Speed limit lowered after defect that could cause derailment found
By Brian Nearing | December 15, 2014
Oil tanker and freight cars at the Port of Albany are seen from Corning Tower Monday afternoon, Dec. 15, 2014, in Albany, N.Y. Speed limits for trains were lowered on tracks near a large industrial park near Voorheesville that are commonly used by massive trains carrying flammable crude oil after state and federal safety inspectors found a faulty switch that could have caused a derailment. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
Trains were slowed on tracks last week near a large Albany County industrial park — where passing trains routinely carry dozens of tankers filled with flammable crude oil — after state and federal safety inspectors found a faulty switch that could have caused a derailment.
That switch, which feeds trains into the 550-acre Northeast Industrial Park, was examined Dec. 9 as part of the eighth statewide inspection of oil trains and tracks ordered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in response to safety concerns about a surge of crude oil shipments through New York from the Bakken fields of North Dakota.
The switch is about three miles north of the village of Voorheesville and feeds trains into the park, which itself contains about 15 miles of tracks.
“We have sent inspection crews to check rail tracks and crude oil cars across New York and we continue to find critical safety defects that put New Yorkers at risk,” the governor said in a statement issued Monday. “We will remain vigilant and will continue to use all available resources to ensure that crude oil transporters are held to the highest safety standards.”
In the Capital Region, the speed limit on the CSX-owned track around the switch was lowered from 50 mph to 25 mph last week after inspectors from the state Transportation Department and Federal Railroad Administration found the switch was too narrow by just an eighth of an inch, said DOT spokesman Beau Duffy.
The switch could have been damaged by passing trains, or could cause a train to derail, he said. Duffy said the switch was repaired and higher speed limits have been restored.
The park is owned and managed by the Schenectady-based Galesi Group. A spokeswoman for company Chief Operating Officer David Buicko said the company was not made aware of the switch issue and learned of it from a Times Union reporter.
“We are committed to strong, ongoing and long-term coordination with state and local officials and will continue our aggressive program of inspection and maintenance of the entire CSX network,” said CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle. “Upon being made aware of the defect, CSX implemented a speed reduction in that area. The switch was repaired over the weekend and the speed restriction has been lifted.”
Cuomo’s office announced that state and federal inspectors examined about 95 miles of track — from Schenectady to Selkirk, and from Albany to Whitehall in the Capital Region, as well as from Plattsburgh to the Canadian border in the North Country.
In addition to the faulty switch, inspectors found about 30 violations on tracks, including “critical problems” like missing bolts from a rail joint and an “insecure switch point heel.”
Inspectors at the Canadian Pacific Railway-owned Kenwood yard at the Port of Albany also examined 478 DOT-111 tanker rail cars, which are commonly used to haul Bakken crude. Found were 16 “non-critical defects,” including worn brake shoes, defective wheels and other issues.
Non-critical rail defects must be repaired within 30 days. Non-critical tank car defects must be fixed before the train departs the yard.
Other inspections were done at rail yards and tanker cars in western New York, uncovering another five “critical defects,” including two broken rails at the Dunkirk and Buffalo-Frontier rail yard, and DOT-111s with defective brakes, a cracked weld and missing bolts.
Repost from The Missoulian [Editor: Significant quote: “the cars were rigged with double shelf couplers designed to prevent individual cars from detaching and potentially causing punctures. ‘This safety feature of the tank cars worked properly, resulting in all 30 cars rolling on their side(s), as designed,’ Lewis said in a written statement.”
Here is more about double shelf couplers. And note p. 23 of a 2010 Transport Canada study which found that “Double shelf couplers also have disadvantages: sometimes string of ’empty’ tank cars derail.” – RS]
Montana Rail Link: Trains collide, tank cars derail in Missoula
By Kim Briggeman, December 16, 2014
The first of 30 derailed tank cars in the Missoula rail yard is put back on the tracks Tuesday morning by a Montana Rail Link crew. The stationary tank cars were rerailed after being hit by a loaded car at low speed. Michael Gallacher
An early Tuesday morning train collision in the Missoula rail yard resulted in the derailment of 30 empty tank cars but no injuries or spills.
Montana Rail Link officials said the accident occurred about 4 a.m. when a rail car loaded with company scrap metal made low-speed contact with a stationary empty tank car coupled to 29 others.
MRL spokesman Jim Lewis said the cars were rigged with double shelf couplers designed to prevent individual cars from detaching and potentially causing punctures.
