When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading!
There is nobody that I know personally, whether CN Employees, or interested bystanders, that is anywhere near the actual site to tell what is really happening.
But I really think that the Custom and Immigration Officers are situated at each end of the tunnel, 24 hours straight, counting the number of workers entering the work site and then counting the ones that leave. Making sure that "None" of them starts in Canada, and finishes in the US. And likewise the other way around, but there wouldn't be too many people trying to sneak into Canada.
I understand they have a lot of new concrete ties up there. I haven't heard anything about new rail yet.
Also, the tunnel has several different monitor systems in it. There are Sensors that detect moisture/water in the Tunnel, and there are several pumps down in there that are supposed to activate if a significant amount of moisture/water is detected. There are Sensors that detect dangerous fumes, which worked and did set off alarms for the Sulfuric Acid.
There are exhaust fans at both ends that will blow air through the tunnel. I think they will blow air in the direction of the last train movement. That way there won't be any delays while waiting for the exhaust fumes to be cleared.
There are lights all the way through the tunnel on both sides. Normally they are not on, but in the event of a dimensional load that the crew wants to watch, or maybe an Official that has never been through the tunnel is riding with a crew, they can call the RTC to have the lights turned on.
There are motion detectors that will detect a person, or persons, down in the tunnel. These work very well. I know the 4 or 5 years I worked out of Port Huron before I moved to Battle Creek, about every 3 or 4 months we'd get stopped on either side, and were told that the CN Police were down in the tunnel. They never told us what happened, but one night Toronto asked us to give one of the CN Police Officers a ride back to Sarnia. He came all the way through the tunnel after somebody.
There are now XRay Machines, I think only on the Sarnia side. They had not been installed the last time I was up there. But there are some rules to follow when pulling the train through one of them. They must not exceed 10 MPH (I think) and ALL of the Crew Members must be in the Lead Locomotive. When they were first installed they didn't have that requirement to be in the lead unit. But the few times the Police and Custom Agents surrounded the head end of the train looking for people hiding in the locomotives prompted that rule real quick.
This piece of track about two miles long is without a doubt the most important piece of rail on the CN. And saying that, you would think that CN would take a little interest in maintaining that piece of rail. I had a telephone call from a retired CN Official yesterday. We talked a lot about that derailment, and one thing we both agreed with each other about was the lack of interest in that tunnel by CN. It opened in 1995, and I know for a fact that from the day it opened until I moved to Battle Creek in November 1999, CN NEVER ran a track machine through it to lift the rail and regulate the ballast.
We went through there sometimes at almost 70 MPH. I can say I was never on a train that had difficulties, emergency application of the brakes, broken knuckle, parted air hose. The only time I was ever stopped in the Tunnel was when we all wrote our initials on the walls coming back from Sarnia one afternoon. But, we used some yellow chalk we found on a Locomotive, and the next day it was already gone. The tunnel walls are always damp, there is a lot moisture down there, and with the trains going through there at speed, our initials disappeared.
I keep hearing that the DPU Locomotive was the cause of the derailment. That it lost communication with the head end and put itself, and the train, in emergency. True or not.....Don't know. I think the DPU was in the middle of the train somewhere, not on the rear end. The people in Port Huron that are trying to follow what is happening have said that the DPU Locomotive has not been brought out of the tunnel.
The TSB or the NTSB will find the cause.
I've been retired for over 10 years now. I'd like to know more about what is happening up there, but me driving to Port Huron and to start asking a lot of questions, would be a lot like Elba Steve going over to Buick after being retired for 10 years and walking in the front door and tell them there that he just wants to go wander around the plant and see if anyone he knows is still working. (Yes, Steve, I know, Buick is gone)
Ron
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