As an Intermodal Buff, This Just Makes Me Want to Cry!!

I hadn't seen that photo. Amazing. 

I saw those containers & hundreds of autos destroyed on the news & print. Unbelievable.

I saw the autos, they looked kinda like the new style VW Beetles? There were LOTS of them too. I had not seen the containers though, that's new to me. That must have really been one serious explosion. Thanks for the pics.  

 

Have they determined what actually happened, what exploded and the cause? What a really terrible awful thing to have happen.

I'm going to hold off on any train purchases until that stock clears the supply line!

THose  mangled containers are full of  O gauge model trains destined for the US.

I would say the equivalent of 21 metric tons (about 23.15 tons) of TNT is serious.

 

Rusty

This pic really gives you a sense of the magnitude of this thing...cars in the foreground, containers in the rear.  Lot of VWs, some other SUV-types.  What a massive clean-up job!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike the frightening fact is that WE never know what is in those containers.

"Have they determined what actually happened, what exploded and the cause?"

 

china clamping down on news about the accident.

I read in the paper they think there was calcium carbide stored in the warehouse, the firemen hit it with water -and- boom   !!!!  Lots of Lionel and MTH stuff are in those containers. 

Hundreds of vehicles.... no 8000 NEW VW's and Renault!   It was a distribution point.  

 

I seem to remember a 60 Minutes or Dateline piece a while back about this -- how Custom's officials or Homeland Security...whoever it was...really have no foolproof way of inspecting every single container that comes into this country.  And when you drive down the Jersey Turnpike between the bridge and the Newark Airport area and pass all those thousands of containers stacked high...you're right, it IS frightening.

Fire fighters there were battling a warehouse fire about 40 minutes before the first explosion. The warehouse was housing materials that a toxic clean up company was storing so I don't think it was something in the containers.

 

Jerry

 

Probably not...we were just sort of going off on a tangent about how we see hundreds of thousands of these things coming into the U.S. and you really can't be sure what exactly is in every single one.  In the world we live in now, post-World Trade Center bombing, post-911, it is a sobering thought.  Wasn't really referencing the Tianjin explosion.  Hopefully, all those containers were "empties."  

CBP does randomly select containers coming into and out of the ports and runs them though large drive through X-ray machines.

When you consider there are thousands of containers passing through our ports every day, it would be very nearly impossible to inspect 100% of them.

Curt

Really guys? Your worried about what O gauge products are in the containers?

What about all the firemen and public that lost their lives, the damage and the contamination of the area because of this tragedy....

 

 

Agreed.  But please read the parenthetical statement in the first post.  And I'm sure that gunrunner john and jim pastorius were posting with a smile and a wink.  Seriously doubt they'd place the value of their toys over the lives of real people.  

Clearly, we were just joking, of course we are concerned about the loss of life and damage.  There really isn't anything I can do about that either.

Hazardous materials stored in the buildings,unlike here in the US where we have the EPA to monitor these things except for the Animas River in Colorado.

Mikey

I do not think any country would willingly turn a blind eye towards anything that could cause the damage of the magnitude that this has and unfortunately now innocent people have paid for the mistake with their lives. There are plenty of instances in our own industrialized history where the same mistakes have happened in this country.

 

I wonder what kind of economic impact this will have since several more fires have broken out? Does anyone know if there are fire suppression systems on the individual cranes or just in the yards themselves? What about here?

As much as people love to hate the EPA, we don't usually have disasters of this magnitude because of regulation. If we do, it is because of lack of inspection and enforcement.

 

It is a placard like this that may not have been present.

 

 

The critical element in this case would have been in the white diamond use no water.

Again...all due respect to those who lost their lives or were injured in this tragedy...but, I have to say...that I hope all the long-awaited Atlas O track products were not, somehow, lost in all that debris.

 

That would just about be those fine people's luck...

I hope that is not the port our trains are shipped from. If it is that will not be good for many of our suppliers.  There is a lot riding in those containers many small business may have a make it or break it cargo. It will be interesting to see how the PRC will pay for it.