[SystemSafety] Lac-Megantic disaster

[Nancy Leveson]

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 10:17 PM, Peter Bernard Ladkin <
ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de> wrote:

>
> BTW, this is another accident situation predicted explicitly by
> sociologists Perrow and Clarke ( The Next Catastrophe, Princeton U.P.,
> 2007, resp. Worst Cases, U. Chicago Press 2005), as with flooding Mark 1
> BWRs. But they were more concerned with Hazmats such as chlorine and
> hydrogen fluoride than oil.
>

I am confused. There have been hundreds of hazardous materials accidents
involving train derailments in the U.S. alone, many very serious and going
back for decades. It does not seem hard to predict something that has
happened so often in the past.

>
> It should give engineers pause that sociologists are better at identifying
> hazards than they are.
>

Again, I don't see how this is true. There are U.S. government agencies
that existed before their book that explicitly deal with this hazard. And I
know of at least one university research center which studies these types
of accidents to try to prevent them (at Texas A&M I think).

Nancy

>
> PBL
>
> Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, University of Bielefeld and Causalis Limited
>
> On 11 Jul 2013, at 00:26, Harold Thimbleby ....... wrote:
>
> <a comment about air brakes>
>
>
> .... BBC News iPad App .......
>
>
> Engineer blamed for Canada blast
>
>
> A rail operator's chief executive blames a local engineer for a runaway
> train that derailed and exploded in a Quebec town, killing at least 15.
>
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23264397
>
>
> Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, University of Bielefeld and Causalis Limited
>
> On 11 Jul 2013, at 04:03, Matthew Squair <mattsquair at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Bigger picture is that there's been a modal shift of oil transport to rail
> due to restrictions on pipeline construction, which drives a greater
> operational tempo in rail movements in turn.
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 6:44 AM, Gergely Buday <gbuday at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23264397
>>
>> Rail World boss Ed Burkhardt: "It is very questionable whether the hand
>> brakes were properly applied. In fact I'll say they weren't". [...]
>>
>> "He said he applied 11 hand brakes. We think that's not true. Initially
>> we believed him but now we don't." [...]
>>
>> The fire department and the train's owners have appeared in recent days
>> to point the finger at one another over the disaster.
>>
>> - Gergely
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> *Matthew Squair*
> *
> *
> Mob: +61 488770655
> Email: MattSquair at gmail.com
>
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>
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>


-- 
Prof. Nancy Leveson
Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
MIT, Room 33-334
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02142

Telephone: 617-258-0505
Email: leveson at mit.edu
URL: http://sunnyday.mit.edu
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