@@jeffdroog well, my "peasant device" as you say, is fine. Simon's videos on this, & his other channels sounds fine. Not distorted as this one is. Perhaps your hearing isn't that discerning, lol
I was born in Johannesburg in 1950 and have never heard of this explosion. But, South Africa was not a country in 1896, it happened in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. The Second Boer War, which started nearly four years later, probably overshadowed any memories of the disaster.
Nitroglycerine will "weep" out of the dynamite over time. This usually takes about a year or more when properly stored. The dynamite in the trucks (boxcars) in the hot South African sun could approach 190 degrees F (88 degrees C.) That temperature could cause a significant amount of nitroglycerine to migrate out of the dynamite, and pure nitroglycerine is extremely sensitive to shock, like a train hitting the truck that it is in.
It's notable that 'extremely sensitive to shock' is something of an understatement when it comes to nitroglycerine, to the point that it isn't necessary for a collision to have even occurred. Just the vibration of the train /passing nearby/ could have set some of it off, and some of it going off will absolutely have set the rest off. By the time the bypass was being attempted, it's dubious that the explosion could have been avoided even if the rail personnel did everything correctly.
Yup. I blew some dynamite a few years ago that was made during Vietnam, but stored properly the whole time. It was sweating like crazy. I've blown tons of C4 and other explosives. This was the only time I was actually terrified working with demo. We blew 2000lbs of this stuff with nearly every stick primed using MDI. From 400m away it rattled my bones when it went off.
Thank you for this Simon, I love all of your channels. I live in Pretoria, South Africa and over the years I have visited the Braamfontein station and surrounding suburbs like Fordsburg, Newtown, Mayfair and the Witwatersrand University precinct on numerous occasions. I am quite knowledgeable about local history, but I must confess I knew nothing about the Braamfontein explosion, and I know if I were to ask, I doubt if any of my family, friends and acquaintances, would know much if anything at all about this. Mark me down as delighted to have learnt about this tragic yet fascinating bit of local history from you. Remarkably well researched and your detailed presentation and description of the events is exceptional. A quick calculation as follows: 2300 cases x 27.8kg each x 1.25 (relative effectiveness of dynamite when compared to TNT) puts the power of this explosion equivalent to about 80 tons of TNT, which is truly shocking. Of course the fact that this explosion occurred at ground level limited the size of the devastated area, but on the other hand caused the vast crater that formed. There are no visible signs of the explosion or crater today, but then the gold mining industry upon which Johannesburg was founded, is very good at moving and relocating vast amounts of earth, so I expect the crater would have been filled in in a relatively short period of time. Of course I don't believe this is the largest non nuclear explosion, as the 2020 Beirut explosion (perhaps a topic for a future video) was in region of 1.1 kiloton (1100 tons) of TNT (14 times more powerful). Lastly, you have lovely children, thanks for sharing this with us, your fans.
I thought there were a couple explosions that were bigger than this but I wasn’t sure on the math. Beirut sure, Lebanon maybe, couple bonkers USA dynamite explosions.... maybe if you squint (I live near the location of one that was detonated because labor strike, scabs, and rural boys with guns. Killed two and Damaged highway bridge. like I said bonkers) thank you for breaking down the math.
The largest non nuclear explosion before ww2 was the Halifax explosion and there was a pretty large blast in a ww1 battle where the British blew massed tnt under the German trench that rattled the British capital London's windows and left a massive hole where the trench was, "The Battle of Messines in June of 1917 witnessed what was arguably the single largest explosion of the pre-atomic age, when 19 underground mines packed with an estimated 1 million pounds of high explosives erupted beneath the German line, killing untold numbers of soldiers" - from what I recall 5 mines didn't blow and was sealed of post war, a lightning strike set one mine of in 2016/17 and a cow steped on a ww1 left over mine and people whete warned not to traspas on the battlefield area without a guide to take them to the cleaned out areas.
@@gomahklawm4446 yup we can be dumb. Btw weren’t there two massive explosions in Lebanon? On more recently at the port and either the one you mentioned or between that one and 2000?
In 2011 and 2012 I was doing a lot of research in Braamfontein Cemetery which was not far from where the explosion was, and using the register I was able to find many of the graves of people who died in the disaster, there is a small clump in the one section which is easily identifiable as such. There was no mention of the burial of human remains, and the numbers that I saw in the register did not really show the real picture. It showed how many whites were killed but nothing about how many "other races" were killed. For some strange reason the sight of the disaster is shown on a period map that I have a photo of, but it is very difficult to put your finger on the exact spot because not only has the area changed, but the layout of railway lines changed too. The spot shown doesnt quite match up to where the lines were way back when it happened. The explosion is quite famous, but forgotten because our version of history taught in school simply did not cover the incident.
Thanks so much for this video. In the 1970s, I commuted daily from Roodepoort to Braamfontein for about eight years [worked at Wits University] and don't recall having heard about this, which is interesting, as my Oupa was a railway man and my Dad was in mining. Both my Oupa and Dad had a huge interest in history, which in turn sparked my interest. One note about the houses built out of corrugated iron - this was common in mining towns like Pilgrim's Rest and many mining towns on the Reef, where there was an expectation that the gold reef would soon be exhausted and that the miners would have to move to the next gold-rush - the houses would be dismantled and transported by ox wagon from one town to the next. As a child in Roodepoort, there were still a few of these old house in the centre of the town in the 1960s - I think that brick walls had been built on the inside of the corrugated iron walls. Mining played a huge role in our lives, and schooling included a demonstration of the dangers of dynamite. I suspect that the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer war in October 1899 overshadowed this event and this is why we did not learn about it in our history classes.
Your Family Arc is legit the coolest thing in the world, man. You're a super awesome Dad, and it's super fun to see! Keep on blazin' Factboy. Wait, I mean Shadowman. Wrong channel.
Thank you for this. I'm a South African, and l love learning the history of my country. A lot of really interesting stories have been obscured by time. Sadly, our history has been repeatedly sanitised to create a political narrative..
