Tag Archives: Association of American Railroads

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail inspection, Tank car retrofit, Train braking systems, Train speed

Chicago Sun-Times editorial: Old tank cars put Chicago at risk

Repost from The Chicago Sun-Times

Old tank cars put Chicago at risk

Editorials, July 31, 2014
This July 6, 2013 file photo shows a worker, wearing protective gear moving though the wreckage of the oil train derailment and explosion in in Lac-Megantic, Quebec (AP Photo/Ryan Remiorz, File, Pool)
This July 6, 2013 file photo shows a worker, wearing protective gear moving though the wreckage of the oil train derailment and explosion in in Lac-Megantic, Quebec (AP Photo/Ryan Remiorz, File, Pool)

America’s drilling boom means more freight trains are snaking through Chicago carrying oil, which can erupt into fireballs if the tank cars derail. A new federal proposal to make the cars safer should be enacted as quickly as possible, and any changes in the final rules should enhance safety, not weaken it.

On July 23, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx proposed phasing out tens of thousands of tank cars called DOT-111s that date back to the 1960s and that too easily rupture or get punctured in derailments. In the past six years, oil has spilled in 10 major derailments, many of them fiery. In the worst, 47 people died last year in Quebec. In April, 30,000 gallons of crude oil leaked into the James River amid a blazing derailment near downtown Lynchburg, Va.

Because more than 40 oil-carrying trains pass through metropolitan Chicago every week, the safety proposal is critical. Mayor Rahm Emanuel called it a “very important step to reduce the risk of catastrophic disasters in our cities.”

The weaknesses of older tank cars, which include about 78,000 of the 92,000 now in use, have been known for 25 years. But now there’s a new reason to worry about them. A boom in American oil production, largely due to hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — that extracts petroleum from places where oil pipelines don’t go, has led to a surge in oil-carrying freights. Nationwide, the number of oil carloads jumped from 9,500 in 2008 to 434,000 last year. Trains carrying crude often are longer than 100 tank cars and can carry more than a million gallons.

In May, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring railroads to notify local officials before trains carrying large quantities of crude pass through. Now, the department has proposed a range of additional safety options, including requiring new or retrofitted tank cars to have thicker shells, more effective brakes and roll-over protections. Tank cars that don’t meet the new standards would be phased out after two years if they carry the most flammable fuels, including ethanol and most grades of crude oil.

Foxx also is calling for speed limits on trains transporting the fuels, especially through highly populated areas, and testing of the liquids they carry.

The proposals will go through negotiations, including a public comment period, before the final rules come out. Not everyone will agree: Industry representatives, for example, think the proposed speed limits are too low and environmentalists think they are too high.

Fortunately, industry players, including the Association of American Railroads and the American Petroleum Institute, agree tank cars need to be safer. They have offered their own safety enhancements, which don’t go as far as those proposed by Foxx. For example, they want a three-year phase-out period instead of two and would select a design used on tank cars built since 2011 as the new, safer standard.

The final rules should take into account legitimate concerns of business and environmentalists, but the government shouldn’t significantly water down the safety proposals nor let negotiations drag on, putting off the day crude shipments get safer.

We don’t want to see any disastrous fireballs along the many rail lines running through Chicago and its suburbs.

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232 standard, Crude Oil, DOT-111, Ethanol, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail routing, Tank car design, Train braking systems, Train speed

Stopping deadly oil train fires: New rules planned

Repost from The Sacramento Bee (Wire Business News, AP)

Stopping deadly oil train fires: New rules planned

The Associated Press, Jul. 23, 2014
Oil Train Fires
FILE – This Nov. 6, 2013, file photo shows a BNSF Railway train hauling crude oil near Wolf Point, Mont. Thousands of older rail tank cars that carry crude oil would be phased out within two years under regulations proposed in response to a series of fiery train crashes over the past year. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the government’s testing of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana shows the oil is on the high end of a range of volatility compared with other crude oils, meaning it’s more likely to ignite if spilled. Matthew Brown, File / AP Photo

WASHINGTON — Responding to a series of fiery train crashes, the government proposed rules Wednesday that would phase out tens of thousands of older tank cars that carry increasing quantities of crude oil and other highly flammable liquids through America’s towns and cities.

But many details were put off until later as regulators struggle to balance safety against the economic benefits of a fracking boom that has sharply increased U.S. oil production. Among the issues: What type of tank cars will replace those being phased out, how fast will they be allowed to travel and what kind of braking systems will they need?