“This safety feature of the tank cars worked properly, resulting in all 30 cars rolling on their side(s), as designed,” Lewis said in a written statement.
Lewis said there was minimal equipment damage. The loaded car did not derail and was moved from the site.
Crews with heavy equipment started putting the tank cars back on track before noon and worked until 8 p.m. They’ll resume Wednesday morning, Lewis said.
Mainline service was not interrupted, and the cause of the incident is under investigation.
MRL has released no further word on its investigation into a collision east of Missoula near the mouth of the Blackfoot River on Nov. 13. That crash resulted in the derailment of three locomotives and 10 empty grain cars.
Both engineers in one locomotive were hospitalized and released. The shells of the grain cars remain along the tracks by a trestle below the former Milltown Dam as salvage work continues.
MRL report cites ‘track geometry’ issues in July derailment of Boeing fuselages
By Kim Briggeman, November 6, 2014
A raft floats by Boeing 737 fuselages on the Clark Fork River during recovery efforts in July. TOM BAUER, Missoulian
Montana Rail Link has ruled out human error as the cause of a July 3 train derailment that destroyed six Seattle area-bound Boeing 737 fuselages along the Clark Fork River in Mineral County.
Simulations performed by a contractor hired by MRL were inconclusive, but company spokesman Jim Lewis said Wednesday they “suggest a track geometry issue.”
Railroads are required to conduct an investigation after derailments and file their findings with the Federal Railroad Administration.
An FRA spokesman said Wednesday the agency’s own investigation of the July wreck is ongoing and could take anywhere from two months to a year. The report by the railroad company is used as “another piece of evidence,” Mike Booth said.
The 19-car derailment occurred in a remote stretch a mile above the mouth of Fish Creek on the south bank of the Clark Fork River. The ruined fuselages were shipped a few miles downstream to a landing at Rivulet, where they were scrapped out later in July.
The initial investigation by Montana Rail Link, the Missoula-based railroad operated by industrialist Dennis Washington’s Washington Cos., found no evidence of operator error either on the train or in the loading or stacking of the train cars.
The fuselages themselves were shipped from Wichita, Kansas, where they’re fabricated by Spirit AeroSystems.
Safety and accident prevention have always been a top priority of Montana Rail Link, Lewis said.
“We have numerous employee safety programs, as well as rigorous track inspection policies,” he said. “In addition, we invest millions of dollars in track maintenance annually to operate the safest railroad possible.”
Boeing continues to use the Wichita company as its sole supplier of fuselages, sending the blue-green plane shells more than 1,500 miles to Renton, Washington. Almost half the route follows BNSF and MRL tracks in southern Montana.
Parts of Boeing 777 and 747 hulls were also involved in the wreck but were undamaged. They were sent on their way to a separate plant in Everett, Washington.
The smaller 737s are in unprecedented demand. Two assembly lines in Renton each completes a 737 roughly every working day, a total of 42 a month. Boeing has announced it will open another line next year in the same plant to build the 737 Max, upping the total capacity to 60 a month.
Repost from The Huffington Post [Editor: This is a must read, a comprehensive summary by a visionary and influential old-timer. – RS]
Unsafe and Unnecessary Oil Trains Threaten 25 Million Americans
By Ralph Nader, 12/15/2014
Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, lawyer and author
Back in 1991 the National Transportation Safety Board first identified oil trains as unsafe — the tank cars, specifically ones called DOT-111s, were too thin and punctured too easily, making transport of flammable liquids like oil unreasonably dangerous. As bad as this might sound, at the very least there was not a lot of oil being carried on the rails in 1991.
Now, in the midst of a North American oil boom, oil companies are using fracking and tar sands mining to produce crude in remote areas of the U.S. and Canada. To get the crude to refineries on the coasts the oil industry is ramping up transport by oil trains. In 2008, 9,500 crude oil tank cars moved on US rails. In 2013 the number was more than 400,000! With this rapid growth comes a looming threat to public safety and the environment. No one — not federal regulators or local firefighters — are prepared for oil train derailments, spills and explosions.
Unfortunately, the rapid increase in oil trains has already meant many more oil train disasters. Railroads spilled more oil in 2013 than in the previous 40 years combined.
Trains are the most efficient way to move freight and people. This is why train tracks run through our cities and towns. Our rail system was never designed to move hazardous materials, however; if it was, train tracks would not run next to schools and under football stadiums.