One thing that's generally worth noting about explosives that are considered safe, like blasting gel, is that when stored in large quantities, they can behave in ways that are not expected by those who handle it in smaller quantities. A notable example of this is Ammonium nitrate and ANFO (same stuff with a bit of fuel oil added, which turns it from fertilizer into a bulk explosive), most recently demonstrated by the explosion in Beirut. Take a hundred pounds of this stuff, throw it in the biggest bonfire you can build...it'll burn up before it has a chance to explode. Take a warehouse of, say, 2750 tonnes (ie: the one in Beirut), light it on fire, and it'll burn furiously for quite some time...getting hotter and hotter and hotter and then it explodes and obliterates everything within a...rather substantial radius. When stored properly according to regulations, Ammonium nitrate and *especially* ANFO (because that added bit of fuel oil takes an already fairly intense chemical and makes it a lot worse) is stored in fairly small, distributed quantities across a housing facility, so that if a pile of it ignites, it will burn away before reaching detonation temperature. Given the long, long history told in Wikipedia's "List of Ammonium Nitrate Disasters" over the last century and change, it's pretty obvious that it took us rather a long time to cotton onto this fact and we still have people who violate the safe storage rules. Modern blasting gel is an emulsion of ANFO, which was developed in the 1950s and thus definitely not available to mining operations in the 1890s. What we're talking about here is probably Gelignite, another of Nobel's explosive inventions alongside dynamite. Ideally, it burns slowly and does not explode without a detonator, but...ANFO needs not only a detonator but also a primer (something that can be detonated with just a detonator to provide substantially more energy than a detonator alone will provide) and, well, see above regarding large quantities of ANFO. Another notable factor: Gelignite shares a key property of dynamite: it's a nitroglycerine based explosive that is capable of sweating...which is to say, having that nitroglycerine leach out of its stablizing agent, and then you've just got some liquid nitroglycerine next to some other material (for dynamite it's compressed wood flour, for gelignite it's something else). Under proper storage conditions, dynamite (and probably also gelignite) can be stored for months if not years without being subject to sweating. Unfortunately for the people of 1890s Johannasberg, the interior of a boxcar left exposed to direct sunlight in one of the hotter parts of the world for 3 days straight is very far from what would be considered proper storage conditions. Given the reported low speed of the empty train that collided with boxcar containing the explosives, I would strongly lean towards the latter explanation. Unlike literally any explosive that remotely sane people operate with, liquid nitroglycerine is *extremely* shock sensitive. If you were to swirl a beaker of nitroglycerine the way you might swirl a glass of rum & eggnog to mix your drink (ie: not sufficiently energetic to spill it), you are taking a major risk. If you were to then carry it across a room without being aware of the danger, it would almost certainly explode. This is one of the chemicals that belongs on the never-make-this list alongside stuff like Chlorine triflluoride, liquid ozone, dimethyl mercury, etc. Even a low speed train collision will provide more than enough of a shock to detonate pure nitroglycerine, and once the nitroglycerine is exploding, it is functionally a particularly powerful detonator for the large amount of gelignite also sitting in that boxcar. At which point you definitely have enough explosive force to render it impossible to determine what the hell caused this massive explosion and to eliminate the majority of witnesses. For those who don't recognize the names, those other examples of chemicals not to make are candidate rocket fuels that have not been used, the first two because they're too good at being on fire to be useful as rocket fuel (chlorine trifluoride is notably described as catching fire when in contact with most oxidizers, but also "cloth, wood, and test engineers"). Dimethyl mercury on the other hand will merely give you mercury poisioning if you spill a drop of it on your latex glove clad hand. Nitroglycerine is tame compared to these things, but when spilling a beaker literally blows up the building you're in, it's definitely a thing you don't want to have around. It's also what we had for high energy explosive work like blasting rock for railway tunnels before Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. There's a reason that invention made him super fucking rich, it's basically what took mining from either pickaxe work that would very very slowly work through the rock or highly dangerous explosive use that could easily kill workers, cause cave ins and generally fuck everything up to something approaching the efficiency of the modern blast-and-shovel mining cycle we use today. It was also very useful in creating explosive devices like artillery shells, and the guilt resulting from giving the world modern artillery is what led to Nobel spending much of his fortune establishing the Nobel prizes that recognize those who work towards a peaceful feature, as well as advancements in science and culture.
The comments section of a TH-cam video are normally a cesspool of the worst aspects of humanity. But occasionally you come across gold like this that makes it all worthwhile. Thank you for posting!
Thanks for the video! I am South African and I never knew this. This has never been taught to us in any history class or even mentioned by grandparents or anything. Wish there was more photos to go with this story as I am struggling to find any myself. This is really interesting! Thank you for teaching me something I never knew about my own country. Ps: the sound was a bit muffled and I struggled to hear some of the audio.
A South African here and love history from home and all over the world. Never heard of this one. Thanks for all the great shows, and your great pronunciation of our city names, well done.
Im a South African and can honestly say i cant remember learning about this in school. Its such a SA kind of story though! No one taking responsibility, pointing fingers at each other and if its not your job you dont care. It was probably the cleaner guy who played with the levers as it seemed interesting, but forgetting which way it was supposed to be and ran away. Braamfontein still has a lot of train tracks today. The tall buildings will make it difficult to spot a crater. Thank you Simon, i love how you pronounce Afrikaans (from Dutch, settled here in the 1600s as farmers) names and surnames. It would have been a different story if the explosion shot up lots of gold!
Thanks Simon as someone who loves History and has spent most of his life in Johannesburg I have never heard about this. Your channels are truly excellent
@@junainsarlie9746 I went to Wits was part of the athletics and we used to run past the Braamfontein cemetery all the time. I knew the original Wanderers club was where Park Station in now… eve. Knew about the Modderfontein blast in the 1950s. But never knew this Johannesburg probably has one of the most amazing historical past for such a young city, just based on the characters who founded this mining town !!
Im from South Africa and this is the first time I am hearing from this. My dad worked in a mine. We lived in the area. Nothing ever mentioned in history class.
I lived in Nevada as a kid. You could still find boxes of hundred year old dynamite abandoned in mines. When it gets hot it sweats nitroglycerin and that stuff didn't need a detonator. You'd find a rock and put a spot of nitro on another rock hit the spot and got a nice small explosion.
The best part about listening to this as a South African is hearing how Simon pronounces all the names. I was born in Klerksdorp, and I did a double take hearing it's name.
Dynamite comes with a shelf life as the binder (originally diatomaceous earth) breaks down due to the NG eventually leaching out. While TNT is significantly safer including the binders used, gelatin still has a expiration date and stored in high heat (>100F) would break down significantly faster, especially if it was humid.
You should do one of these on the Halifax, Nova Scoria, Canada explosion - 6 December 1917 - The largest accidental non-nuclear explosion in history, when two ships (one carrying 3 kilotons of TNT equivalent explosives) collided. 1,782 people were killed, the town of Halifax almost completely destroyed.
