California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Public Safety, Rail inspection

KQED: California’s Not Ready for Influx of Oil Trains, Says Report

Repost from KQED Science, NPR/PBS

California’s Not Ready for Influx of Oil Trains, Says Report

Molly Samuel, KQED Science | June 12, 2014

Trains carrying oil can pose serious risks to public safety and the environment, and California isn’t prepared, according to a report released by state agencies this week.

Crude-by-rail is a growing concern, as an oil boom in North Dakota has meant increasing amounts of crude traveling to refineries by rail. A series of fiery derailments in the past year, including one that killed 47 people in a Quebec town, has focused attention on the need to prevent accidents and be prepared for emergency response.

‘Even though we haven’t had an accident, which is great, we want to be able to respond to it when there is an accident.’– Kelly Huston, Office of Emergency Services

The report warns that a derailment in California could kill people, destroy neighborhoods, damage water supplies and threaten natural areas.

“Even though we haven’t had an accident, which is great, we want to be able to respond to it when there is an accident,” said Kelly Huston, a deputy director at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES). “With the increase in the amount of crude oil on rail coming through California’s cities and counties, we believe there should be some increased training for first responders.”

The report was released by an inter-agency group that includes the OES, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), among others. It recommends boosting funding for emergency responder training, and for equipment to handle hazardous material accidents. It also supports an item in Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget that would provide more money to the Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response, which has focused on marine oil spills in the past, but is now preparing for the possibility of inland spills.

It’s not all about accident response; there are also recommendations for prevention. Most rail regulation is up to the federal government; the CPUC helps enforce safety rules with its own rail inspectors. There are 52 of them, responsible for monitoring more than 5,400 miles of track in the state. “This staffing level is seriously inadequate,” the report says.

Paul King, deputy director for the rail safety at the CPUC, said the Governor’s budget aims to help. “To meet the volume of trains and the magnitude of the risk that [crude-by-rail] presents,” King said, “the Governor has put in his budget for extra staffing.”

There are other gaps the state cannot fill alone. As the CPUC pointed out in a report released last year, there is only one federal railroad bridge inspector for 11 Western states.

The report also raised the need for more information. As of last weekend, railroads that are transporting large shipments of Bakken, the volatile crude oil from North Dakota, must notify states. Huston of the OES said he got the first batch of documents Monday, but he said they’re of limited use and not timely enough. He said the OES is following up with BNSF and the federal Department of Transportation, the agency that issued the notification order.

Huston said he’d also like to see a map that the public could access, showing where the oil train shipments are headed. The railroads are resisting releasing information about crude shipments to the public.

Most of California’s oil comes either from within the state or overseas, and travels to refineries here by pipeline or ship. And that’s still the case. According the the California Energy Commission, only about one percent of California’s crude came by train in 2013. But trains carrying oil are becoming more frequent, and the CEC projects that by 2016, trains could be bringing in about 23 percent of California’s crude.

Crude By Rail, Hazmat notification, Rail industry, Rail routing, Train speed

Railroads oppose some oil train safety measures

Repost from Politico

Documents: Railroads want to hit brakes on some oil train safeguards

By KATHRYN A. WOLFE | 6/13/14 5:08 AM EDT
A fireball goes up at the site of an oil train derailment in Casselton, North Dakota, on Dec. 20, 2013.
The report previews what the administration may be considering to stop crashes. | AP Photo: A fireball goes up at the site of an oil train derailment in Casselton, North Dakota, on Dec. 20, 2013.

The railroad industry is warning the White House against some potential safety rules for trains carrying explosive crude oil, saying freight and passenger rail traffic could be disrupted for years if companies must obey 30 mph speed limits, install more sophisticated brakes and keep the trains manned at all times.

The arguments, contained in documents posted after a meeting this week between railroad officials and the Office of Management and Budget, also offer a preview of what steps the Obama administration may be considering in response to oil train crashes that have struck the U.S. and Canada in the past year. Those include a disastrous July 6 explosion that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, after an engineer left a train packed with North Dakota crude oil parked on a steep incline with brakes that may not have been properly set.

The Department of Transportation declined to comment on the documents. DOT submitted a draft rule proposal to OMB in April but has offered no details about what’s in it.

