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2700 tons is a lot of ammonium nitrate!


Ralphie

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2 hours ago, ChrisL said:

A truck full took down the OKC Federal Bldg.

WoBG and I visited the memorial at this site several years ago. 

1 hour ago, sheep_herder said:

A bit more than at the Texas City explosion in 1947. I was but a wee lad at the time. I can still remember my dad looking out the window toward the explosion and wondering what was going on at the time. We lived in Baytown.

I can't imagine the destruction...  

@Philander Seabury   OK I have to ask...  why???  What did I miss??  2700 tons is a lot of ammonium nitrate!

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11 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

WoBG and I visited the memorial at this site several years ago. 

I can't imagine the destruction...  

@Philander Seabury   OK I have to ask...  why???  What did I miss??  2700 tons is a lot of ammonium nitrate!

That is how much was stored improperly for years in Beirut in the heart of the city.  

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Dearie was responsible for the fertilizer (tonnes and tonnes), which included ammonium nitrate, as part of his major portfolio of his work towards latter part of his career.  There was a ton of tracking the firm did it terms of there storage facilities and shipping movements across Canada for safety compliance/reasons.

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On 8/5/2020 at 10:21 PM, shootingstar said:

Dearie was responsible for the fertilizer (tonnes and tonnes), which included ammonium nitrate, as part of his major portfolio of his work towards latter part of his career.  There was a ton of tracking the firm did it terms of there storage facilities and shipping movements across Canada for safety compliance/reasons.

45 years ago I was hauling truckloads of the stuff from the plants where it was made to fertilizer plants and it wasn't even regulated. More recently, I was hauling it over frozen lakes into diamond mines up in NWT and Nunavut where they used it to make big holes in the ground. 

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49 minutes ago, Rattlecan said:

45 years ago I was hauling truckloads of the stuff from the plants where it was made to fertilizer plants and it wasn't even regulated. More recently, I was hauling it over frozen lakes into diamond mines up in NWT and Nunavut where they used it to make big holes in the ground. 

So you were an ice bridge trucker. Cool!

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1 hour ago, Rattlecan said:

45 years ago I was hauling truckloads of the stuff from the plants where it was made to fertilizer plants and it wasn't even regulated. More recently, I was hauling it over frozen lakes into diamond mines up in NWT and Nunavut where they used it to make big holes in the ground. 

I think the fertilizer, at least some of it, was by product of the oil refining process.  He had to deal with his oil company's products and strike a large contract to sell it off...which includes cross Canada rail shipments. So he knew all the firms' rules on rail transport...frequency, timing, etc. One of the major dealers was Agrium, now Nutrien.

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The back story is an interesting read.  Several articles are available but are behind pay walls.  Here is a link to the Wikipedia article which is a work in progress but which also provides a starting point to one hell of a story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosions

Some quick numbers:  At least 157 dead.  5000 injuries.  300,000 made homeless.  $10 to 15 billion in damages.

 

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15 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

So you were an ice bridge trucker. Cool!

One season only. I was hauling on the Tibbitt to Contwoyto winter road in 2007. Same road and same time they were filming Ice Road Truckers season one.

This shot was taken at one of the road camps on my way to the Jericho mine in Nunavut with a load of ammonium nitrate. If you look closely past my left shoulder, you can see the yellow placard hanging down from the rub rail on the lead trailer.

Winter Road 007.jpg

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14 hours ago, shootingstar said:

I think the fertilizer, at least some of it, was by product of the oil refining process.  He had to deal with his oil company's products and strike a large contract to sell it off...which includes cross Canada rail shipments. So he knew all the firms' rules on rail transport...frequency, timing, etc. One of the major dealers was Agrium, now Nutrien.

The two major producers back in the day were Cyanamid and CIL, both of which are now defunct, so I don't know where it is being produced now or by whom.

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13 minutes ago, Rattlecan said:

One season only. I was hauling on the Tibbitt to Contwoyto winter road in 2007. Same road and same time they were filming Ice Road Truckers season one.

This shot was taken at one of the road camps on my way to the Jericho mine in Nunavut with a load of ammonium nitrate. If you look closely past my left shoulder, you can see the yellow placard hanging down from the rub rail on the lead trailer.

Winter Road 007.jpg

Your wife must have worried sometimes.  Or maybe she didn't know that much based on what you would tell her?

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2 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

Your wife must have worried sometimes.  Or maybe she didn't know that much based on what you would tell her?

I was careful not to show her pictures like this. And I also would not tell her that while fuel tankers will float, even loaded ones, flat decks do not.

ICE-Truck-X-2.jpg

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