Accident investigators have complained for decades that older tank cars, known as DOT-111s, are too easily punctured or ruptured, spilling their contents when derailed. Since 2008, there have been 10 significant derailments in the U.S. and Canada in which crude oil has spilled from ruptured tank cars, often igniting and resulting in huge fireballs. The worst was a runaway oil train that exploded in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic a year ago, killing 47 people.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said he said he expects his department to complete final regulations before the end of the year. First, the public and affected industries will have an opportunity to comment on the proposal.

“We are at the dawn of a promising time for energy production in this country,” Foxx said. “This is a positive development for our economy and for energy independence, but the responsibilities attached to this production are very serious.”

In a report released along with the rules, the Department of Transportation concluded that oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana, where fracking methods have created an oil boom, is more volatile than is typical for light, sweet crudes.

The oil industry immediately challenged that conclusion. “The best science and data do not support recent speculation that crude oil from the Bakken presents greater than normal transportation risks,” said American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard. “DOT needs to get this right and make sure that its regulations are grounded in facts and sound science, not speculation.”

Rail shipments of crude have skyrocketed from a few thousand carloads a decade ago to 434,000 carloads last year. The Bakken now produces over 1 million barrels per day, and production is increasing.

The phase-in period for replacing or retrofitting older tank cars that transport the most volatile types of liquids is shorter than the Canadian government’s three-year phased plan. Congress, fearing another Lac-Megantic, has been pressuring regulators to put new safety rules in place as quickly as possible.

The proposal also includes ethanol, which is transported in the same kind of tank cars. From 2006 to 2012, there were seven train derailments in which tank cars carrying ethanol ruptured. Several crashes caused spectacular fires that emergency responders were powerless to put out.

The proposed regulations apply only to trains of 20 or more cars. Crude oil trains from the Bakken are typically 100 cars or more.

The department is weighing three options for replacements. One would be to make cars known as “1232s” the new standard for transporting hazardous liquids. Those cars are a stronger design voluntarily agreed to by the railroad, oil and ethanol industries in 2011. But those cars, which have been in use for several years, have also ruptured in several accidents.

The oil and ethanol industries have been urging White House and transportation officials to retain the 1232 design for new cars. The industries have billions of dollars invested in tens of thousands of tank cars that officials say were purchased with the expectation they would last for decades.

Another option is a design proposed by Association of American Railroads that has a thicker shell, an outer layer to protect from heat exposure, a “jacket” on top of that, and a better venting valve, among other changes. A third design proposed by the department is nearly identical to the one proposed by railroads, but it also has stronger fittings on the top of the car to prevent spillage during a rollover accident at a speed of 9 mph.

Regulators also are weighing whether to limit crude and ethanol trains to a maximum of 40 mph throughout the country, or just in “high-threat” urban areas or areas with populations greater than 100,000 people. A high-threat urban area is usually one or more cities surrounded by a 10-mile buffer zone.

Railroads had already voluntarily agreed to reduce oil train speeds to 40 mph in urban areas beginning July 1. Tank cars — including the newer ones built to a tougher safety standard — have ruptured in several accidents at speeds below 30 mph. Regulators said they’re considering lowering the speed limit to 30 mph for trains that aren’t equipped with advanced braking systems.

The freight railroad industry had met privately with department and White House officials to lobby for keeping the speed limit at 40 mph in urban areas rather than lowering it. Railroad officials say a 30 mph limit would tie up traffic across the country because other freight wouldn’t be able to get past slower oil and ethanol trains.

The department said it is considering three types of braking systems for oil and ethanol trains, but a final decision will depend on what type of tank car design is eventually adopted.

Whatever option regulators settle on, the proposal calls for newly manufactured cars to meet that standard beginning Oct. 1, 2015.

The proposal continues a requirement that railroads transporting at least 1 million gallons of Bakken crude oil notify emergency response commissions ahead of time in states they pass through. Communities from upstate New York to the coast of Washington have complained they’re in the dark about when trains pass through and how much oil and ethanol they’re transporting.

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232 standard, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Volatile gases

Fox Guarding Henhouse: Oil-By-Rail Standards Led by American Petroleum Institute

Repost from DeSmogBlog

Fox Guarding Henhouse: Oil-By-Rail Standards Led by American Petroleum Institute

By Justin Mikulka, July 9, 2014

“How did it get missed for the last ten years?”

That was the question Deborah Hersman, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), posed to a panel of industry representatives back in April about how the rail industry had missed the fact that Bakken oil is more explosive than traditional crude oil.

“How do we move to an environment where commodities are classified in the right containers from the get go and not just put in until we figure out that there’s a problem,” Hersman asked during the two-day forum on transportation of crude oil and ethanol. “Is there a process for that?”

