What's that train carrying? Safety placards offer a clue

With rail companies often reluctant to talk about the dangerous cargo on their trains, safety placards can give the public some insight into what rail cars are carrying.

The information is often included on safety placards. Those are the red, diamond-shaped signs Transport Canada requires rail companies to display on any railcar hauling a dangerous substance. More often than not, you'll see placards on the tanker cars, the cylinder-shaped railcars used to carry liquids and gases. 

Look for the placard number

Some tank cars state what they're carrying in a stencil painted on the car, as is the case in the photo above. In other cases, however, there's no other indication of what a tanker car might be carrying than the safety placard. 

Each safety placard has a number which corresponds to a list of substances compiled by Transport Canada. Again using the example in the photo above, the placard number 1075 corresponds to a number of flammable substances. The placard numbers and their corresponding substances are listed here on Transport Canada's website.  

The placard number 1075 indicates the car is carrying any of a number of flammable substances including butane, propane and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). But the stencil on the car body makes it clear that the cargo here is LPG.

LPG 'highly flammable'

The Transport Canada website also lists the hazards associated with each hazardous substance identified on the placards. LPG is listed as extremely flammable, easily ignited by heat and able to form explosive mixtures when mixed with air.

The Transport Canada website also says people must be kept back at least 100 metres from any LPG spill. In the event of a "large spill" involving LPG, Transport Canada recommends safety personnel "consider initial downwind evacuation for at least 800 meters." That's about a half mile. 

To put this distance into a London context, a large LPG spill at the rail crossing on Adelaide Street would require an evacuation extending as far south as Dundas Street, and as far north as St. James Street. 

If a rail car carrying LPG is on fire, Transport Canada recommends an evacuation of 1,600 metres, which is about a mile. 

Again using the scenario of an LPG tanker car on fire at the Adelaide Street crossing, the recommended evacuation would include much of London's downtown core.