP Rail locomotive following the incident and was shown the basics of how one operates. From that
brief visit, he said, he gained at least a basic understanding of how things work.
"I would guess I could probably do it now," Goodman said. "But you would definitely have to have at least a little bit
of knowledge about how things worked."
As a result, rather than being positive that it was an "inside job" of sorts, Goodman said he believes a relative or friend
of someone with that direct experience could likely be the perpetrator.
Goodman was asked if throwing the emergency brake for a sudden stop created a chance of derailment as well.
"It does," he said. "To throw all the brakes at once like that is definitely a last ditch effort" to avoid a
collision.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, a newer type of braking system known as electronically controlled pneumatic
braking is currently being researched by the industry, but Johnson said he would prefer not to speculate on whether the freight train
had such a system. ECP braking simultaneously activates the brakes on all of a train's cars, as opposed to the current air braking
system standard in the industry.
Goodman said the low speed limit for trains around 10 mph inside the city definitely worked in the engineer's favor.
"He's probably lucky that he was going through town," Goodman said.
Goodman said that from his conversations with CP Rail personnel, he believes the freight train was a full-sized load.
However, he was unsure exactly how much hazardous material was on the train.
"There were at least some on there, including anhydrous ammonia," Goodman said. "And certainly Minot or any other city
should never have to deal with that."
Goodman and the police department are asking anyone with possible information to contact the department at 852-0111.
As for narrowing the time of the incident down to a specific time frame, Goodman jokingly inferred that he didn't exactly need to draw
on his detective training to accomplish the task.
"Well, at 3:30 (a.m.) a freight train came through on that line and there was no problem," he said. "Then, at 5:51,
obviously there was."
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