International Railroad Discussion > Derailment of a loaded torpedo car (Brazil)

It happened yesterday at CSP Steel plant in Pecém, CE state. I do not have details about the cause of the derail for while. I am wondering how it will be put back on the rails, if possible. 

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/21 09:24 by pedrop.

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WOW, that is gonna be a problem.

Prolly take a couple days to cool down enough to begin to move it.

Photo of the day. How do you fix this? Load is apparently hot from the glow. If it cools, can you ever get the steel back out or just scrap.

That would nearly be a writeoff ,surely.
The new one in your previous post might arrive just in time.
Great photos Pedro,regards,DK

Definitely split a switch.

Proud Foamer
OAKLEY, CA

Wow, what an awful mess. Hope they can clean up the derailment soon.

Larry

I looked at this mill on the satellite photographs and other internet locations and found it very interesting:
  -  It appears construction of this integrated mill with one very large blast furnace began on a greenfield site circa 2015, with production starting in late 2019.
  -  Major consumables all arrive by ship, and are conveyored to the mill.  The lineup of brand new stack-reclaimers was impressive.
  -- The rail operation is self-contained in a limited portion of the mill, and exists ONLY to shuttle the hot metal output of the BF to another but nearby building where further refining and a continuous caster are located.  Except for a very few pieces of MOW equipment, all of the rolling stock consists of these torpedo cars.
  -  Locomotives are all new, purpose built gen set machines with 'large phone booth' cab at deck level at both ends;  however, the are also equipped with radio control, and it is likely cab controls, if any are installed at all, are used for backup or maintenance purposes only.  There are also the phone booths at one end of some of the torpedo cars;  it appears the standard train formation is two torpedoes, which empty are propelled into the loading area -- which is undercover with eight !! parallel tracks -- and pulled out with the loco leading.  The cars are then propelled into the unloading area, which is only two tracks, but looks like it may take 4 cars.
  -  The steel slabs produced by the caster are stacked by large rubber tired equipment.  I'm guessing the bulk of the product must be shipped out by sea;  there is actually a "common carrier" rail line with minimal infrastructure nearby, but it does not penetrate the mill, nor even seem to acknowledge its existence;  its chief current traffic seems to be a limited number of containers from the port area.  It might be a different gauge.  There is evidence that at one time there was a loop [ eg an oval ] of track near the mill that suggests there was some bulk unloading there, or planned there.  It does seem curious that the mill would be located where you have to transport raw materials in and your output out, but I imagine there's a reasonable financial explanation.
-- I've been to a fair number of rail served hot metal side integrated mills in North America -- many of which no longer exist -- and I've never seen anything quite this massive on the rail side;  impressive.

Yes, it does look like the torpedo 'split the switch'.  However, this might be a little different than the usual picking a blade tip:  I noticed there is some wayside signalling, understandable considering the density of operation, and it seems possible that the turnouts in the 'throat' are electrically operated, either from a central location or by the loco operators themselves [ from the belt pack ? ].  Perhaps, if there is no island track circuitry or equivalent [ axle counter ], a switch was thrown under the car.

Certainly the safest course of action I would think would be to wait for the load to cool down, and then scrap the barrel -- you'd want to anyway, since it hit that support post.  It looks like the plant has enough redundancy to be able to run without this one ?? gas collector ?? unit for a bit.   Still, if I were "Hulcher do Brasil" I think I'd take the phone off the hook for a few days.....

Best, SZ

I like this link as it shows what a mess can be made if the load is dumped completely!

https://www.assaultweb.net/forums/forum/discussion/general-discussion/55797-a-train-of-molten-iron-derails?t=135504

JG