I grew up in Johannesburg and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand in Braamfontein for 7 years. I had no idea about this explosion until seeing your video! My grandfather (born 1912) grew up in Braamfontein, but I don't recall him ever referring to this either.
I was born in SA in 1949, and has been living in Johannesburg all my life, never heard of this explosion, but do rememer the explosion at the Modderfontein Dynamite factory I think in the 70's
I used to live along the road from where this disaster happened. In the Braamfontein Cemetery is a memorial to it. Your detailed explanation of the events leading up to it leads me to wonder your sources. I am not questioning your sources but I would like to read them for myself. At least one whole family who were waiting for a train were killed and no trace was found if them as the area was completely obliterated with a huge crater resulting.
It’s only a tiny glimpse and you can barely see their faces. People who don’t want to show their kids online are concerned about privacy and exploitation of kids for content. A tiny glimpse for a couple of seconds isn’t the same as long sections with close ups. He’s shown his daughter very briefly before for eg.
Dec 2022 there was an explosion only 20km away from this one and it killed 41 people, injured many more. An LPG tanker deviated from its route and drove into a low bridge; an underpass beneath the same rail line that goes through Braamfontein. What makes an LPG explosion worse is that the initial impact attracts curious people who don't realize they're walking _towards_ a bomb. The big explosion happens only after enough gas has escaped and mixed with the air. This explosion also destroyed half a hospital, I imagine that didn't really help with the response. This is the first time I've heard of the Braamfontein explosion and so only now did the similarities occur to me. But it is infuriating when something like this happens due to human error/negligence. Both accidents were very preventable
As another proudly South African, who grew up and still reside in the greater Johannesburg area, I also did not know about this event. Thank you for an interesting video. 😮
I lived in Braamfontein in 1980 and found out about the explosion in th 90s.Today Braamfontein station is part of Johannesburg's main railway stations running on the west east axis.
Thank you for mentioning my uncle Hedley Arthur Chilvers who wrote several books on the history of Johannesburg and the mining community. Quite a surprise after all these years.
I’m glad you’re telling stories of my not only my home country but even town. If you need help with fact checking, pronunciations of towns/people let me know.
8:56 Stock footage of a piece of C4 is either very appropriate or not at all, depending on which experts you believe about the blasting jelly. C4 is stable enough that you can cook with it if you really have to (not because cooking with it is dangerous, but because it's extremely expensive to use as just fuel for a fire.)
there are events that as time goes by get forgotten about . i live in the dallas texas area and one day i went to east texas on a road trip and in the city of new london i found out about 90 years ago a school building blew up and exploded and 300 people [mostly children] died. it was caused by a gas leak and as a result gas now has that smell so people know there is a gas leak. i had never heard of this and i had many years of texas history classes
Simpler way of explaining shunting is it's train car (we call them train cars in the US while trucks are what the train wheel assemblies) sorting. Trains are a form of cargo transportation. You need to know how much of what is going where. So cars are loaded at different yards and then dropped off at a central yard where they get sorted to where they're going or generally close enough. Like if a ship dumps off in North Carolina then the cargo will get shunted to like southern states, northern states, midwest, and then everything to the west all clomped together to be sorted in another yard. There's a few methods of shunting that may raise a few eyebrows of those who don't know; the most infamous one being humping. Not like that, quite literally shoving the line of connected cars over a lump of elevation (otherwise known as a hump) to then have momentum and gravity carry them down the shunt line they're assigned to. If you're doing that but doing it down an entire hill instead, it's called a gravity yard. Same concept, but not as much of an innuendo. Which brings the fact that some where some little kid genuinely wants to grow up to be a professional humper (worker on the hump yard) and their parents are proud of that aspiration. Also, I've just got to say d*mmit Michael Bay's ancestor!!!! He clearly set this whole thing up and now it runs in the blood line.
Hate to tell you this but rail accidents like that are way more common than anyone would like to believe, they just don't usually end up flattening a town. In a major switching yard having a car go down the wrong track is nearly a daily occurrence.
This comment made me google prague to see what happened.. Well that's terrible. In September we had a student shoot a professor in NL as well, he was a crazy 4chan user. Wonder what the motives are.. My first thought is always incels nowadays
What about Texas City where 2.5 Kilotons of ammonium nitrate detonated? Also, as noted by others, dynamite as well as blasting gelignite will 'sweat' Nitroglycerin if stored above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. TNT (Comp B TNT and RDX), C4, Semtex a general purpose explosive, TNB (TriNitroBenzine), and Amatol are more immune to high temperatures and are mostly used for explosive ordnance, except for Amatol which is no longer used.
"Can we inspect the quality of the explosives?" "They exploded." "What about the guys who handled the explosives?" "They exploded." "Can we ask the guy by the switch?" "He exploded." "Any other witnesses?" "They exploded." "Shit."
Thank you Simon for covering this story from my country. Well done with the pronunciations of the names, you did much better than most Brits do with them.
Simon .... your kids are darling. ❤❤❤ They are going to grow up to be Big Brains, knowing at least two languages. Enjoy this adorable phase. My youngest is 17, and I'm going to have an empty nest in a year. It goes really fast. Settling down to watch the video now. 😅
Why the video sounded so muffled? It was fine for the first minute and then it sounded like someone had the mic covered over. I've tried changing between 3 different types of headphones but it still sounded muffled. Simon please check your audio
Excellent rendition Simon - this incident is well known in the Railway fraternity in South Africa. Compliments to you Sir, for your research, factually sharing information and pronunciation of the Afrikaans Names. Well Done ! - Merry Xmas to you and Family
"Hey kiddos, look what I got you for Christmas" "That's from a sponsor!!" I find it very heartwarming, and at least at the time of writing, the most replayed part of the video _is_ the ad.
Simon's closing words remarking that people of every race died in the mines and construction of Johannesburg is completely accurate. It's one of a tiny handful of places on the planet where a city was built on the slave-like working conditions of nearly every race on the planet. If we set aside the working conditions for a moment and look at what people have managed to build, it's quite impressive. But let's never forget that the people who built these amazing structures and cities were forced to under horrific conditions with little or no pay. Being fairly familiar with explosives I do know what kind of stupidity you can get away with when using Hydrogel/Blasting Gel. It is by a long way one of the safest explosives to handle, even throwing boxes of it around, while not recommended for hopefully obvious reasons, is actually fairly safe. However; at the start of the episode we were told that the explosives were "prepared" at a factory and then shipped to the mine. And we know that the detonators were in a car with the explosives. I'm wondering if by "prepared" they meant that they had inserted the detonators at the factory. Today, and possibly then, that is a completely unacceptable practice and in my view is equivalent to shipping a bomb with a lit fuse. If it were the case that the detonators were inserted into the gel, a shunt could set off a detonator that's been cooking in the south African sun for 3 days.
