NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, February 22, 1996
1. ___
7A
Derailed train spills acid
Engineers killed; conductor injured
The Associated Press
RED CLIFF, Colo. — A freight train derailed near a snowy pass high in the Rockies yesterday, killing two crew members and spilling thousands of gallons of sulfuric acid down a mountainside and across a highway.
Recuera trudged through waist-deep snow to reach the wreckage of the Southern Pacific Railroad train near 10,400-foot Tennessee Pass, south of Red Cliff and 10 miles north of the historic mining town of Leadville.
"At this time we do not know what caused the derailment," said sheriff's representative Kim Andre.
"But we are surmising snow may have played a major part in it."
Almost 2 1/2 feet of snow had fallen Tuesday night and more snow fell yesterday, Andre said.
The National Weather Service said several avalanches had been reported in the area. But sheffl's representative Jeff Beavers said there was no obvious sign of an avalanche near the tracks.
It was the fifth major train accident in the United States
Knight-Ridder Tribuni
this month. Authorities have found no common link.
The 82-car train was bound from East St. Louis, Ill., to Roseville, Calif., when it jumped the tracks before dawn. Both engines and 25 freight cars derailed, said Mike Furtney, a Southern Pacific Railroad representative.
The engineer and a student engineer were killed. Their names were not immediately released.
Steven Hudson, 45-year-old conductor from Pueblo, was hospitalized in fair condition with a broken collarbone. Twenty others, not on the train but affected by the fumes, were treated at a hospital and released.
Two of six tank cars containing sulfuric acid broke
open, spilling some of the 27,000 gallons they were transporting. Furtney said.
It wasn't immediately known how much acid had spilled over U.S. Highway 24, a main route between Leadville and Vall. Authorities at first feared the acid would flow into the Eagle River and its tributaries but discovered the liquid had pooled in low spots and was contained.
The acid is highly corrosive if it
comes in contact with the skin or clothing, and its fumes can be harmful to breathe.
Hazardous-materials teams were sent to dump an alkaline material on the spill to neutralize the acid.
About 40 cars drove through the acid before the highway was closed, Eagle County administrator Jack Ingstad said. Car owners were warned that the acid could cause dangerous fumes in a closed garage and could corrode brakes.
A ski area two miles from the spill also was closed as a precaution.
On Feb. 1, two crew members were killed in a freight train derailment in Southern California; two crew members and a passenger died in a commuter-train collision in New Jersey on Feb. 9; nine people were injured last week by a runaway freight train in St. Paul, Minn.; and 11 were killed last week when a commuter train and an Amtrak train collided in Silver Spring, Md.
International astronauts set for launch
The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — When space shuttle Columbia blasts off today, foreign-born astronauts will outnumber American-born crew members for the first time.
Besides three astronauts born in Philadelphia and New York, there will be two Italians, one Swiss and one Costa Rican.
During the flight, they plan on unreel an Italian satellite on an American tether 12.8 miles long.
When the seven astronauts arrived this week for the launch countdown though, polite words were spoken in Italian, French, Spanish and, of course in English, which all the crewmen speak.
The last time shuttle astronauts tried to take off, the reel jammed at a distance of 840 feet and the satellite almost had to be dumped. The curses in orbit, and on the ground, weren't just in English.
"You can hear just by all these lan
guages this is a very exceptional flight, an unusual crew," U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman said.
Italian astronauts Umberto Guidoni and Maurizio Cheli will become the
27th and 28th foreigners to fly on a NASA shuttle. Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier already has made two shuttle flights, including the failed mission in 1992.
The international flavor doesn't end there.
A record of eight Europeans will be in orbit, a total of 12 men, once Columbia lifts off. A German is aboard the Russian space station Mir with two Russian cosmonauts,
and two Russian cos m on a u ts blasted off in a Soyuz rocket yesterday bound for Mir.
Next month,
U.S. astronaut
Shannon Lucid
will fly to Mir on
space shuttle
Atlantis for a 4
1/2-month stay.
Foreign exchange doesn't
come cheap.
It cost the Italian Space Agency about $200 a day for Guidoni to train at Johnson Space Center in Houston for almost two years, or about $110,000. The European Space Agency estimated that it paid NASA $100,000 to $150,000 a year to train its astronauts, including Chelli and Nicollier.
Russian space officials charge even more for foreign guests. In
1990, a Japanese TV station paid $12 million to send a reporter to Mir for eight days, which comes to $1.5 million a day.
NASA has paid the Russian space program almost $400 million for use of Mir.