Companies represented at Tuesday’s OMB meeting included the four major freight railroads — BNSF, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX — as well as other industry groups and Amtrak, according to White House records.

While Amtrak doesn’t haul crude oil, a BNSF handout arguing against lower speed limits said the passenger rail’s travel schedules on one 1,815-mile route could be lengthened by two hours if oil trains’ top speeds are lowered to 30 mph from 50 mph. That route stretches between Aurora, Ill., and Spokane, Wash., which BNSF called its primary route for crude oil.

Slowdowns would cause “severe” impacts for the railroad’s operations, including both oil and grain shipments, BNSF said in the handout, calculating six-hour delays for freight trains along the same route. All told, the railroad said it would have to spend $2.8 billion to rebuild its lost shipping capacity during the next four years, while facing $630 million in additional annual expenses such as additional crew wages and lost productivity.

The Association of American Railroads, the freight railroad industry’s main trade group, offered a similar document on the speed limit issue.

None of the documents address the main issue people are expecting the DOT rule to address: increased safety requirements for the tanker cars that carry the oil.

Oil train traffic across the U.S. has increased 40-fold since 2008 because of booming production in places like North Dakota and western Canada. It’s also become an increasingly contentious issue for communities from California and Washington state to Albany, N.Y., and Lynchburg, Va.

The documents may not accurately reflect DOT’s undisclosed draft — the railroads may have been blindly making a case for what they don’t want to see happen. But they reveal that industry insiders have given thought to potential regulations that would go much further than the mostly voluntary measures DOT has imposed so far.

Earlier this year, DOT announced that railroads had voluntarily agreed to restrict some oil trains to 40 mph in certain populous areas.

But lowering the speed limit to 30 mph would harm “delivery capability” for BNSF’s oil customers, the railroad said in the document. To keep up with demand, it said, it would have to add an additional 11,280 tank cars to its crude oil fleet.

In the other documents posted on OMB’s website:

— A handout from CSX argues against requiring electronically controlled pneumatic braking systems, saying the technology is “expensive and only works if the entire train is equipped.” The company says the brakes would have “limited use and minimal safety impact.”

As part of an existing voluntary agreement between the industry and DOT, railroads agreed to equip all trains pulling 20 or more carloads of crude oil with other types of advanced braking systems — either distributed power or two-way telemetry end-of-train devices.

— And a final handout, whose authorship is unclear, argues against requiring that crude oil trains never be left unattended. It says “attending crude oil trains from origin to destination will increase congestion, require additional handling, and significantly drive up costs,” including $96 per hour for a two-person crew.

It also says that “appropriate securement and security measures are already in place to ensure safe movement of crude oil shipments.”

CPC-1232 standard, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion

Investigators’ lab report on Canadian derailment

Repost from CNW Group (Canada NewsWire)
[Editor: This Transportation Safety Board of Canada report on a January derailment in New Brunswick may not strike you as current or relevant, but please note the detailed chronology of the cause of derailment and catastrophic failure.  A broken wheel led to track damage and rail failure, and punctures in the old DOT 111 tank cars were caused by one car slamming into the coupler assembly of the next car.  This report reads like a slow-motion visual experience of the wreck.  – RS]

Derailment of Canadian National freight train at Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, 7 January 2014

DORVAL, QC, June 12, 2014 /CNW/ –  June 12, 2014

The occurrence

On 7 January 2014, a Canadian National freight train was travelling from Toronto, Ontario to Moncton, New Brunswick, with 122 cars, 3 head-end locomotives and 1 remote locomotive. On the main track near Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, 19 cars and the remote locomotive derailed.  Nine of these cars were carrying crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas. There were no crew injuries. Approximately 150 people near the accident site were evacuated due to the resulting fire.

While passing by a Wayside Inspection System (WIS), the crew received an alarm. Following normal procedures, the train was slowed down while minimizing in-train forces. However, before the train stopped, the rail cars began to derail resulting in a brake pipe separation and the application of the emergency brakes. Once the train came to a full stop, the conductor walked back towards the derailment site and found a broken wheel on the 2nd axle of the 13th car. This axle had derailed, with both wheels positioned inside the track gauge.