In Peru, they have this thing called carnivales that happens for the entire month of February, especially on Sunday. What happens is that it's a country-wide water gun and water balloon fight where you can douse anyone you can with water. It's so much fun! Where I lived in central Lima, the intercity bus would drive down our street and people would try to shoot at us with water guns and we'd throw water balloons at them. All the kids always filled the balloons and gave them to me once they realized that I could lob them into the open windows of passing vehicles. It was awesome! Now, if you grew up in the northern hemisphere like I did and haven't visited the southern one, you might think that it's too cld in February to have a giant water war but February is perhaps the hottest month of the year in the southern hemisphere and it's a fantastic time for a country-wide water war. I wish we had something similar in June, July, and August here in the northern hemisphere because getting hit with water really helps to ease the heat during the summer.
😂 that is such a feel good story. For a moment i thought you were going to say someone filled his water gun with nitroglycerin, 😂 and that ended festivities early. 😂
I live in Braamfontein and had no idea this happened. Braamfontein is now a densely populated area housing mostly students of the University of the Witwatersrand.
I'm from south Africa.. actually watched a doc on this recently. Think it's a south african youtuber AL prodgers . Anyway awesome to see history still been kept relevant
When tnt sweats the nitro glycerin sweats out of the casing and when hot becomes extremely sensitive and can be set off by a shock such as a crate falling and hitting a hard surface as an expert in this field that is most likely what happened nitro glycerin is always shock sensitive but more so when hot
I used to work in a rail yard and honestly the lack of safety procedures day to day is terrifying and that is in the USA at a railyard that has been operating since the civil war era.
I lived very near the rail yards in Denver Co. I drove passed them almost daily. Some of the things I saw put my heart in my throat. I can't imagine the things they didn't let the public see.
The best part is in the last decade or so rail companies have lobbied hard to get regulations, specifically safety regulations, lifted pretty substantially. That's why we've seen so many rail accidents in the last few years. The reasons that rail companies cite is that safety is too expensive and time consuming. Then communities get exposed to toxic materials when an accident happens. Deregulation is a scourge on this country and continually gets pushed/approved by one party in the name of freedom for businesses.
Episode Topic Suggestion: Northwest Flight 2501's disappearance. It's a tragedy that time erases history and future generations lose the opportunity to learn local history.
Go to galaxylamps.co/intotheshadows use the code INTOTHESHADOWS for 15% OFF and get your Galaxy Projector 2.0!
...How does the author think people unload watermelons? I don't think you're supposed to toss them around carelessly lol
The Galaxy Projector could be a good sponsor for the Astrographics channel.
Why is the sound so flat. Simon is distorted
@thearthound You're distorted lol Sounds just fine to us regular humans.Perhaps it's an issue with your peasant device?
@@jeffdroog well, my "peasant device" as you say, is fine. Simon's videos on this, & his other channels sounds fine. Not distorted as this one is. Perhaps your hearing isn't that discerning, lol
I’m not sure why but I expected Simon’s son to be a little bald man with glasses…basically just a mini Simon 😂
fact boy the second 🥸
T-24 years
I don’t know why I expected the kids to be blond. Maybe in my mind all cute little kids are blond.
All in due time
Give it 30 years 🎉
I am from South Africa. I enjoy that you regularly cover stories from here. I never heard about this accident before now.
Neither did I!
Easy subject to make lots of content considering all the atrocities that have happened on that 💩hole of a continent
Same here
Also South African - and same here
Basically
I was born in Johannesburg in 1950 and have never heard of this explosion. But, South Africa was not a country in 1896, it happened in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. The Second Boer War, which started nearly four years later, probably overshadowed any memories of the disaster.
Nitroglycerine will "weep" out of the dynamite over time. This usually takes about a year or more when properly stored. The dynamite in the trucks (boxcars) in the hot South African sun could approach 190 degrees F (88 degrees C.) That temperature could cause a significant amount of nitroglycerine to migrate out of the dynamite, and pure nitroglycerine is extremely sensitive to shock, like a train hitting the truck that it is in.
It's notable that 'extremely sensitive to shock' is something of an understatement when it comes to nitroglycerine, to the point that it isn't necessary for a collision to have even occurred. Just the vibration of the train /passing nearby/ could have set some of it off, and some of it going off will absolutely have set the rest off. By the time the bypass was being attempted, it's dubious that the explosion could have been avoided even if the rail personnel did everything correctly.
Yup. I blew some dynamite a few years ago that was made during Vietnam, but stored properly the whole time. It was sweating like crazy. I've blown tons of C4 and other explosives. This was the only time I was actually terrified working with demo. We blew 2000lbs of this stuff with nearly every stick primed using MDI. From 400m away it rattled my bones when it went off.
@@noonenoesbutme*is 11 years old*
Okay bud we believe you
@@JoeRogansForehead His account was made 16 years ago but okay lmao
@@dannahbanana11235 his dad made it
Simons kids approving of the sponsor is so cute I love it
Agreed, though I find it somewhat ironic that the first time Simon's kids are actually featured in a video is an Into the Shadows video🤔
They are soooo cute! 🥰 And who does not like the starry ceilings?
All I see is a green section of the time line... Shame? Probably not eh.
I was convinced to get one until I saw the reviews on their own website.
I'm a couple years younger than fact boy and I really miss my kids at that age. My minions are teenagers now.
Thank you for this Simon, I love all of your channels. I live in Pretoria, South Africa and over the years I have visited the Braamfontein station and surrounding suburbs like Fordsburg, Newtown, Mayfair and the Witwatersrand University precinct on numerous occasions. I am quite knowledgeable about local history, but I must confess I knew nothing about the Braamfontein explosion, and I know if I were to ask, I doubt if any of my family, friends and acquaintances, would know much if anything at all about this. Mark me down as delighted to have learnt about this tragic yet fascinating bit of local history from you. Remarkably well researched and your detailed presentation and description of the events is exceptional. A quick calculation as follows: 2300 cases x 27.8kg each x 1.25 (relative effectiveness of dynamite when compared to TNT) puts the power of this explosion equivalent to about 80 tons of TNT, which is truly shocking. Of course the fact that this explosion occurred at ground level limited the size of the devastated area, but on the other hand caused the vast crater that formed. There are no visible signs of the explosion or crater today, but then the gold mining industry upon which Johannesburg was founded, is very good at moving and relocating vast amounts of earth, so I expect the crater would have been filled in in a relatively short period of time. Of course I don't believe this is the largest non nuclear explosion, as the 2020 Beirut explosion (perhaps a topic for a future video) was in region of 1.1 kiloton (1100 tons) of TNT (14 times more powerful). Lastly, you have lovely children, thanks for sharing this with us, your fans.