This money was well spent though, because cooperation in space fosters cooperation on Earth, said Italian tethered-satellite researcher Mario Grossi.
Grossi said that he saw the mission as an important step to world peace.
The launch countdown was disrupted yesterday when several dozen gallons of detergent spilled onto Columbia's external fuel tank and left solid-fuel rocket. Technicians immediately washed the affected areas.
Shuttle operations director Bob Sleck said a liquid vacuum system at the pad had overflowed, possibly because of worker error.
THE NEWS in brief
Avalanche kills four teens
KIEV, Ukraine — Rescuers yesterday found the bodies of four teen-agers buried under an avalanche while hiking in the Carpathian Mountains. Civil defense official Oleh Bykov said fierce winds Tuesday sent snow tumbling down on the
group of 13 and 14 year olds as they hiked with their physical education teacher.
The other four, three girls and a boy, were buried alive.
The teacher dug himself out and rescued two students.
HARTFORD, Conn. — A judge has tossed out a lawsuit accusing a 9-year-old Little Leaguer of making a careless warmup throw that hit a woman in the face. Judge Ronald Fraccasse dismissed the case on grounds a child cannot be sued as a sole
Judge balks at baseball suit
defendant.
Carol LaRosa of Wallingford accused Johnny Lapoli of making the errant toss May 6 that hit her as she sat near the bleachers. Her lawsuit claimed the boy "threw the baseball at a hard and dangerous speed."
Denny's defends breakfast favorite
Knight-Ridder Tribune
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The most popular breakfast at family-style restaurants has more fat and calories than two McDonald's Quarter Pounders, a consumer group said yesterday.
A restaurant association dismissed the report as misleading, "the dumbest" of a series of headline-grabbing studies by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The center's latest survey found two days' supply of cholesterol, 49 fat grams and more than 1,100 calories in specials such as "Denny's Original Grand Slam Breakfast" of two eggs, two sausages, two strips of bacon and two pancakes.
The government's recommendation for an adult's daily fat intake is 65 grams.
The center's previous studies have taken a critical look at food in Chinese, Mexican and Italian restaurants, at delicatessen sandwiches and at movie-theater popcorn.
For its newest study, the group dissected 12 popular breakfast entrees and side dishes bought at 17 locations in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Washington. Restaurant chains included Denny's, International House of Pancakes, Bob's Big Boy, Shoney's, Bob Evans and Cracker Barrel.
"We found many breakfasts that give you an entire day's worth of fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol — all before 10 o'clock in the morning." Hurley said at a news conference.
Jayne Hurley, senior nutritionist for the consumer-advocacy group, said family-style restaurants encouraged people to eat higher-fat breakfasts by making them cheaper. The Grand Slam goes for $1.99 compared with more than $4 for healthier, cereal-based breakfasts.
Hurley suggested asking for egg substitutes, skipping the butter or
margarine and substituting fresh fruit for sausage or bacon.
"At Denny's our customers get what they want," the restaurant chain said in a statement issued yesterday.
The statement said customers who buy the Grand Slam can request menu alternatives including low-cholesterol egg substitute, fresh fruit and reduced-calorie syrup and reduce huge amounts of cholesterol, fats and saturated fats, sodium and calories.
Jeffrey Prince, senior director of the National Restaurant Association, whose members include Denny's and other chains surveyed in the study, said the sample used was too small to be meaningful.
"Of all the dumb studies the food nudniks (at the center) have done, this is the dumbest," Prince said. "They've used a sample so small as to guarantee distortion, and as usual, their results are too high to be believed."
Even when restaurants offer low-fat alternative breakfasts along with the traditional spreads, a majority of diners choose the traditional breakfasts, he said.
The National Association of Margarine Manufacturers called the consumer group alarmist food police. It said in a statement that the study implied that margarine and butter were the same, giving consumers a license to go back to butter.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest report describes a breakfast of the Grand Slam variety thus: "With two entire days' worth of cholesterol, 49 grams of fat and more than 1,100 calories, this is worse than eating two McDonald's Quarter Pounders for breakfast."
The best breakfast choice was the hot or cold cereal platter, with fresh fruit, juice and toast and jam, minus the butter or margarine. It weighed in with about 600 calories and 7 grams of fat.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY YELLOSUB
Thanks Lawrence for 17 great years!
Celebrate with us Feb. 22nd through
the 28th with any of our scrumptious subs!
DRS. PRICE, YOUNG, ODLE, HORSCH F.A. AND ASSOCIATES (913) 842-6999
2600 Iowa Street Lawrence, Kansas 66046
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