The first panelist to respond was Robert Fronczak, assistant vice president of environmental and hazardous materials for the Association of American Railroads (AAR). His response was telling.

“We’ve know about this long before Lac-Megantic and that is why we initiated the tank car committee activity and passed CPC-1232 in 2011,” Fronczak replied, “To ask why the standards are the way they are, you’d have to ask DOT that.”

So, now as the new oil-by-rail safety regulations have been sent from the Department of Transportation (DOT) to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, it seems like a good time to review Hersman’s questions.

How did we miss this? Is there a process to properly classify commodities for the right container before they are ever shipped?

Missed or Ignored?

Fronczak stated that industry knew about the explosive danger of Bakken crude long before the Lac-Megantic disaster, but it was up to the Department of Transportation to do something about it. That begs the question: what did the department know?

In a letter sent by Thomas J. Herrmann of the Federal Railroad Administration (a division of DOT) to the American Petroleum Institute’s CEO Jack Gerard on July 29, 2013, just 23 days after the Lac-Megantic disaster, it would appear the DOT was well aware of Bakken crude classification issues.

FRA audits of crude oil loading facilities indicate that the classification of crude oil being transported by rail is often based solely on Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) data that only provides a material classification and a range of material properties. This MSDS information is typically provided by the consignee to the shipper, and the shipper is unaware of validation of the values of the crude oil properties.

FRA‘s audits indicate that MSDS information is not gleaned from any recently conducted tests or from testing for the many different sources (wells) of the crude oil. For example, a shipper provided information to FRA showing that crude oil being transported by rail had a flash point of 68° F, or a Packing Group I hazardous material. However, the crude oil had been improperly classified as a Packing Group III material and was being transported in AAR class tank cars that were not equipped with the required design enhancements.

The letter goes into detail on several other issues with Bakken crude and recommends that “shippers evaluate their processes for testing, classifying, and packaging the crude oil that they offer into transportation via railroad tank cars.”

So it is clear that as of July 2013, the Federal Railroad Administration was well aware of issues regarding misclassification of Bakken crude oil based on its own audits.

Several of the panellists at the NTSB hearing in April made the point that Bakken crude was different.

“We are just not sure what we’re handling,” Fronczak said. “We’ve done some minor sampling, you know a few samples that indicate that the crude oil does have a high vapor pressure and a fairly high amount of dissolved gas and so we feel a pressure car is more appropriate.”

A pressure car is currently the safest possible tank car the new regulations could require.

William Finn of the Railway Supply Institute echoed this sentiment, “For years we’ve transported crude oil in one eleven cars [DOT-111], what’s changed here is the introduction of the unit train and the question of what’s happening with the Bakken crude oil and the high vapor pressures.”

Greg Saxton, chief engineer for tank car manufacturer Greenbrier Companies, said: “The crude we are moving today, we think its different than what we were moving five or ten years ago.”

If the exploding trains weren’t enough to convince people that the Bakken crude oil is different, those comments should remove any doubt.

API Concludes Bakken Oil Poses No “Special Risks”

In April, DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx commented to the Associated Press on how important proper crude oil classification was regarding oil-by-rail safety, saying,  “One of the most fundamental questions that cuts across everything in crude oil-by-rail is how it is classified.”

So who gave the presentation at the NTSB conference on classification of crude oil? The American Petroleum Institute.

Lee Johnson gave a presentation on the API’s current crude oil classification working group, which he stated, “is going to come up with the standard which is going to have guidance on how often you should do that [testing], what tests you should take, sampling techniques, lab techniques.  It’s going to be a very comprehensive standard.  At this point there is no industry standard.”

During his presentation, Johnson highlighted one of the main efforts of the API’s work on classification. The North Dakota Petroleum Council was hiring a firm to conduct testing on Bakken crude for classification purposes.

The results of that Bakken classification testing have since been released and were reported in the Wall Street Journal as follows:

Crude oil from the Bakken Shale formation doesn’t pose special risks to rail transport and shouldn’t require a separate classification regime than other hazardous liquids, North Dakota oil producers said.

This is what happens when you let an industry self-regulate. They make up their own rules and reality. In May, APICEO Jack Gerard made his position clear:

“It is essential to separate fact from fiction as we work to enhance the safe transportation of crude oil. Multiple studies have now debunked the idea that Bakken crude is meaningfully different than other crudes.”

However, not everyone was buying these results. New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer told Reuters that these test results should be “taken with a grain of salt.”

And the Canadian Crude Quality Technical Association said, “We would consider the data suspect.”

The main reason for the association’s suspicion is the sampling technique that was used. The samples were taken using open containers, which allow the volatile gases to escape before testing.