I thought there were a couple explosions that were bigger than this but I wasn’t sure on the math. Beirut sure, Lebanon maybe, couple bonkers USA dynamite explosions.... maybe if you squint (I live near the location of one that was detonated because labor strike, scabs, and rural boys with guns. Killed two and Damaged highway bridge. like I said bonkers) thank you for breaking down the math.
@stephanierhall85 Beirut is in Lebanon......lol.....Americans....
@@gomahklawm4446 , a comma is used to indicate a list of matters related to the topic is used.
The largest non nuclear explosion before ww2 was the Halifax explosion and there was a pretty large blast in a ww1 battle where the British blew massed tnt under the German trench that rattled the British capital London's windows and left a massive hole where the trench was, "The Battle of Messines in June of 1917 witnessed what was arguably the single largest explosion of the pre-atomic age, when 19 underground mines packed with an estimated 1 million pounds of high explosives erupted beneath the German line, killing untold numbers of soldiers" - from what I recall 5 mines didn't blow and was sealed of post war, a lightning strike set one mine of in 2016/17 and a cow steped on a ww1 left over mine and people whete warned not to traspas on the battlefield area without a guide to take them to the cleaned out areas.
@@gomahklawm4446 yup we can be dumb. Btw weren’t there two massive explosions in Lebanon? On more recently at the port and either the one you mentioned or between that one and 2000?
In 2011 and 2012 I was doing a lot of research in Braamfontein Cemetery which was not far from where the explosion was, and using the register I was able to find many of the graves of people who died in the disaster, there is a small clump in the one section which is easily identifiable as such. There was no mention of the burial of human remains, and the numbers that I saw in the register did not really show the real picture. It showed how many whites were killed but nothing about how many "other races" were killed. For some strange reason the sight of the disaster is shown on a period map that I have a photo of, but it is very difficult to put your finger on the exact spot because not only has the area changed, but the layout of railway lines changed too. The spot shown doesnt quite match up to where the lines were way back when it happened. The explosion is quite famous, but forgotten because our version of history taught in school simply did not cover the incident.
Thanks so much for this video. In the 1970s, I commuted daily from Roodepoort to Braamfontein for about eight years [worked at Wits University] and don't recall having heard about this, which is interesting, as my Oupa was a railway man and my Dad was in mining. Both my Oupa and Dad had a huge interest in history, which in turn sparked my interest. One note about the houses built out of corrugated iron - this was common in mining towns like Pilgrim's Rest and many mining towns on the Reef, where there was an expectation that the gold reef would soon be exhausted and that the miners would have to move to the next gold-rush - the houses would be dismantled and transported by ox wagon from one town to the next. As a child in Roodepoort, there were still a few of these old house in the centre of the town in the 1960s - I think that brick walls had been built on the inside of the corrugated iron walls. Mining played a huge role in our lives, and schooling included a demonstration of the dangers of dynamite. I suspect that the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer war in October 1899 overshadowed this event and this is why we did not learn about it in our history classes.
Your Family Arc is legit the coolest thing in the world, man. You're a super awesome Dad, and it's super fun to see! Keep on blazin' Factboy.
Wait, I mean Shadowman. Wrong channel.
😆 Shadowman!😂
He's The Factboy and Shadowman!
RANDman
Thank you for this. I'm a South African, and l love learning the history of my country.
A lot of really interesting stories have been obscured by time. Sadly, our history has been repeatedly sanitised to create a political narrative..
I grew up in South Africa but never heard this awful story.
Rumour has it, if you drive through Braamfontien today, it still looks like a giant explosion happened.
@@Slippery_Pickle47.3 nasty nasty 🤭
dont forget, in this times up to now, a black persons life worth nothing in SA!
One thing that's generally worth noting about explosives that are considered safe, like blasting gel, is that when stored in large quantities, they can behave in ways that are not expected by those who handle it in smaller quantities.
A notable example of this is Ammonium nitrate and ANFO (same stuff with a bit of fuel oil added, which turns it from fertilizer into a bulk explosive), most recently demonstrated by the explosion in Beirut. Take a hundred pounds of this stuff, throw it in the biggest bonfire you can build...it'll burn up before it has a chance to explode. Take a warehouse of, say, 2750 tonnes (ie: the one in Beirut), light it on fire, and it'll burn furiously for quite some time...getting hotter and hotter and hotter and then it explodes and obliterates everything within a...rather substantial radius. When stored properly according to regulations, Ammonium nitrate and *especially* ANFO (because that added bit of fuel oil takes an already fairly intense chemical and makes it a lot worse) is stored in fairly small, distributed quantities across a housing facility, so that if a pile of it ignites, it will burn away before reaching detonation temperature. Given the long, long history told in Wikipedia's "List of Ammonium Nitrate Disasters" over the last century and change, it's pretty obvious that it took us rather a long time to cotton onto this fact and we still have people who violate the safe storage rules.
Modern blasting gel is an emulsion of ANFO, which was developed in the 1950s and thus definitely not available to mining operations in the 1890s. What we're talking about here is probably Gelignite, another of Nobel's explosive inventions alongside dynamite. Ideally, it burns slowly and does not explode without a detonator, but...ANFO needs not only a detonator but also a primer (something that can be detonated with just a detonator to provide substantially more energy than a detonator alone will provide) and, well, see above regarding large quantities of ANFO.
Another notable factor: Gelignite shares a key property of dynamite: it's a nitroglycerine based explosive that is capable of sweating...which is to say, having that nitroglycerine leach out of its stablizing agent, and then you've just got some liquid nitroglycerine next to some other material (for dynamite it's compressed wood flour, for gelignite it's something else). Under proper storage conditions, dynamite (and probably also gelignite) can be stored for months if not years without being subject to sweating. Unfortunately for the people of 1890s Johannasberg, the interior of a boxcar left exposed to direct sunlight in one of the hotter parts of the world for 3 days straight is very far from what would be considered proper storage conditions.
