Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

It always makes me wonder why they do that, sometimes they don't. But why do they do it, is it to prevent damage to the front crude oil car?

NathanFromEngland wrote:It always makes me wonder why they do that, sometimes they don't. But why do they do it, is it to prevent damage to the front crude oil car?

It's a buffer car, and they almost always do it (haven't seen any where they haven't done it). It's so if the engines were to derail or one of the engines were to catch fire, it (in theory) would make it less likely for the tank cars being pulled (both loaded and "empty") to explode.

We don't need a repeat of Lac-Mégantic.

Buffer cars have been required on flammable materials trains (also see them on ethanol as well as crude) since before Lac-Mégantic. They're theoretically to protect the crew in the event of a fire/explosion, but I'm dubious as to how much good they'd do. Somehow I don't think one hopper would have helped anyone in the cab at the time of Lac-Mégantic, although of course if there had been someone in the cab it wouldn't have happened in the first place.