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 Post subject: Re: CNJ Coach #1021-Government seeks restitution from Rimmas
PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2022 8:40 pm 

Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:47 pm
Posts: 216
superheater wrote:
Kelly Anderson wrote:
JimBoylan wrote:
Probably the reason for not doing the coach work in house was to move the asbestos remediation 2,000 miles away.
IIRC, they just removed the asbestos from the Big Boy on site, but then removing the white death from a steam locomotive is fairly straight forward compared to a passenger car, where the stuff is often built right into the structure of the car.


How was it "built in" In slabs? Blown in? Mixed with something?

Is it friable? Twenty-five years ago, I had an uncle was who then about 60 in good enough shape that he was working with my cousin who was in his early 20's. Getting winded walking up steps resulted in a precautionary chest X-Ray to "have you ever been exposed to asbestos". The response was "not really". He had worked for three months at Johns Manville after leaving the USAF; apparently the spot on his lungs was consistent with lung cancers common in asbestos workers. In fourteen months, he lost over a thind of his weight and looked 90.

White death indeed.


I 'spect it's in everything in many cars from the roof and wall insulation, to the wall panels, and the tile or concrete floors. They really did used to put the white stuff in nearly every product you could think of. I'm assuming that to fully abate a car from the era, (even the non-friable asbestos in items like floor titles, ect that doesn't necessarily have to be removed) it would need to be gutted to bare metal and redone. I'm exaggerating, of course, but that tells you how integrated it can be into the construction materials of it.

A cautionary word to my parents remodeling their house led to them testing the plaster on the walls before demo- it was mixed in there too.

A struggle in the modern contracting world is getting contractors to identify asbestos in cases that's not just the typical white stuff on boilers and pipes. Recently I saw the bottom of a door rusted out with a brown insulation hanging out, rubbing the ground as the door swung. It wasn't white, didn't look friable at first glance, and wasn't where you'd expect to find it, but sure enough, the test came back positive. Made some people upset seeing as they'd already paid for the rest of the boiler room to be abated, and had to have the men in white suits come back for the doors, of all things.

It's serious stuff. Please don't think it can just be worked around without kicking invisible fibers up- after all OSHA has said that any level of exposure is an unsafe level.


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 Post subject: Re: CNJ Coach #1021-Government seeks restitution from Rimmas
PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2022 9:53 pm 

Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:12 pm
Posts: 109
"How was it "built in" In slabs? Blown in? Mixed with something?"

While early photos of heavyweight passenger car construction (a 1914-ish Laconia Car Co. catalogue springs to mind) indicate a "stud-built" approach, later photos (I seem to recall a publication entitled "The Story of Pullman") make clear that at its apex, heavyweight construction involved building the complete underframe upside down (illustrating the ergonomic benefit of "downhand" work in riveted construction just as in welded work), and similarly the sides, ends, and roof constructed flat on jigs as independent units. As such, "in slabs" aptly describes the side wall construction, including insulation (in effect, blankets of the "bad stuff", built right in). Typical interior sidewall finish utilizing countersunk machine screws suggests that this was done subsequent to erection of the basic carbody unit.

For anyone who has ever done side panel or side sill repair on a heavyweight car, the vertical rivets between the "inner" and "outer" angle-iron side sills represent the juncture between the massive underframe and bodyside "slab" sub-assemblies.


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 Post subject: Re: CNJ Coach #1021-Government seeks restitution from Rimmas
PostPosted: Thu Nov 24, 2022 1:40 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:54 pm
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Thanks Jack, it's a little discomforting to know that, hopefully the stuff isn't friable if undisturbed.


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 Post subject: Re: CNJ Coach #1021-Government seeks restitution from Rimmas
PostPosted: Thu Nov 24, 2022 10:59 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:51 pm
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Location: Somewhere east of Prescott, AZ along the old Santa Fe "Prescott & Eastern"
superheater wrote:
Is it friable? Twenty-five years ago, I had an uncle was who then about 60 in good enough shape that he was working with my cousin who was in his early 20's. Getting winded walking up steps resulted in a precautionary chest X-Ray to "have you ever been exposed to asbestos". The response was "not really". He had worked for three months at Johns Manville after leaving the USAF; apparently the spot on his lungs was consistent with lung cancers common in asbestos workers. In fourteen months, he lost over a thind of his weight and looked 90.


I once had a chance, for work, to go through thousands of case histories (possibly tens of thousands) of litigants in the lawsuits against Johns-Manville.

I casually glanced as the answers to the "smoking/how much" question as I did.
The correlation between asbestosis/mesothelioma/other cancers (the reason the folders existed) and the victims smoking was nearly 100%.


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 Post subject: Re: CNJ Coach #1021-Government seeks restitution from Rimmas
PostPosted: Thu Nov 24, 2022 1:00 pm 

Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 1:37 pm
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It will usually be 'not particularly friable' in situ, and very little of the truly lethal blue asbestos (crocidilite) was actually used in commercial 'white stuff'.

Most of the problems come when you mess with it... like trying to break it out of car structure. Controlled atmosphere around the car would just be the first step.

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 Post subject: Re: CNJ Coach #1021-Government seeks restitution from Rimmas
PostPosted: Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:43 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:54 pm
Posts: 2367
Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:
superheater wrote:
Is it friable? Twenty-five years ago, I had an uncle was who then about 60 in good enough shape that he was working with my cousin who was in his early 20's. Getting winded walking up steps resulted in a precautionary chest X-Ray to "have you ever been exposed to asbestos". The response was "not really". He had worked for three months at Johns Manville after leaving the USAF; apparently the spot on his lungs was consistent with lung cancers common in asbestos workers. In fourteen months, he lost over a thind of his weight and looked 90.


I once had a chance, for work, to go through thousands of case histories (possibly tens of thousands) of litigants in the lawsuits against Johns-Manville.

I casually glanced as the answers to the "smoking/how much" question as I did.
The correlation between asbestosis/mesothelioma/other cancers (the reason the folders existed) and the victims smoking was nearly 100%.


And my Uncle's case would be no exception. The military was notorious for providing cigarettes to troops, both in military rations (until 1972!) and at subsidized sub-market prices in the Px. It's fait to say that the military was part of Big Tobacco's marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI

My uncle quit a couple of decades before he got the C, but I think the problem was simultaneous/contemporaneous exposure. I can't imagine snootfuls of volatile aircraft fuel vapors helped, either.


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 Post subject: Re: CNJ Coach #1021-Government seeks restitution from Rimmas
PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 6:49 pm 

Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 1:37 pm
Posts: 2213
If I recall correctly, the same correlation with smoking was supposedly found in uranium miners.

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Last edited by Overmod on Sun Nov 27, 2022 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: CNJ Coach #1021-Government seeks restitution from Rimmas
PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 7:57 pm 
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Location: Henderson Nevada
My grandmother died of an asbestosis cancer in 1976... her only exposure was while working in a ship yard office in WWII... She never smoked... A friend developed an asbestos related cancer in the early 2000's... he husband had worked in the oil industry, and it was assumed her exposure was to his working coveralls... again, not a smoker... so while there may be an correlation it is not universal.

In my the 1990's on a building construction project, workers were concerned about sawing building panels... Many did not want testing due to concerns about job continuity, and they were tested and found to contain asbestos, which when sawn created a dust that was equivalent to friable asbestos from other sources.

Encapsulation is a recognized solution but assumes that no one will ever broch that encapsulation.

Noting that this conversation is drifting away from a NPS contact... and the convicted perpetrator, but asbestos is a real issue in preservation.

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