Via Rail pondering alternative Ontario routing for suspended Canadian
By David Thomas, Contributing Editor, March 20, 2015
After months of late arrivals due to track congestion on CN’s northern Ontario main line, compounded by slow orders arising from CN’s efforts to recover from two tar sands oil train explosions, Via Rail is examining an alternative routing for the Canadian, the continent’s last classic streamliner, originally Canadian Pacific’s premier luxury passenger train.
Via suspended Canadian service between Winnipeg and Toronto March 11, citing the impossibility of maintaining schedules as CN dealt with the oil train mishaps near Gogama.
One option is to shift to CP trackage between Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Sudbury, Ontario, something Via Rail CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano hinted at last November during an interview with Railway Age. The motive, he said then, would be to provide passengers with a more scenic route closer to the Great Lakes, while at the same time serving more communities.
The imperative now is simply to get the train running again before the summer tourism season.
A contract would have to be negotiated with CP, and Via’s engineers would need to be qualified on CP track and operations, something that could take up to two months. Via will consider next week whether it can restore northern Ontario service over CN tracks, either indefinitely or pending a move to CP.
(Reuters) – A chorus of local governments across California opposed to crude oil trains grew louder this week in light of recent derailments, with a total of 14 cities and towns now trying to block the trains from running through their communities.
Five northern California cities – Berkeley, Richmond, Oakland, Martinez and Davis – have voiced their opposition to crude by rail in general. An additional nine communities specifically oppose a Phillips 66 project to enable its refinery in San Luis Obispo to unload crude-carrying trains.
Fiery derailments in West Virginia, Illinois and Ontario in recent weeks have brought the issue back into the national spotlight. The most devastating crude by rail disaster, a July 2013 derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, which killed 47 people, is mentioned in many of the opposition measures.
San Luis Obispo County is weighing whether to approve the Phillips 66 project, which would use Union Pacific rail lines to bring five 80-car trains per week to the refinery, starting in 2016.
That has prompted concern from communities along the company’s rail network, including densely populated cities in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“The opposition is growing exponentially,” said Jess Dervin-Ackerman of the Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter.
On Monday the Bay Area city of San Leandro passed a resolution opposing the Phillips 66 project, noting that at least 20 schools are located in the “blast zone” along the projected route.
Paso Robles, a city in San Luis Obispo County, could be the next to take a stand against the dangerous cargo. Its city council is expected to debate the topic at an upcoming meeting.
While local governments lack the ability to stop the trains, which fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government, they hope to put pressure on San Luis Obispo County officials.
“Every one of the tank cars on these trains carries more flammable crude oil than any municipal fire department can fight. That’s why California cities and towns are saying no,” said Matt Krogh of environmental group ForestEthics.
Phillips 66 said it has one of the most modern crude rail fleets in service and that every railcar used to transport crude oil in its fleet exceeds regulatory safety standards.
“The proposed rail project is designed with safety as the top priority and with safety measures embedded in the project,” said spokesman Dennis Nuss.
(Editing by Jessica Resnick-Ault and Matthew Lewis)
State rail regulators: Fine BNSF for not reporting leaks immediately
By Samantha Wohlfeil, March 19, 2015
BNSF rail cars on the railroad siding in Custer, Friday Aug. 22, 2014. The railroad is building a new siding from Ferndale to Custer. PHILIP A. DWYER — The Bellingham Herald
Washington state regulators have recommended BNSF Railway be fined up to $700,000 for failing to properly report more than a dozen hazardous materials spills in recent months despite the fact state staff had reminded the company how to do so last fall.
On Thursday, March 19, the state Utilities and Transportation Commission staff announced it found BNSF had failed to report 14 releases of hazardous materials, including crude oil leaks, within a half hour of learning about the leaks, as required by state law.
In one case, crews at BP Cherry Point refinery found crude oil had leaked onto the sides and wheels of a tank car, which was found to be 1,611 gallons short. That was on Nov. 5, but the UTC didn’t find out about it until Dec. 3, when it got a copy of the report BNSF sent to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Railroads have 30 days to file that type of report.
