KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — “One should always have something sensational to read on the train,” Anglo-Irish author and playwright Oscar Wilde once said.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel reports that the Norfolk Southern train that pulled into World’s Fair Park on Thursday was short on what Wilde liked to read, but it was loaded with practical information for area firefighters, police officers and other emergency response personnel from East Tennessee.
The “training” train – a sort of continuing education on rails – is the part of the Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response (TRANSCEAR) Whistle Stop Tour 2002.
The program offers safety training to local emergency personnel and education to the public about how hazardous materials are transported.
Besides the 1,000-foot-long train with cars modified to become training tools, it includes more than two dozen exhibits on tractor-trailer rigs.
Companies in the chemical, rail and trucking industries have all contributed to the project. A number of container units have been modified to become training tools. Two boxcars on the train have been converted to classrooms.
An estimated 400 to 500 emergency response personnel participated in a variety of training options, said Knoxville Fire Department Safety Officer Paul Dunn.
“It is a satisfactory turnout, especially when you consider that it is raining today,” Dunn said. “This is all a very valuable experience. This provides some very good hands on training for what you may be faced with. This is something you can’t get in a regular classroom.”
Situations for which training is offered ranged from a rolled-over tanker truck to a leaking railroad tank car.
For example, Rohm & Haas and DuPont have each provided a tanker car converted to a training unit equipped with a variety of valves for demonstrations of how they should be handled during an emergency.
“We’ve got a sample of most of the types of things you would encounter,” said DuPont’s Charlie Baldwin.
TRANSCEAR’s sponsors include the Association of American Railroads, the American Chemistry Council, the Chlorine Institute, the Chemical Education Foundation, and the National Tank Truck Carriers, Inc.
For more information, visit www.transcear.org.