Work Completed to Date

TSB investigators and specialists from the TSB Engineering Lab have completed the field phase of the investigation. This includes the collection of the locomotive event recorder data, the results of previous wayside inspections, initial train inspection, and inspection of the track.  The tank cars were photographed and documented for further analysis.

The broken wheel found at the occurrence site was documented and shipped to the TSB Engineering Lab for testing. Information was collected from the railway company, and officials and witnesses have been interviewed.

What We Know

The broken wheel failed due to fatigue. A crack initiated at a porosity and travelled under the running surface of the wheel which caused a shattered rim. The subject wheel was manufactured in 1991 and met the material requirements for that time period.  Wheels manufactured today undergo an ultrasonic inspection of the tread area to check for areas of porosity. This inspection procedure is carried out to detect and prevent wheels with significant areas of porosity, such as found in the subject wheel, from being placed into service.

Track damage occurred as a result of the derailed wheels battering the base of the rail. Subsequently, multiple rail fractures were found between the initial point of derailment and the derailment site.

Two of the tank cars were the primary source of the released oil that created the fire.  Both were older Class 111 tank cars, built in 1984 and 1996. The punctures in the head portion of the tank cars were most likely due to impacts with the adjacent tank car coupler assembly.

Three CPC-1232 (design specification for Class 111 cars introduced in 2011) tank cars also derailed and were examined by the TSB team. One car was essentially undamaged, while another car had some damage associated with sliding on its side after derailing. Neither of these tank cars released product. The third CPC-1232 car did not initially release product. However, this car came to rest in the pool fire, resulting in the eventual degradation of the bottom outlet valve gasket and a small release of product.

Next steps

Work continues as this ongoing investigation is in the examination and analysis phase. Investigators will interview the train crew to confirm further details.  The team will review the history of the wheel as well as its manufacturing process and look closely at the effectiveness and adequacy of Wayside Inspection Systems and other inspection methods to detect problems with wheels and axles in service. Lab work continues on the detailed examination of the damage to tank cars in order to draw conclusions about their performance. Once this phase is complete, the report writing phase will commence.

Communication of Safety Deficiencies

Should the investigation team uncover safety deficiencies that present an immediate risk, the Board will communicate them without delay so they may be addressed quickly and the rail system made safer.

The information posted is factual in nature and does not contain any analysis.  Analysis of the accident and the Findings of the Board will be part of the final report. The investigation is ongoing.

 

The TSB is an independent agency that investigates marine, pipeline, railway and aviation transportation occurrences. Its sole aim is the advancement of transportation safety. It is not the function of the Board to assign fault or determine civil or criminal liability.

SOURCE Transportation Safety Board of Canada

For further information:
TSB Media Relations
(819) 994-8053

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Hazardous cargo transparency, Hazmat notification, Rail routing, Tank car identification

Citizen oil-train spotters challenge railroad secrecy

Repost from The Herald, Everett, Washington
[Editor: Interesting project.  For more detail, see Green News for Snohomish County.  – RS]

Citizen oil-train spotters challenge railroad secrecy

By Jerry Cornfield, June 12, 2014
A placard with the number 1267 indicates that a tank car along West Marine View Drive in Everett carries crude oil.
A placard with the number 1267 indicates that a tank car along West Marine View Drive in Everett carries crude oil. Mark Mulligan / The Herald

OLYMPIA — BNSF Railway doesn’t want civilians to know how often it transports large shipments of Bakken crude oil through Snohomish County, but a mathematician from Everett can give you a pretty good estimate.

Dean Smith, 71, a retired researcher for a federal agency, isn’t on the “need-to-know” list, but he’s got a darn good idea of the frequency and routes of oil trains.

He organized the Snohomish County Train Watch, and he and 29 volunteers monitored train traffic in Edmonds, Everett and Marysville for a week in April. Crude-oil tank cars can be identified by their red, diamond-shaped hazardous-material placards that bear the number 1267.

They tried to keep track around the clock but missed a few shifts. Even so, they counted 16 shipments of oil and 20 of coal, Smith said. They also tallied another 96 trains, including those of Amtrak, the Sounder commuter run between Seattle and Everett and other freight during the period.

Smith presented the results at a meeting Monday and posted them online. He’ll share them with U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., in a meeting Friday.

“What motivated me was noticing the oil trains. I saw them and thought, ‘What’s going on?’” he said.