That’s the kind of thing that happens when there are no standards for sampling and testing.

The New Regulations

So as the new oil-by-rail safety regulations are about to be released by the White House, there still are no enforceable standards on how to properly sample, test and classify Bakken crude oil. The only testing data that’s been released up to this point is from the oil industry’s lobbying groups.

The Department of Transportation has taken samples of Bakken crude and conducted testing — however, the report on their results is still pending and there is no scheduled release date. It is nearly a year after the department’s initial letter to Jack Gerard of the American Petroleum Institute.

Further, the Department of Transportation is not ultimately responsible for developing new standards for testing and classifying crude oil.

To understand how the regulatory agency in charge of an industry is not responsible for developing these standards, you must look at the wording of legislation signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996 called “The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995.”

This legislation essentially privatized the development of standards. The act states:

“All Federal agencies and departments shall use technical standards that are developed and adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies, using such technical standards as a means to carry out policy objectives or activities determined by the agencies and departments.”

So, for there to be new enforceable regulations regarding the classification of Bakken crude, several things would have to happen. An external standard developer like ASTM International would have to develop standards. Then members of industry or their lobbyists would have to volunteer to petition the DOT to adopt those standards as part of the regulations. This would require a new DOT rulemaking process separate from the one currently in progress, which could take several years.

A Fundamental Question Goes Unanswered

So, on the eve of new regulations, the fundamental question of how to properly sample and test Bakken crude oil for appropriate classification has not been answered. And the only group currently working on an “industry standard” for this is the American Petroleum Institute, which has already concluded that Bakken crude is no different from other crude oils  — at the same time API is having private meetings at the White House regarding the new regulations.

Chair Hersman resigned shortly after the forum in April, ending her 10-year career with the NTSB. At the time she told the AP she had, “seen a lot of difficulty when it comes to safety rules being implemented if we don’t have a high enough body count. That is a tombstone mentality. We know the steps that will prevent or mitigate these accidents. What is missing is the will to require people to do so.”

If the current process regarding new oil-by-rail regulations in the U.S. is any indication, apparently we haven’t achieved a high enough body count yet.

Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Hazmat notification, Short-line railroads, Tank car design

Canada Announces Rules for Transporting Dangerous Goods by Rail

Repost from The Wall Street Journal

New Measures Mandate Tank Cars That Carry Crude Oil to Be Built with Thicker Steel Walls

By David George-Cosh, June 27, 2014

TORONTO—Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced new rules Friday aimed at bolstering safety measures for transporting dangerous goods, such as crude oil, over the country’s railway networks.

The new measures include updating safety-reporting requirements for rail companies operating in Canada, mandating tank cars that carry volatile crude be built with thicker steel walls, and improving data-reporting requirements for railways.

Canadian and U.S. regulators have urged the rail industry to improve safety measures after several recent accidents involving trains carrying crude, including last year’s derailment of a crude-carrying train in rural Quebec in July, which killed 47 people.

“Our government is committed to railway safety and the safe movement of dangerous goods,” Ms. Raitt said in a statement. “The upcoming regulations will further strengthen safety in Canada’s already robust transportation system.”

A spokesman for Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.  said the company was reviewing the announcement and that it has a “strong” set of existing safety measures it discloses to the federal government.

Jim Feeny, a spokesman from Canadian National Railway Co. said that its position on safety disclosure “largely aligns” with the federal government’s proposals, but it was also reviewing the announced measures.

The new rules announced Friday will include amendments to legislation to require DOT-111 tank cars to abide by new standards such as thicker steel walls and better top protection to reduce spills in a derailment.

The ministry will also require the country’s short-line railroads to upgrade their safety-management disclosure by providing Transport Canada with the same reports on safety risks that the country’s major rails provide. The proposal affects 35 railways in Canada, Transport Canada said.

Transport Canada is also requesting that Canada-based railroads provide measurable data such as maintenance and repair records to the federal government that could better address safety risks before they occur.

Friday’s measures follow a series of steps Ms. Raitt announced in April to improve rail transport in response to recommendations made by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada after its investigation of last year’s Lac-Mégantic tragedy.

The federal government also ordered older DOT-111 tank cars to be phased out or retrofitted in three years, and added a requirement that all crude oil shipments include emergency response plans.

It is unclear how many DOT-111 cars operate in Canada, but the Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association says that there are 228,000 general-purpose tank cars in service in the U.S. known as DOT-111s.

The U.S. has adopted tougher classification standards for shipping crude-by-rail that but hasn’t curbed the use of older DOT-111 tank cars on the country’s tracks despite last year’s deadly accident in Quebec and more recently, a fiery derailment in Lynchberg, Va.