bigblue5277 wrote:Nice snow shots! What a difference a few hours can make.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4662320" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Also, thanks for the detailed information on the tank car. In this shot the tank car is only one away from the locomotives, but as you said it should be empty and so should be less dangerous.
Sorry I'm late to the conversation and i dont know the railroad regulations but i'd guess if it's considered "dangerous" and must be spotted a certain distance from the locomotives on purpose then i assume it's a DOT "Hazardous Material"?
if so there would be a diamond shaped hazmat placard with a 4 digit DOT ID number- or an adjacent orange panel with the 4 digit ID number. Generally any large shipment of hazardous materials most have that placard/ID number on the outside of the rail car or truck.
i dont see a picture in the thread that i can make out a placard or the orange panel.
But if there's the number then one can find out what it is by looking up in the DOT's ERG (emergency response guidebook) found here:
https://phmsa.dot.gov/staticfiles/PHMSA ... RG2016.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (or there are free apps for smartphones)
There's instructions how to use the book at the beginning but basically the yellow bordered pages are a list of hazardous materials sorted by the 4 digital codes. There's a column for the name(s) associated with the code so one can find out what the material is. Sometimes the name is very generic like "oil, petroleum" - other times it's very specific like "Methyl isobutyl ketone"
(then for those interested there's a 3 digit "Guide" number in bold for that material that emergency responders would use to figure out what to do in an emergency until specialized help could arrive. if the material name is highlighted in green then it's nasty and you flip to the green pages to see how far to evacuate.)