30 Tons Ammonium Nitrate “Missing”

The dump doors on hoppers can and do fail but usually when they do it is not a dribble it is a pour.
At this point I got to go with an assisted dump or car door and unloading until proven otherwise.
In my past career I was a licensed blaster for many years and have shot ammonium nitrate on one occasion. It requires what is known as a booster to set it off as it is somewhat insensitive. There are many ways to boost it but that is all will say as it is on a need to know basis. And most people do not need to know.
 
Hey, The stuff currently sells for $980 a metic ton in the US. 61,000# would sell for about $27,000.

While thieves would steal for that, the vast majority couldn't manage figuring out how to sideline a rail car and empty and carry off the contents, let alone carry it off. The ones that could would go for a better prize. Another thing stolen stuff is usually sells for way under value.

Missing explosive sells ad space, spilling fertilizer don't.

A rail car holds around 30,000 gallons of gasoline. At a just $1 a gallon it is worth more than the fertilizer is full retail and you wouldn't need anything but a pump and a couple tank trucks. In fact a lot of it would self drain and there are lots of tankers full of it. a rail car holds 3,900 bushels of wheat. it is worth $6.50 a bushel. On par or more than stolen fertilizer. Nobody tracks it, seals the cars, nor will they ask Joe crooked farmer where he got it. Why steal fertilizer??????????????
 
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Back after the bombing in OKC I was getting a fertilizer buggy at the Farmers Exchange with a few tons of ammonia nitrate and a lady I guess was from he govt. jumped up on the buggy tires and looked in and said "what are you going to do with this" I said I'm going to put it on my hay field. I paid them for it and went on. They did not know who she was. Jeff
 
steelslaver said:
It took 2 weeks for the car to get from point A to point B. 14 days full to empty. 14days x 24 hours=336hours x 60min=20,160min x60 seconds =1,209,600seconds.
60,000#x 60oz= 960,000oz /.7936oz per second.

Or looked at this way it is probably about 1000miles by rail that is 5,280,000ft or .18OZ per ft

Which ain't much dribbling out of the bottom of a huge hopper door. I can believe that. As far as the trains following it I bet not many engineers are actually looking at the tracks all that hard having seen them repeatedly for years and even at 30 mph that .79oz would be spread over 44 ft.

Just a giant hour glass rolling across the country.

Guy who was supposed to check the hopper was looking at his cell phone.

But, for all those who worry about it being terrorist, far worse stuff is traveling by rail and often right though cities. Plus, every car has a handy dandy placard informing everyone who wants to know what is inside. Why steal something from a rail car for a terror event when you could simply use something that is in one. A simply explosion breaching a car full of hydrochloride acid, hydrogen peroxide, chlorine or the like in a urban area. A combination of a couple of cars in close proximity in a rail yard would have some serious effects. Say a tank of diesel near a rail car full of ammonium nitrate.
Click to expand...

Minor typo in your formula there steelslaver

that should read
60,000# x 16oz = 960,000oz (16oz per pound, not 60oz per pound)
Your answer is right but you mistyped one of the numbers :D
 
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I bet it was loaded on the wrong car and it will eventually turn up somewhere with everyone wondering where it came from! You will never hear about that though.
 
The Lounge is for discussion and as long as it’s not a banned subject have at it. I’ve read a whole lot worse threads with misinformation and speculation.
 
Alk8944 said:
I bet it was loaded on the wrong car and it will eventually turn up somewhere with everyone wondering where it came from! You will never hear about that though.
Click to expand...


This or a leak are far more likely than any grand conspiracy. Hate to break it to some of you, but most of the time life is as boring as it seems.
 
In my silly youth I made black powder and other things that go boom or burn just for fun in the country. A local farm products rail siding was awash in spilled ammonium nitrate pellets that we scooped up from between the ties and made small batches of ANFO explosive with M-80 firecracker initiators. Harmless fun that nobody noticed in the days when we carried shotguns in pickup truck gun racks.
 
SC_Mike said:
I was about half way to the hunt property when I realized I had 600 lbs of fertilizer, 20 gallons of diesel and a fully charged car battery in the bed.

I never carried all three together again.
Click to expand...


I had a similar experience not long after OKC and the start of the assault weapons ban.

I spied a pallet load of 20-0-0 ammonium sulfate on close out (late August) at a grocery store.

Since it was near time to drill winter wheat, which needed 60-lbs of nitrogen per acre in our sandy loam, a quick negotiation with the manager and it was mine for $5.

My best friend had just bought a Mini-14 to accompany the 30-round mags he’d bought just ahead of the ban.

And so we embarked on a Saturday morning with a half-ton of fertilizer, a bag full of charged 30-round mags, and a 5-gallon can of diesel for the tractor.