Given the reported low speed of the empty train that collided with boxcar containing the explosives, I would strongly lean towards the latter explanation. Unlike literally any explosive that remotely sane people operate with, liquid nitroglycerine is *extremely* shock sensitive. If you were to swirl a beaker of nitroglycerine the way you might swirl a glass of rum & eggnog to mix your drink (ie: not sufficiently energetic to spill it), you are taking a major risk. If you were to then carry it across a room without being aware of the danger, it would almost certainly explode. This is one of the chemicals that belongs on the never-make-this list alongside stuff like Chlorine triflluoride, liquid ozone, dimethyl mercury, etc. Even a low speed train collision will provide more than enough of a shock to detonate pure nitroglycerine, and once the nitroglycerine is exploding, it is functionally a particularly powerful detonator for the large amount of gelignite also sitting in that boxcar. At which point you definitely have enough explosive force to render it impossible to determine what the hell caused this massive explosion and to eliminate the majority of witnesses.
For those who don't recognize the names, those other examples of chemicals not to make are candidate rocket fuels that have not been used, the first two because they're too good at being on fire to be useful as rocket fuel (chlorine trifluoride is notably described as catching fire when in contact with most oxidizers, but also "cloth, wood, and test engineers"). Dimethyl mercury on the other hand will merely give you mercury poisioning if you spill a drop of it on your latex glove clad hand. Nitroglycerine is tame compared to these things, but when spilling a beaker literally blows up the building you're in, it's definitely a thing you don't want to have around. It's also what we had for high energy explosive work like blasting rock for railway tunnels before Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. There's a reason that invention made him super fucking rich, it's basically what took mining from either pickaxe work that would very very slowly work through the rock or highly dangerous explosive use that could easily kill workers, cause cave ins and generally fuck everything up to something approaching the efficiency of the modern blast-and-shovel mining cycle we use today. It was also very useful in creating explosive devices like artillery shells, and the guilt resulting from giving the world modern artillery is what led to Nobel spending much of his fortune establishing the Nobel prizes that recognize those who work towards a peaceful feature, as well as advancements in science and culture.
@rashkavar thx, that was really informative and interesting. Go well 😊.
The comments section of a TH-cam video are normally a cesspool of the worst aspects of humanity. But occasionally you come across gold like this that makes it all worthwhile. Thank you for posting!
TLSR (Too Long Still Read)
@@kevinmcdowell2679 *reads back*.... Oh wow, I really went on with that one, didn't I. Glad you found it interesting anyway!
@@rashkavar indeed I did, despite the fact we both probably just popped up on a watchlist somewhere in the ether...
Seeing Simone’s kids enjoy the Galaxy Lamp is so wholesome. He’s not only an amazing TH-camr but a wonderful dad.
Thanks for the video! I am South African and I never knew this. This has never been taught to us in any history class or even mentioned by grandparents or anything. Wish there was more photos to go with this story as I am struggling to find any myself. This is really interesting! Thank you for teaching me something I never knew about my own country.
Ps: the sound was a bit muffled and I struggled to hear some of the audio.
Same here!
@@AuthGate Simon does say 15m, not 50m.
A South African here and love history from home and all over the world. Never heard of this one. Thanks for all the great shows, and your great pronunciation of our city names, well done.
I think he said on one of his many channels that his gran lived in South Africa, so he probably had a head start 😊
Im a South African and can honestly say i cant remember learning about this in school. Its such a SA kind of story though! No one taking responsibility, pointing fingers at each other and if its not your job you dont care. It was probably the cleaner guy who played with the levers as it seemed interesting, but forgetting which way it was supposed to be and ran away. Braamfontein still has a lot of train tracks today. The tall buildings will make it difficult to spot a crater. Thank you Simon, i love how you pronounce Afrikaans (from Dutch, settled here in the 1600s as farmers) names and surnames. It would have been a different story if the explosion shot up lots of gold!
Thanks Simon as someone who loves History and has spent most of his life in Johannesburg I have never heard about this. Your channels are truly excellent
Same bra I never knew about this and Braam is 5 mins away from my home
@@junainsarlie9746 I went to Wits was part of the athletics and we used to run past the Braamfontein cemetery all the time. I knew the original Wanderers club was where Park Station in now… eve. Knew about the Modderfontein blast in the 1950s. But never knew this Johannesburg probably has one of the most amazing historical past for such a young city, just based on the characters who founded this mining town !!
Im from South Africa and this is the first time I am hearing from this. My dad worked in a mine. We lived in the area. Nothing ever mentioned in history class.
I'm a 60yr South African. Never heard of this event, up until this vid. Thank you! Simon.
I lived in Nevada as a kid. You could still find boxes of hundred year old dynamite abandoned in mines. When it gets hot it sweats nitroglycerin and that stuff didn't need a detonator. You'd find a rock and put a spot of nitro on another rock hit the spot and got a nice small explosion.
As an absolute pyro as a kid if I had grown up like that I'd have ended up with no arms
The best part about listening to this as a South African is hearing how Simon pronounces all the names. I was born in Klerksdorp, and I did a double take hearing it's name.
Did a double take at Rustenberg 😭
He committed some war crimes with the pronunciation of some of the place and people names. Prey-toria
Simon made a good effort but yes, it was quite funny.
That sponsorship portion was truly amazing. I would have expected Simon's kids to all be bald.
And bearded!
@@josephschultz3301 they were - the footage was simply upside-down 😉
Dynamite comes with a shelf life as the binder (originally diatomaceous earth) breaks down due to the NG eventually leaching out. While TNT is significantly safer including the binders used, gelatin still has a expiration date and stored in high heat (>100F) would break down significantly faster, especially if it was humid.
Glad to hear South African history covered. I studied history in high school and not once was this mentioned.
You should do one of these on the Halifax, Nova Scoria, Canada explosion - 6 December 1917 - The largest accidental non-nuclear explosion in history, when two ships (one carrying 3 kilotons of TNT equivalent explosives) collided. 1,782 people were killed, the town of Halifax almost completely destroyed.
th-cam.com/video/uavdFSr9oD0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=LXh7Ip1Pplwy5OxX
I grew up in Johannesburg and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand in Braamfontein for 7 years. I had no idea about this explosion until seeing your video! My grandfather (born 1912) grew up in Braamfontein, but I don't recall him ever referring to this either.
I grew up in South Africa and this is the first time I’m hearing of this. Great video, thank you.
I've never heard of this, thanks for the video!
I was born in SA in 1949, and has been living in Johannesburg all my life, never heard of this explosion, but do rememer the explosion at the Modderfontein Dynamite factory I think in the 70's
Thank you for this Simon! Very informative. Some relatives are from South Africa and were amazed when I directed them to this!
