From the rumour mill
In a logical world, the full explanation for a tragedy (and its aftermath) is revealed in a timely fashion. In our world, we get to “fabulate” what the truth might be, in the absence of any information. I’m not in love with our reality, right now.
The Lac-Megantic disaster took place about 65 hours ago. Enough time to start a full-blown round of conspiracy stories. And, in the absence… you got that part already. We have some surprising aerial photos, of close to four dozen (!) tank cars, neatly piled in a row near the rail bed. Given the size and weight of each one, I remain curious about how this stacking took place (given the inferno that concurrently was keeping everyone away). The five locomotives that a) were parked b) were not parked c) ran away are gone. No crashed motors. The same locomotives that managed to pull thirteen cars away, even though they were disabled, had their “keys” removed by the engineer before he went to his hotel room. The ones that had no brakes. The ones that, according to the president of the railway, must have lost pressure because they were powered down, causing air brakes to NOT apply (which goes against everything I’ve ever read about how the Westinghouse system works).
And this was a daily convoy, which means that either other convoys are piling up (excuse the image) in a marshalling yard, or are transiting via another section of track, invisible to everyone. Seriously; a daily train of 70 tank cars, no longer needed by the refinery (in New Brunswick) or the tanker (in Portland).
I warned you. In the absence of information, rumours will emerge. And here’s a photo of those tank cars, taken about the same time the fire was stopping…
