It Won't Hurt You By Frank Dewey

Keith Rader’s article in the January News & Notes about hazardous materials brought back memories of a haz-mat incident I had while working in Midland, Michigan. In 1971, I was an Assistant to the Trainmaster covering the job of afternoon Switching Supervisor. That was an old Pere Marquette job title for a non-contract yardmaster. Dean Yard at Midland was a ten-track yard splitting the Dow Chemical plant in half with the Ludington Sub-division running though the middle of the yard. To the east of the yard across US 10, was the Dow-Corning plant. Dow-Corning was a subsidiary of Dow and Corning Glass that made silicon products, including their most talked about – breast implants.

The night of the incident was a very hot summer night. One yard job was inside the Dow plant pulling cars and the other was on the lead switching outbound cars for that night’s freight trains. The conductor on the lead job came into the yard office and asked me to come outside. He pointed to the east at a large white cloud that appeared to be coming from one of the tank cars that were parked on a siding outside of Dow-Corning. The plant had been on strike for about a month and these cars were in the pipeline before the strike shutdown the plant.

I called the Dow emergency number and they dispatched a haz-mat team. When you are right in the middle of one of the largest chemical plants in the country, it does not take long for a response. I would bet they were on the scene in less than ten minutes, if that.

A few minutes later, the head of the haz-mat team came into the yard office dressed in a protective suit that looked like something from NASA. He explained that one of the tank cars that contained anhydrous hydrogen chlorine had been sitting in the sun long enough that the pressure inside the car had built up and the safety valve had popped. In order to stop the out gassing, the car needed to be moved into the Dow-Corning plant and placed at the unloading dock. I asked if it was safe for the crew to make the move and would they need to be dressed like he was. His answer was, “Come with me.” He took me to a field across the track from the leaking tank and walked me into the white cloud. Then he said, “Try to breathe through your nose.” I tried to take a breath and my body would not inhale. He quickly walked me back out of the cloud and said, “See. You cannot breathe the stuff. It will be perfectly safe for the crew.” But, he did recommend that we use five or six reacher cars to minimize the exposure.

I went back to the yard office and explained to the crew what needed to be done. I also told them that he had assured me they would be in no danger. They reached into the yard for six reachers and we went east to get the car. After we started to make the move into the plant, I looked to our right and there was a Dow fire engine with crew in full gear and a water cannon on top of the truck, not spraying water, but aimed at the leaking car just in case. The fire engine followed us all the way into the plant.

After that, I checked about just what anhydrous hydrogen chlorine is. You definitely do not want to breathe it or walk into a cloud of it. I think the haz-mat man might have been a little cavalier.