About midway, we realized we might have some serious “splainin” to do if pulled over.
 
Alk8944 said:
I bet it was loaded on the wrong car and it will eventually turn up somewhere with everyone wondering where it came from! You will never hear about that though.
Click to expand...

You will "never hear" about the scenario you describe because it cannot possibly happen.

All rail cars are serially-numbered and tracked constantly. Both railroad supervisors and federal inspectors ensure that they're accounted for at every step along their route. There are multiple checks and balances in place, required by the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in order to prevent a railcar carrying hazardous materials or its contents from "disappearing".

Of course, cold hard facts are not as juicy as a news story breathlessly reporting that fertilizer used to make bombs has gone missing...

eCFR :: 49 CFR Part 174 -- Carriage by Rail

Hazardous Materials & Freight Rail Tank Car Regulations - Association of American Railroads
 
steelslaver said:
...Ammonia nitrate is NOT an explosive, it can be used to make them sure, so could some sulfuric acid, nitric acid and some toulene. (TNT) You do not need to steal a rail car ful off something to make a big bang. There are lots and lots of bulk chemicals suitable to make explosives. Your local hardware store is full of them. Or if you have little to no ability to mix chemicals your local welding supply will be glad to sell you a bottle (or even a tank of liquid) Oxygen to mix with some propane in a surplus weather balloon or flood a building. That should be good for several square blocks. Way easier that stealing that ammonia nitrate.
Click to expand...

The biggest worry for Uncle Sam and the railroads is not necessarily explosive materials, but chemicals that fall into a category called "Toxic Inhalation Hazards", or TIH. Either an accidental or deliberate release of these substances could have consequences far worse than an explosive device...

TIH/PIH (RSSM) - CSX.com
 
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Beemerguy53 said:
The biggest worry for Uncle Sam and the railroads is not necessarily explosive materials, but chemicals that fall into a category called "Toxic Inhalation Hazards", or TIH. Either an accidental or deliberate release of these substances could have consequences far worse than an explosive device...

TIH/PIH (RSSM) - CSX.com
Click to expand...

Ya, the amounts of methyl ethyl bad stuff traveling by rail makes a box car load of fertilizer look about as dangerous as a load of ping pong balls. 2 rail cars one with hydrogen peroxide and the other with Isopropyl alcohol exploded in a collision on the edge of Helena, Montana in 1989. Luckily it was early in the morning and cold so most people were home. It knocked out power to the whole city while the temperature was -32f and cause an evacuation of 2 sq miles. Among other things a set of axles off a rail car traveled quite a distance before landing in the college library which was thankfully empty at the time.

At the time Helena was only around 20,000.
 
Beemerguy53 said:
You will "never hear" about the scenario you describe because it cannot possibly happen.

All rail cars are serially-numbered and tracked constantly. Both railroad supervisors and federal inspectors ensure that they're accounted for at every step along their route. There are multiple checks and balances in place, required by the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in order to prevent a railcar carrying hazardous materials or its contents from "disappearing".

Of course, cold hard facts are not as juicy as a news story breathlessly reporting that fertilizer used to make bombs has gone missing...

eCFR :: 49 CFR Part 174 -- Carriage by Rail

Hazardous Materials & Freight Rail Tank Car Regulations - Association of American Railroads
Click to expand...

In John Sandfords latest book he has Russian Mobsters getting back at Hackers who disrupted the Russian Train sensing system. He then has the Mobsters attempting to take them out to prevent such rail disruption before the invasion of Ukraine. Dark Angel is the name of the book.

All I got is never say never.
 
mtgianni said:
In John Sandfords latest book he has Russian Mobsters getting back at Hackers who disrupted the Russian Train sensing system. He then has the Mobsters attempting to take them out to prevent such rail disruption before the invasion of Ukraine. Dark Angel is the name of the book.

All I got is never say never.
Click to expand...

You make a good point, sir, and you don't have to go to a work of fiction to find threats to rail infrastructure. The hack/breach of Colonial Pipeline two years ago emboldened and inspired threat actors to attack other elements of America's infrastructure. And ever since the Russians invaded Ukraine, there has been a marked increase in cyber attacks against railroads, as well as increased drone overflights of critical infrastructure facilities.

The world is not a nice place. As I've written before on this Forum, there are thousands of US Government employees who spend their working hours in anonymity, protecting our country from all sorts of security threats. May they continue to be successful...

The Emerging Cyber Threat to the American Rail Industry - Lawfare

Russian State-Sponsored and Criminal Cyber Threats to Critical Infrastructure | CISA

US FBI warns of drone threat to critical infrastructure following suspicious incidents - Unmanned airspace
 
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