When contacted about the incident by a McClatchy reporter in January, BNSF said the train was “not in transit, not on our property and not in our custody” when the spill was detected, and the company had submitted the required reports to state and federal regulators.
In another case from Jan. 12 and 13, a train hauling 100 cars of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota to the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes had more than a dozen leaking cars discovered in multiple stops as it crossed the state.
Although the UTC sent an investigator to look at the leaking cars as part of a Federal Railroad Administration investigation, BNSF didn’t report the incident to the state’s 24-hour hotline at the Emergency Management Division until two weeks later. The hotline duty officer is in charge of alerting the various state agencies that might need to respond to a spill.
When asked by The Bellingham Herald in February why the January incident was reported more than a week later, BNSF spokeswoman Courtney Wallace replied that BNSF staff members thought they were following proper protocols, and had amended their Washington reporting policy following discussions with the UTC in January.
But the investigation released by the UTC on Thursday shows that on Oct. 22, 2014, the UTC had emailed a copy of the state’s reporting requirements to Patrick Brady, BNSF’s director of hazardous materials and special operations, in an effort to make sure BNSF knew how to report accidents.
As copied into the body of the Oct. 22 email to Brady, the state law regulating accident reports ( WAC 480-62-310) lists the hotline number, which types of incidents must be reported, and states that railroad companies must call within 30 minutes of learning of the event.
On Dec. 3, Brady emailed the UTC again asking, “Can you send me the regulatory reference to spill notification to the UTC?” Staff members again emailed Brady the state law on reporting requirements, according to emails included in the investigation.
From Nov. 1, 2014, to Feb. 24, UTC staff found BNSF committed 700 violations of the reporting requirement. Every day an incident goes unreported counts as a separate violation, per state law.
In addition to the leaking crude oil incidents, the UTC announcement lists a variety of leaks that occurred throughout the state: a tank car dripping gas/oil from a bottom valve in Spokane Valley on Dec. 8, 2014; cars leaking “primary sludge” found in incidents in Seattle, Vancouver and Everett in December; two 100-gallon spills of lube oil from locomotives in December and January, among others.
The commission could opt to fine the company $1,000 per violation of the reporting law, but no fine has been issued yet. The commission will set a final penalty after BNSF gets the chance to have a hearing.
“When a company fails to notify the (state Emergency Operations Center) that a hazardous material incident has occurred, critical response resources may not be deployed, causing potential harm to the public and the environment,” the UTC announcement states.
BNSF was still reviewing the report when contacted for comment on Thursday.
“In regards to reporting releases in Washington state, we believed we were complying in good faith with the requirements from our agency partners,” BNSF’s Wallace wrote in a statement. “Following guidance from the UTC in January 2015, BNSF reviewed its reporting notification process and amended its practices to address concerns identified by the UTC. We will continue to work closely with the UTC moving forward on this issue.”
BNSF is the largest railroad company operating in Washington.
Terminal settles with Oregon over excess oil shipments
AP, March 19, 2015 updated 1:00 pm
CLATSKANIE, Ore. (AP) — The owner of an oil train terminal in northwest Oregon has agreed to pay a reduced fine for moving six times more crude oil in 2013 than was allowed.
The Oregonian reports (http://is.gd/0Uivsj) the fine was cut by $15,000, to $102,292.
The state Department of Environmental Quality said the premise of fine originally was that the company acted intentionally in shipping nearly 300 million gallons through the terminal near Clatskanie.
But the agency now says it can prove only that the company acted negligently.
Massachusetts-based Global Partners admitted no wrongdoing. Its lawyer said the company disagreed with the penalty but was happy the issue is resolved.
Trains carrying North Dakota crude oil began moving through Oregon in 2012. At the Clatskanie terminal, it’s put on barges for West Coast refineries.
After months of late arrivals due to track congestion on CN’s northern Ontario main line, compounded by slow orders arising from CN’s efforts to recover from two tar sands oil train explosions, Via Rail is examining an alternative routing for the Canadian, the continent’s last classic streamliner, originally Canadian Pacific’s premier luxury passenger train.