Last summer, environmental watchdog group ForestEthics released a map of North America that shows probable oil train routes. Using Google, anyone can check to see if their home or office is near an oil train route. (Try it out here.)
ForestEthics used census data to calculate that more than 25 million Americans live in the oil train blast zone (that being the one-mile evacuation area in the case of a derailment and fire.) This is clearly a risk not worth taking — oil trains are the Pintos of the rails. Most of these trains are a mile long, pulling 100-plus tank cars carrying more than 3 million gallons of explosive crude. Two-thirds of the tank cars used to carry crude oil today were considered a “substantial danger to life, property, and the environment” by federal rail safety officials back in 1991.
The remaining one-third of the tank cars are not much better — these more “modern” cars are tested at 14 to 15 mph, but the average derailment speed for heavy freight trains is 24 mph. And it was the most “modern” tank cars that infamously derailed, caught fire, exploded and poisoned the river in Lynchburg, Virginia last May. Other derailments and explosions in North Dakota and Alabama made national news in 2014.
The most alarming demonstration of the threat posed by these trains happened in Quebec in July 2013 — an oil train derailed and exploded in the City of Lac Megantic, killing 47 people and burning a quarter of the city to the ground. The fire burned uncontrollably, flowing through the city, into and then out of sewers, and into the nearby river. Firefighters from across the region responded, but an oil fire cannot be fought with water, and exceptionally few fire departments have enough foam flame retardant to control a fire from even a single 30,000 gallon tank car, much less the millions of gallons on an oil train.
Given the damage already done and the threat presented, Canada immediately banned the oldest of these rail cars and mandated a three-year phase-out of the DOT-111s. More needs to be done, but this is a solid first step. Of course, we share the North American rail network — right now those banned trains from Canada may very well be transporting oil through your home town while the Department of Transportation dallies.
The immense public risk these oil trains pose is starting to gain the attention it deserves, but not yet the response. Last summer, the U.S. federal government began the process of writing new safety regulations. Industry has weighed in heavily to protect its interest in keeping these trains rolling. The Department of Transportation, disturbingly, seems to be catering to industry’s needs.
The current draft rules are deeply flawed and would have little positive impact on safety. They leave the most dangerous cars in service for years. Worse yet, the oil industry would get to more than double its tank car fleet before being required to decommission any of the older, more dangerous DOT-111s.
We need an immediate ban on the most dangerous tank cars. We also need to slow these trains down; slower trains mean fewer accidents, and fewer spills and explosions when they do derail. The public and local fire fighters must be notified about train routes and schedules, and every oil train needs a comprehensive emergency response plan for accidents involving explosive Bakken crude and toxic tar sands. In addition, regulations must require adequate insurance. This is the least we could expect from Secretary Anthony Foxx, who travels a lot around the country, and the Department of Transportation.
So far, Secretary Foxx is protecting the oil industry, not ordinary Americans. In fact, Secretary Foxx is meeting with Canadian officials this Thursday, December 18, to discuss oil-by-rail. It is doubtful, considering Canada’s strong first step, that he will be trying to persuade them to adopt even stronger regulations. Will Secretary Foxx ask them to weaken what they have done and put more lives at risk? Time will tell. He has the power, and the mandate, to remove the most dangerous rail cars to protect public safety but he appears to be heading in the opposite direction. Earlier this month ForestEthics and the Sierra Club, represented by EarthJustice, filed a lawsuit against the DOT to require them to fulfill this duty.
Secretary Foxx no doubt has a parade of corporate executives wooing him for lax or no oversight. But he certainly doesn’t want to have a Lac Megantic-type disaster in the U.S. on his watch. It is more possible now than ever before, given the massive increase in oil-by-rail traffic.
Pipelines, such as the Keystone XL, are not the answer either. (Keystone oil would be routed for export to other countries from Gulf ports.) Pipelines can also leak and result in massive damage to the environment as we have seen in the Kalamazoo, MI spill by the Enbridge Corporation. Three years later, $1.2 billion spent, and the “clean up” is still ongoing.
Here’s the reality — we don’t need new pipelines and we don’t need oil by rail. This is “extreme oil,” and if we can’t transport it safely, we can and must say no. Secretary Foxx needs to help make sure 25 million people living in the blastzone are safe and that means significant regulations and restrictions on potentially catastrophic oil rail cars.
Rather than choosing either of these destructive options, we are fortunate to be able to choose safe, affordable cleaner energy and more efficient energy products, such as vehicles and furnaces, instead. That is the future and it is not a distant future — it’s happening right now.
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