by Faye Higbee -Jeff Dunetz at lidblog.com
A Union Pacific rail car carrying 30 tons of Ammonium Nitrate seems to have lost its cargo. The rail car was traveling for two weeks between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Saltdale, California. The seals were on when it left and were still intact when it arrived. But the 30 tons of cargo were missing.
30 tons of a chemical used as fertilizer…and explosives
Some 60,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used as both fertilizer and a component in explosives, went missing as it was shipped by rail from Wyoming to California last month, prompting four separate investigations.
A railcar loaded with 30 tons of the chemical left Cheyenne, Wyoming, on April 12. The car was found to be empty after it arrived two weeks later at a rail stop in the Mojave Desert, according to a short incident report from the explosives firm that made the shipment.
The company, Dyno Nobel, made the report May 10 to the federal National Response Center, or NRC. The report also appeared last week in an NRC database of California incidents managed by the state Office of Emergency Services last Wednesday. KQED May 16
To provide a clearer example of the danger of the missing chemical, ammonium nitrate, used in 1995 to destroy a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, 15 of them were kids.
From a Washington Post on the bombing’s 25th anniversary.