South African here. And I had NO clue about this. Still love how people miss pronounce Afrikaans names. :)
I used to live along the road from where this disaster happened. In the Braamfontein Cemetery is a memorial to it. Your detailed explanation of the events leading up to it leads me to wonder your sources. I am not questioning your sources but I would like to read them for myself. At least one whole family who were waiting for a train were killed and no trace was found if them as the area was completely obliterated with a huge crater resulting.
Wow, really surprised Simon included images of his children in the ad - he’s been very outspoken about not doing that in the past
He rented them for the video
eh you can barely see their faces and he doesn’t say their names so they’re alright
Can’t possibly be his children… too much hair.
I think he’s allowed a glimpse of his daughter before. I think it’s awesome how he respects their privacy and keeps them almost completely offline.
It’s only a tiny glimpse and you can barely see their faces. People who don’t want to show their kids online are concerned about privacy and exploitation of kids for content. A tiny glimpse for a couple of seconds isn’t the same as long sections with close ups. He’s shown his daughter very briefly before for eg.
Thank you , very informative. I knew of the explosion but you completed the history for me
Another South African here who'd never heard of this before. Very interesting. Thanks for the video.
Dec 2022 there was an explosion only 20km away from this one and it killed 41 people, injured many more. An LPG tanker deviated from its route and drove into a low bridge; an underpass beneath the same rail line that goes through Braamfontein. What makes an LPG explosion worse is that the initial impact attracts curious people who don't realize they're walking _towards_ a bomb. The big explosion happens only after enough gas has escaped and mixed with the air. This explosion also destroyed half a hospital, I imagine that didn't really help with the response.
This is the first time I've heard of the Braamfontein explosion and so only now did the similarities occur to me. But it is infuriating when something like this happens due to human error/negligence. Both accidents were very preventable
I have lived in Joburg my whole life and even went to University in Braamfontein a few years ago. Yet, this story is absolute new to me lol.
Loved the detail as I used to work as ACC investigator. Great video.
Omg your kids are so sweet singing twinkle twinkle little star ❤ the little legends made me rewatch the ad 😂
As another proudly South African, who grew up and still reside in the greater Johannesburg area, I also did not know about this event. Thank you for an interesting video. 😮
OMG that ad read was SO cute. Your kids are adorable, Simon! :D
Listening to this story I’m half expecting the line “and the other car was full of matches”
I lived in Braamfontein in 1980 and found out about the explosion in th 90s.Today Braamfontein station is part of Johannesburg's main railway stations running on the west east axis.
Thank you for mentioning my uncle Hedley Arthur Chilvers who wrote several books on the history of Johannesburg and the mining community. Quite a surprise after all these years.
I’m glad you’re telling stories of my not only my home country but even town. If you need help with fact checking, pronunciations of towns/people let me know.
8:56
Stock footage of a piece of C4 is either very appropriate or not at all, depending on which experts you believe about the blasting jelly.
C4 is stable enough that you can cook with it if you really have to (not because cooking with it is dangerous, but because it's extremely expensive to use as just fuel for a fire.)
Is the audio kinda weird? Or am i going crazy?
It's a bit too deep, that's what I was thinking too
@ilajoie3 maybe his balls dropped
It is, it's very muffled and resonant, hurts my ears a little. Like he's in a small box.
Yes, You are crazy indeed.
@@mikeseier4449 i swear i took my meds today though
South African, former High School History teacher in Joburg! 😂 Never heard of this! Thanks for this one!
Thanks Simon. I'm glad you protect your kids! I'm also glad to see them. They are as cute as you have been telling us for 3 or 4 years.!!!❤😊
there are events that as time goes by get forgotten about . i live in the dallas texas area and one day i went to east texas on a road trip and in the city of new london i found out about 90 years ago a school building blew up and exploded and 300 people [mostly children] died. it was caused by a gas leak and as a result gas now has that smell so people know there is a gas leak. i had never heard of this and i had many years of texas history classes
Simpler way of explaining shunting is it's train car (we call them train cars in the US while trucks are what the train wheel assemblies) sorting. Trains are a form of cargo transportation. You need to know how much of what is going where. So cars are loaded at different yards and then dropped off at a central yard where they get sorted to where they're going or generally close enough. Like if a ship dumps off in North Carolina then the cargo will get shunted to like southern states, northern states, midwest, and then everything to the west all clomped together to be sorted in another yard. There's a few methods of shunting that may raise a few eyebrows of those who don't know; the most infamous one being humping. Not like that, quite literally shoving the line of connected cars over a lump of elevation (otherwise known as a hump) to then have momentum and gravity carry them down the shunt line they're assigned to. If you're doing that but doing it down an entire hill instead, it's called a gravity yard. Same concept, but not as much of an innuendo. Which brings the fact that some where some little kid genuinely wants to grow up to be a professional humper (worker on the hump yard) and their parents are proud of that aspiration.
Also, I've just got to say d*mmit Michael Bay's ancestor!!!! He clearly set this whole thing up and now it runs in the blood line.
Hate to tell you this but rail accidents like that are way more common than anyone would like to believe, they just don't usually end up flattening a town. In a major switching yard having a car go down the wrong track is nearly a daily occurrence.
On Simon's darkest channel, he plugs a galaxy light. That works.
You live in or close to Prague . Totally shocked at what happened today .
Hope all your family and friends are safe and sound
This comment made me google prague to see what happened.. Well that's terrible. In September we had a student shoot a professor in NL as well, he was a crazy 4chan user. Wonder what the motives are.. My first thought is always incels nowadays
0:32 - All people should mourn for Simon's son future hair loss...
My man always has the timestamps we want
Simon's kids are so adorable
Not with today's sponsor, Keeps! 😂
Don’t you inherit hair loss from your mom’s side of the family? We need a peak at Simon’s father in law.
lmao :D
Awww, hello little Whist-lings! That was so cute, Simon. I hope you have a very happy Christmas!
What about Texas City where 2.5 Kilotons of ammonium nitrate detonated? Also, as noted by others, dynamite as well as blasting gelignite will 'sweat' Nitroglycerin if stored above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. TNT (Comp B TNT and RDX), C4, Semtex a general purpose explosive, TNB (TriNitroBenzine), and Amatol are more immune to high temperatures and are mostly used for explosive ordnance, except for Amatol which is no longer used.
"Can we inspect the quality of the explosives?"
"They exploded."
"What about the guys who handled the explosives?"
"They exploded."
"Can we ask the guy by the switch?"
"He exploded."
"Any other witnesses?"
"They exploded."
"Shit."
