Burlington Northern No. 5017

Burlington Northern No. 5017 was a C30-7 type diesel locomotive built by General Electric (GE) in October 1979 for the Burlington Northern Railroad (BN). It served in regular freight service with the BN until being retired from service in March 1999. After its retirement, it was eventually sold to the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA) between the US states of Maine and Vermont and the Canadian providence of Quebec. It would then serve in freight service with the MMA until the railroad filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2014 due to the aftermath of the Lac-Megantic Rail Disaster, which occurred on the night of July 5, 2013. It was placed in storage after the horrific incident as further evidence of the derailment until later being scrapped sometime after 2020.
==History==
Burlington Northern No. 5017 was a C30-7 type diesel locomotive built by General Electric (GE) in October 1979 for the Burlington Northern Railroad (BN). It served in regular freight service with the BN until its retirement from service in March 1999. It then sat in storage until eventually being sold to the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), a class II freight railroad operating between the US states of Maine and Vermont, as well as the Canadian providence of Quebec between 2002 and 2014.
On the night of July 5, 2013, it was the lead locomotive of train MMA 2, a loaded crude oil train, consisting of four other locomotives, a remote control caboose that housed the locomotive troll equipment necessary for the MMA's single engineer train operations, a boxcar being used as a buffer car, and 72 DOT-111 tanker cars filled with crude oil. The engineer applied the handbrake on all of the locomotives and the buffer car and shut down the engine of all of the locomotives, except for 5017, to keep air pressure in the brakes to keep them on. But he incorrectly left the locomotive's air brakes on during the braking test. He then contacted the dispatcher in Farnham, Quebec to advise that the train was tied down for the night and then contacted the dispatcher in Bangor, Maine to report that 5017 was experiencing a lot of mechanical issues throughout the trip and that excessive black smoke was coming out of the locomotive's exhaust. Expecting the smoke to settle down, they both agreed to deal with the situation the next morning. He then ended his shift and departed by taxi to a local hotel for the night. While in route to the hotel, the engineer told the taxi driver that he felt a little bit uneasy about leaving his train with the lead locomotive running while it was spitting oil and thick black smoke out of the exhaust. He said that he wanted to call the US office of the MMA in Hemron, Maine, as they would be able to give him more further directives on what to do about it. The taxi driver described the engineer as being covered in droplets of oil, which also covered the taxi's windscreen as it was waiting to pick him up. Later on, the Nonce Fire Department and a police officer from Lac-Megantic responded to a 9-1-1 call of an oil fire on 5017. The locomotive's engine was shut down before fighting the fire, as it was the regulation of the Nonce Fire Department. After the small oil fire was extinguished, the fire department notified the MMA's dispatcher in Farnham, Quebec about what had happened. However, the MMA didn't grant permission to have the engineer return to the scene. They instead summoned a track maintenance foreman who was unfamiliar with the operation of air brakes.
By 12:13 am on July 6, 2013, two MMA track maintenance employees arrived shortly before the firefighters left the scene and later confirmed to the police officer at the scene and the Farnham dispatcher that the train was safe again. But in fact, it wasn't safe, and things would get worse after that. Since 5017's engine was shut down, air wasn't being cycled through the air brakes of the train. The main air reservoirs were slowly being depleted, and at 12:56 am, the air pressure had dropped so much that the air brakes and the handbrakes couldn't hold the train much longer. It then very slowly began to move down the 1.2% grade toward Lac-Megantic, just seven miles away. Gathering more speed over the long downhill slope, the runaway train entered the town of Lac-Megantic at over 65 MPH, more than six times over the speed limit. After reaching the west end of the Lac-Megantic rail yard, the buffer car and 63 of the 72 tanker cars derailed right in the center of town near the Route 161 railroad crossing at Frontenac Street. The impact of the derailment breaches several of the tanker cars open, causing about 6,000,000 liters of crude oil to spill out and quickly ignite. Between four and six explosions were reported initially as the tank cars ruptured and crude oil escaped along the train's trajectory. The glow of the fire was so bright and intense that it could even be seen from space, as seen by an infrared image from NASA's Sumoi NPP satellite. Additionally, as the blazing oil flowed over the ground, it entered the town's storm sewerage system and emerged as huge balls of fire towering from over storm sewer drains, manholes, and even chimneys and basements of buildings in the area. As many as 150 firefighters were dispatched to the scene, describing it as looking like a war zone. Some firefighters were called from as far away as Sherbrooke, Quebec, with as many as eight fire trucks carrying 30 firefighters being dispatched from Franklin County, Maine in the United States. The engineer of train MMA 2 had no idea what was going on, but was sure he had left his train still parked at the top of the hill at Nonce, that is, until he later realized from the firefighters that it was his train that rolled down the grade, derailed, and started the huge fire.
The fire would burn for another two days straight until finally being extinguished, but the damage was done, as a total of 47 people were killed, most of them in a nearby music cafe. Five bodies were never recovered, but most of the bodies were badly charred, requiring DNA samples of those missing, as well as dental records for identification. It's very likely that some of the bodies were literally vaporized in the explosions. At least 30 buildings were destroyed in the center of town, including the town's library, the town's post office, a historic former bank, and other businesses and homes in the area. In total, 115 businesses were either destroyed, displaced, or rendered as uninhabitable. The nearby music cafe was among the destroyed buildings and three of its employees were among the dead or missing. The locomotives of train MMA 2 rolled a half of a mile away from the crash site, but stayed on the rails and didn't suffer any damage.
Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) launched an investigation into the cause of the derailment and found multiple shocking findings. The MMA first claimed that 5017 was tampered with after the engineer had left, as the locomotive's engine was shut down, thereby disabling the compressor powering the air brakes, which allowed the train to roll downhill toward Lac-Megantic. This was obviously false, as it was only shut down by firefighters after an oil fire started on 5017. Also, only seven handbrakes were applied when a minimum of nine handbrakes were required. Experts say that at least fifteen handbrakes should have been applied in order to hold the train on a grade, even if the locomotive's engine was shut down for whatever reason.
As for the locomotive in question, 5017 had issues more than eight months prior to the horrific accident. In October 2012, it was sent to the MMA's repair shops, following an engine failure. Because of the time and cost for a standard repair, the fact that finding parts for older GE locomotive models is rather difficult, not to mention costly, and the pressure to return the locomotive to service as soon as possible, instead of receiving a professional repair or being sent to someone who could fix it, it received a very temporary improper repair by using an epoxy-like material that lacked the required strength and durability of the conditions the locomotive ran in. Unsurprisingly, this quickly failed while in service, resulting in issues such as engine surges and excessive black smoke pumping out of the locomotive's exhaust. Eventually, the oil pump also failed and oil began to accumulate in the body of the turbocharger where it overheated, broke a piston, and eventually caught fire on the night of the derailment. While turbocharger issues are not uncommon on GE locomotive models like the C30-7, this kind of mechanical fault was just caused by pure ignorance instead of the locomotive just aging on its own.
To make matters worse, the TSB examined the operations on the MMA and they were horrified on how unsafe their daily routines were over the years since the railroad's beginning back in 2002. The Great Recession of 2008 really took its toll on the pulp and paper industry, as well as the lumber industry, which originally represented 60% of the railroad's daily traffic. As a result of this, the MMA was forced to lay off 275 employees and cut salaries by over 40%. They also had to sell off certain routes. In the spring of 2010, the MMA made the most baffling decision to cut train crews from two train crew members, the engineer and the conductor, to only one, just the engineer. They also installed remote control systems such as the one being used in the caboose behind 5017 at the time of the derailment, and once again, cut the total workforce to 175 people, down from twice that number back in 2006. These steps were estimated to save $4.5,000,000 annually in wages and was really the only reason they laid people off, but one-man train crews are both dangerous and not really suitable for railroading. The MMA also had a high rate of accidents, mainly due to bad tracks and frequent cost cutting measures, which meant that proper track maintenance couldn't take place, much like the Penn Central's operations back in the early 1970s. According to data from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), in the previous years, the railroad had over 36.1 accidents per million miles traveled in comparison to the national average of 14.6 accidents. These can range from accidents involving only one car or locomotive to big pileups.
As for the DOT-111 tanker cars, during a number of accident investigations over the years, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) from the United States had noted that the DOT-111 tank cars had a high incident rate of breaching open during accidents. Previous investigations had identified the poor performance of DOT-111 tank cars in collisions and derailments, including a May 1991 safety study, as well as investigations of other accidents involving DOT-111 tank cars. 
* On June 30, 1992, a Burlington Northern freight train derailed in Superior, Wisconsin carrying liquefied petroleum gas and chemicals like benzene.
*On February 9, 2003, a Canadian National freight train derailed in Tamaroa, Illinois carrying chemicals like hydrochloric acid.
*On October 20, 2006, a Norfolk Southern ethanol unit freight train derailed in New Brighton, Pennsylvania.
*On February 6, 2011, another Norfolk Southern ethanol unit freight train derailed in Arcadia, Ohio.
In all of these cases, the DOT-111 tank cars, with some of them dating back to as far as 1967, broke open in the crashes and either released chemicals or started fires. As of result of the DOT-111 tank cars and this accident, it was very clear that a sturdier tanker car type, including the soon-to-be developed DOT-117 tanker car, was going to be necessary. However, unlike a lot of other flammable liquids, crude oil generally can't readily ignite by itself, so many theories came up as to what ignited the oil. These theories included that the oil could have contained additives to speed up the transfer in and out of the tank. This is common when shipping by pipeline, but very rare when shipping by rail. Other theories included the contamination from previous shipments or that a local propane tank exploded when being struck by one of the derailed tank cars. Higher than average temperatures in the Quebec regions at the time was also a contributing factor.
As a result of this accident, on May 12, 2014, the MMA was charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence. The engineer, the dispatcher, and the manager of train operations were all arrested and charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death. They would all be later acquitted on January 19, 2018, much to the shock of many people. The MMA very quickly made changes to their operations such as bringing back two-man train crew operations, but tragically, these changes came too little, too late, as the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in August 2014. Not to mention that the accident permanently ruined their reputation and killed their oil contract. The MMA's assets were sold at auction to the Railroad Acquisition Holdings, which is a subsidiary of the Fortress Investment Group, on January 21, 2014. The company would later form a new railroad called the Central Maine & Quebec Railway (CM&Q) to operate the former MMA lines, but eventually, the CM&Q was quickly acquired by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) in June 2020.
5017 was held as further evidence for the trials and almost sold off as part of an auction, but the sale was later blocked by local police. It was placed in storage until later being scrapped sometime after 2020.
Category:Scrapped locomotives
Category:Scrapped in 2020
Category:Scrapped diesel locomotives
Category:Scrapped during preservation
Category:Locomotives Involved in Rail Disasters
Category:Burlington Northern locomotives
Category:Locomotives
Category:Diesel locomotives
Category:Diesel-electric locomotives
Category:Freight locomotives
Category:Standard gauge locomotives
Category:GE locomotives
Category:Built in 1979
Category:American locomotives
Category:United States
Category:Six-axled diesel locomotives