Three railroads in the state insist what’s going on should be released only to emergency responders and not the general public. State officials disagree and consider the reports to be public records but aren’t releasing them yet.

BNSF and the two other railroads have complied with a federal order and given the state government an idea of the volume, frequency and routes along which they move the highly flammable North Dakota crude in Washington.

But the BNSF, Tacoma Rail and the Portland and Western Railroad have until the end of next of week to obtain a court order preventing disclosure. If they don’t, the state will hand over records to those requesting them, including The Herald.

“We continue and will continue to work with the railroads to address their concerns and still meet the requirements of the state’s Public Records Act,” said Karina Shagren, spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Division.

The shipment of crude oil by rail has greatly increased in recent years, and notable serious accidents in the U.S. and Canada, including a deadly crash in Quebec, have drawn attention to tank-car safety. Such incidents prompted the federal rule requiring railroads to disclose information about shipments.

The state Department of Ecology estimates Bakken crude shipments by rail in Washington rose from zero barrels in 2011 to nearly 17 million barrels in 2013.

Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday said he wants state agencies to move more swiftly to assess the risks to public safety posed by the increasing number of oil trains traveling through Washington.

Inslee directed the Department of Ecology to analyze the risk of accidents along rail lines, compare the danger of Bakken crude to other types of crude and identify any gaps in the state’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills from rail tank cars.

These issues are already getting a look as part of a $300,000 study of oil transportation approved by state lawmakers earlier this year. Work on that report will begin this month, and findings due to Inslee and lawmakers in December.

Inslee’s directive seeks some recommendations by Oct. 1, when he will be in the midst of drafting his next state budget proposal.

“It speeds up certain parts of that analysis,” said Inslee spokeswoman Jaime Smith. “There is a lot of increased scrutiny on oil shipments. The public is demanding some answers. The sooner we get the information, the sooner we can act.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation in May ordered railroads carrying more than 1 million gallons of Bakken crude in a single train – about 35 tank cars – to tell state authorities how many such shipments they expect to move through each county each week and on what routes. They were not required to provide the days and times of the shipments.

BNSF Railway, the dominant carrier north of Seattle and to points east, averages one-and-a-half to two trains loaded with Bakken going to “facilities in the Pacific Northwest in a 24-hour period,” according to company spokesman Gus Melonas.

He wouldn’t reveal how much oil those trains carry to refineries in Anacortes and Ferndale or which routes they travel.

“BNSF believes this type of shipment data is considered security-sensitive and confidential, intended for people who have ‘a need to know’ for such information, such as first responders and emergency planners,” Melonas told The Herald in an email.

Lyn Gross, director of the Emergency Services Coordinating Agency in Snohomish County, is one of those with a need to know and has received the information.

She declined to share details but said what she read didn’t incite her to consider revising the group’s handling of hazardous-material incidents. Her agency handles emergency management for 10 cities in south Snohomish County.

“It doesn’t really change much for us. It gives us more of an awareness of how much of this product is moving through our area that we didn’t know about before,” said Gross, who forwarded copies of the data to the member cities. “We’re going to respond like we would for any hazardous materials incident involving a train.”

Regular citizen Smith wants to repeat the train-watching exercise every two to three months to keep city, county and state leaders informed. He said he hopes that will spur a critical examination of the need for changes in emergency response plans.

Snohomish County residents are not the only ones tracking trains. The Vancouver Action Network is keeping watch and spreading data and photos through online sites and social media. Oil train activists are planning a statewide summit in Olympia in August.

Train monitoring is on the rise because rail transport of all types of crude oil, including Bakken, is multiplying in Washington. Until the federal order took effect last week, railroads did not need to tell anyone about the amount of Bakken they were taking to refineries in Whatcom and Pierce counties.

Tacoma Rail estimated that each week it runs three unit trains of 90 to 120 railroad tank cars apiece, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Herald. Those trains are traveling on tracks in and around the Tacoma Rail train yard in Pierce County.

Union Pacific, which doesn’t have a large presence in Western Washington, told the state it has nothing to report.

That doesn’t mean the Union Pacific isn’t shipping Bakken crude to locations in Washington — only that it isn’t handling quantities large enough to be subject to disclosure, Shagren said.

For safe and healthy communities…