Eastern Railroad Discussion > Reading Wreck/BLEVE;Brandtsville, PA. 4/28/1963

An early haz-mat incident, involving a WM/RDG eastbound freight at Brandtsville, about 3 miles west of Dillsburg, PA., MP 13.9 on the RDG Lurgan line.
23 cars derailed, including 2 loads of LPG. Another tanker of chlorine also started leaking, injuring many responders.
The LPG tankers burned for over 4 hours, the first 2 explosions forced the volunteer firefighters and rail workers away, and then within 10 minutes, the 2nd tanker went skyward, injuring almost 20 firefighters, railroad employees, and a newspaper reporter. 

Jim Bradley, a local rail photographer, took the first 4 pics during the active firefighting. He apparently left the scene before the largest explosion.
Last 2 images are from the PATRIOT newspaper
 

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Courtesy Cumberland County, PA. Historical Soc.

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Holy cow!

Posted from iPhone

I was a volunteer firefighter for 32 years and i never saw a BLEVE in person, and very glad I didn't! I did work an incident where an 18 wheeler with 10,000 gallons of LPG had runoff the road and overturned in a ditch. To add some "spice" to the mix there was a 69KV Powerpower line overhead! There was no leakage thankfully. We did have an incident when the truck was being righted though. The wreck was in a left-hand curve and of course it was banked. When the two wreckers brought in to right it winched it over the truck came up on it's wheels...then toppled over against the wreckers! Again, thee was no breach. If there had been and it had come out as liquid it would have expanded greatly. All it would have taken was a spark and we would have had a monster fire!

I'm familiar with Jim Bradley's work, so I know he was a good photographer. What I didn't know is that he had balls of steel (pre-requisite for photgraphing that close to burning LPG tank cars).
/Ted

Are there any news articles available on this wreck and if so, could you post the link(s)?

I’d love to read more about it.

Dan

Posted from iPhone

Good Lord--those firemen are ***right there*** next to burning tanks!!!  Evacuate, guys!!!!!!

dschlegel Wrote:
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> Are there any news articles available on this
> wreck and if so, could you post the link(s)?
>
> I’d love to read more about it.
>
> Dan
>
> Posted from iPhone
Here's a few paragraphs from a next day news article; I also have a fire dept history that devotes a chapter to this incident.

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BLEVE/Memorial | City of Kingman, AZ

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
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> BLEVE/Memorial | City of Kingman, AZ
Thank you, I am familiar with that tragedy and have materials on it.