Luckily This Did Not Occur In The Takoma Station Area

B&O Metropolitan Branch RR
May 1, 2016 Sunday Morning HAZMAT Freight Train Derailment- just before 7AM
near the Rhode Island WMATA Station

http://wtop.com/dc/2016/05/csx-train-derails-in-northeast-d-c-possible-hazardous-leak/slide/1/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBcmKzTJU6E

14 car derailment, with 3 leaking cars- one of sodium hydroxide (similar to bleach or Drano)- reportedly was sealed Sunday; another of non-hazardous calcium chloride said to be non-hazardous, also plugged; and another of ethanol slowly leaking from the base of a valve, and contained.

No injuries.  No evacuations ordered.

Was an interstate shipment from Cumberland, Maryland to Hamlet, North Carolina.

Cause of derailment unknown.

Caught on video.  See:  http://abcnews.go.com/US/video-shows-dramatic-csx-train-derailment-dc/story?id=38827399

Fortunately this did not occur in an area as the Takoma Station area, to the north, just inside the Washington, D.C. line, where the railroad is upon an embankment higher than the adjacent wood framed residential dwellings recently constructed as part of the mania for 'transit oriented development'.   Such a derailment there would kill dozens of people in their homes within such projects as 'Elevation 314'  for being irresponsibly located within the footprint of a derailment and at a lower elevation- meaning that that train cars would not just come into their dwelling laterally but also from top down.

'Elevation 314'

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2011/08/forgotten-elephant-building-too-damn.html

 

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2011/08/forgotten-elephant-building-too-damn.html

Derailments along that railroad corridor in 1996 and in 1976 did not result in such injuries or deaths because the nearby dwellings were set back 50 feet or more from the railroad.  The 1996 derailment just north of 16th Street in Silver Spring went eastward into an apartment building parking lot; while the 1976 derailment, though from the embankment just south of the Takoma Station area, went westward upon Blair Road and the front yards of the houses along that Roads' west side.

Location of the May 1, 2016 derailment is adjacent to two new 'transit oriented development' real estate development projects by MRP Reality and Douglas Development.

B&O "Y" Route Convergence Critique

1966 B&O Route Low Level I-70S-I-95 "Y" route

It was under capacity: committing the cardinal sin regarding the number of lanes, with a lesser number fed by a greater number.

A 6 lane upper left I-70S, and an 8 lane upper right I-95, should converge into 14 lanes, not the mere 12 of the 1966 design (with a questionable 1 lane drop for I-95 at its ramp connections towards North Capitol Street), that would quickly funnel into 10.

I-70S-I-95 convergence
1966 B&O Route Low Level

This set of design defects was shared by the 1964 plan, which also fed more lanes into fewer. The 1964 plan had 6 lanes apiece from the 8 lane main roadways of I-70S and I-95 converge into 12 lanes quickly narrowing to only 10 (plus the 2 lane reversible median roadway that had not been planned with connections to the I-95 Northeast Freeway), with both I-95 and I-70S having a 1 lane drop and pickup, the former for the North Capital connections, the latter with “round the corner” connections between both highways to exchange their southbound to northbound traffic, e.g. southbound I-95 to northbound I-70S and southbound I-70S to northbound I-95: a connection that.

Provided that traffic patterns would allow the lane drops, the combined 6 or 8 +2 I-70S and 6 or 8 I-95, would ideally require the sum of these numbers: 14 to 18 lanes.

As per the 1964 design with its 2 lane median roadway for I-70S (but not I-95), this would translate to a 6/2/6 or 8/2/8 cross section, or perhaps a duel barrel design, with a 4/4/2/4/4 configuration.

To accommodate this number of lanes, the existing 6-8 lane Center Leg would require the addition of an 8 lane East Leg, plus parallel cut and cover tunnels beneath 2nd and 3rd Streets NW/SW along the Center Leg, connected to a new preferably underground SW/SE Freeway with additional capacity for the SW Freeway, and to a new South Capitol Street corridor tunnel.

I-70S-I-95 convergence
1964 Route #11 (Railroad East-Sligo)

Combined with the respective inside the Beltway I-70S and I-95 interchanges with Maryland Route 410 would provide a useful bypass of normally 4 lane 410’s 2 lane bottleneck through Takoma Park. However the latter plans delete this feature.

It would have been interesting to see consideration of greater capacity, with a design capable of as much as 24 lanes, and with separate express carriageways, encased in a multi-cell cut and cover tunnel. Curiously, such a design was not drawn up, despite the utility of the cut and cover segments, particularly if such would bury and stack the express carriageways.

Such a cut and cover tunnel would accomplish and reconcile greater human activity within the existing footprint.

It would cost very little money compared to the various war budgets, and would serve the idea of greater evacuation route capacity that some within the government gave lip service to after 911.