Honestly we need a mega project on Simon and the team, it's so nice to see kiddos approve of the sponsor lol
Thank you Simon for covering this story from my country. Well done with the pronunciations of the names, you did much better than most Brits do with them.
Always nice to get some content on my home country. Thank you Factboy
Simon .... your kids are darling. ❤❤❤ They are going to grow up to be Big Brains, knowing at least two languages. Enjoy this adorable phase. My youngest is 17, and I'm going to have an empty nest in a year. It goes really fast.
Settling down to watch the video now. 😅
Love your content Simón 😊😊😊❤❤❤
Omg! The bearded baby is growing so big! Adorable kiddos, Simon. 👍
Why the video sounded so muffled? It was fine for the first minute and then it sounded like someone had the mic covered over. I've tried changing between 3 different types of headphones but it still sounded muffled. Simon please check your audio
Excellent rendition Simon - this incident is well known in the Railway fraternity in South Africa. Compliments to you Sir, for your research, factually sharing information and pronunciation of the Afrikaans Names. Well Done ! - Merry Xmas to you and Family
This is some serious Final Destination stuff. Thank you for telling us about this.
"Hey kiddos, look what I got you for Christmas"
"That's from a sponsor!!"
I find it very heartwarming, and at least at the time of writing, the most replayed part of the video _is_ the ad.
Im from S.A and i didn't know this. Thanks for the episode!
As a 45year old South African. I've never heard of this disaster.
Thank you, very interesting
Simons kids having hair was shocking, I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t that.
Fully expected both of them to be little bald men with glasses 😅
Simon's closing words remarking that people of every race died in the mines and construction of Johannesburg is completely accurate. It's one of a tiny handful of places on the planet where a city was built on the slave-like working conditions of nearly every race on the planet. If we set aside the working conditions for a moment and look at what people have managed to build, it's quite impressive. But let's never forget that the people who built these amazing structures and cities were forced to under horrific conditions with little or no pay.
Being fairly familiar with explosives I do know what kind of stupidity you can get away with when using Hydrogel/Blasting Gel. It is by a long way one of the safest explosives to handle, even throwing boxes of it around, while not recommended for hopefully obvious reasons, is actually fairly safe. However; at the start of the episode we were told that the explosives were "prepared" at a factory and then shipped to the mine. And we know that the detonators were in a car with the explosives. I'm wondering if by "prepared" they meant that they had inserted the detonators at the factory. Today, and possibly then, that is a completely unacceptable practice and in my view is equivalent to shipping a bomb with a lit fuse. If it were the case that the detonators were inserted into the gel, a shunt could set off a detonator that's been cooking in the south African sun for 3 days.
1:03 Start of video
Simon's kids are adorable.🥰
In Peru, they have this thing called carnivales that happens for the entire month of February, especially on Sunday. What happens is that it's a country-wide water gun and water balloon fight where you can douse anyone you can with water. It's so much fun! Where I lived in central Lima, the intercity bus would drive down our street and people would try to shoot at us with water guns and we'd throw water balloons at them. All the kids always filled the balloons and gave them to me once they realized that I could lob them into the open windows of passing vehicles. It was awesome!
Now, if you grew up in the northern hemisphere like I did and haven't visited the southern one, you might think that it's too cld in February to have a giant water war but February is perhaps the hottest month of the year in the southern hemisphere and it's a fantastic time for a country-wide water war. I wish we had something similar in June, July, and August here in the northern hemisphere because getting hit with water really helps to ease the heat during the summer.
😂 that is such a feel good story. For a moment i thought you were going to say someone filled his water gun with nitroglycerin, 😂 and that ended festivities early. 😂
@ 7:35
"Typhus fever"?
Err, perhaps typhoid?
I'm a South African and I was not aware of this explosion. Interesting video!
A lovely representation of South Africa. Beautifully represented👍😊
I live in Braamfontein and had no idea this happened. Braamfontein is now a densely populated area housing mostly students of the University of the Witwatersrand.
I do like that your ads for sponsors arent as sycophantic and "love me, love *this* as so many, many are.
also, excellent vids.
A newspaper receiving an order of dynamite wi never not be a completely ABSURD statement lol
Simon, you are an awesome Father. Especially for such a mad lad.
The one sponsor clip I didn’t skip through 😅 I think Simon’s found a way to get us to actually watch the advert haha
OMG Simon, your little cherubs are adorable! Bless.
First product review that's Whistler kids approved! Very adorable! It looks like a fun product.
Oh my god we've never seen the baby Whistlers before!!!! I remember when he only had his daughter I can't believe they're both so big already
This explosion is much bigger than the one in modern day Beirut port explosion? ... WoW, I can't imagine the magnitude
I'm from south Africa.. actually watched a doc on this recently. Think it's a south african youtuber AL prodgers . Anyway awesome to see history still been kept relevant
Can we get this series in podcast format too. Love listening to these videos.
Hi.. Love the work you do.. across all your channels... IS THERE something wrong with the sound on this vid??
Great episode! You should do the Halifax Explosion sometime!
"Do the job
Check
and then Double check".
Those words from one of my artisan teachers seems applicable here.
Another solid show.
When tnt sweats the nitro glycerin sweats out of the casing and when hot becomes extremely sensitive and can be set off by a shock such as a crate falling and hitting a hard surface as an expert in this field that is most likely what happened nitro glycerin is always shock sensitive but more so when hot
I used to work in a rail yard and honestly the lack of safety procedures day to day is terrifying and that is in the USA at a railyard that has been operating since the civil war era.
I lived very near the rail yards in Denver Co. I drove passed them almost daily. Some of the things I saw put my heart in my throat. I can't imagine the things they didn't let the public see.
The best part is in the last decade or so rail companies have lobbied hard to get regulations, specifically safety regulations, lifted pretty substantially. That's why we've seen so many rail accidents in the last few years. The reasons that rail companies cite is that safety is too expensive and time consuming. Then communities get exposed to toxic materials when an accident happens.
Deregulation is a scourge on this country and continually gets pushed/approved by one party in the name of freedom for businesses.
i'm an ex-saffo & i'd never heard this story before - amazing !
The whole affair is one long mess of, "Not my problem." "Not my job." "I'm not paid to do that."
Episode Topic Suggestion: Northwest Flight 2501's disappearance.
It's a tragedy that time erases history and future generations lose the opportunity to learn local history.
From South Africa thanks Simon, I'm a J/burger all of 65 years. Never heard of this
I love hearing Simon pronouncing the city names. Especially because since I live in South Africa I know how they are supposed to sound