Tag Archives: explosion

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire

Cleanup, investigation continue at W.Va. derailment site

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle

Cleanup, investigation continue at W.Va. derailment site

By Pam Ramsey, Associated Press, February 22, 2015 2:19pm

BOOMER, W.Va. (AP) — A full-scale federal investigation of an oil train derailment in southern West Virginia has begun as work continues to remove the overturned tank cars from the site, federal officials said Sunday.

A fire sparked by the Feb. 16 derailment in Mount Carbon prevented investigators from gaining full access to the crash scene until this weekend. Foul winter weather also has hampered the investigation. As of Sunday, some cars had been removed from the site but many remained.

“The folks at the site of the derailment are making a lot of progress. It has absolutely been difficult. It is a great testament to them that we have no one injured up there despite the ice and snow, the cold and dampness,” Sarah Feinberg, acting administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration Administrator, said Sunday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Investigators have not determined what caused 27 cars of the 109-car CSX train to go off the tracks during a snowstorm. Feinberg said the investigation is in an early stage and the railroad agency will examine all elements, including weather, the track and the operation of the train.

“Some of the things we want to look are still under the cars in the pileup,” Robert Lauby, the railroad agency’s chief safety officer, told The AP.

Investigators have reviewed video from cameras on the locomotives’ front and rear, along with video from another train that passed the CSX train minutes before the derailment. The train’s data recorder also has been recovered.

“Now we can begin work on the forensic investigation,” Feinberg said.

The investigation will include inspecting the damaged tank cars, recovering damaged rail and reviewing maintenance and inspection records, the U.S. Department of Transportation said Sunday in a news release.

The oil involved in the derailment is being tested by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to determine its gas content, volatility and tank car performance. Investigators also want to determine whether the oil’s classification complied with federal hazardous material regulations, the DOT said.

Derailment investigations can take several days to a couple of weeks, Feinberg said.

The train was carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude when it derailed. As of Sunday afternoon, response teams had recovered 152,000 gallons from tank cars, multiple agencies responding to the derailment said in a news release.

“Some cars still have to be righted,” Skip Elliott, CSX vice president of public safety, health and environment said Sunday at a multiagency media briefing in Boomer, across the Kanawha River from the derailment site.

The derailment shot fireballs into the sky, leaked oil into a Kanawha River tributary, burned down a house nearby and forced nearby water treatment plants to temporarily shut down. Containment booms have been deployed to lessen the environmental impact.

A small amount of oil was detected in the river. Water and air monitoring in the area is continuing, Dennis Matlock, on-scene coordinator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said at the briefing.

CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Fire, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Tank car design

POPULAR MECHANICS: We Need Better Oil-Carrying Train Cars Now

Repost from Popular Mechanics

Why We Need Better Oil-Carrying Train Cars Now

U.S. has seen a 400 percent increase in crude oil transportation. So why don’t we have rail cars that are designed to carry it?

By William Herkewitz, Feb 20, 2015 @ 9:06 AM
The Register-Herald, Chris Jackson

On Monday, a train hauling 100 tankers of crude oil derailed in West Virginia. The violent crash punctured several of the tankers. Eventually 19 were engulfed in flames. Now, more questions are swirling about whether these tankers are safe enough to carry crude.

Old cars, new crude

Initially, the crash had many pointing to a seemingly similar accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in 2013, in which crude oil tankers also ignited following a derailment. In the Quebecois crash, many of the tanker cars involved were DOT-111s—a train car not designed to transport flammable crude oil, but that regularly does so on North American rail lines.

Since 2005, the U.S. has seen a 400 percent increase in crude oil transportation

In 2009, four years before the Quebecois crash, the DOT-111 had been flagged by U.S. National Transportation Safety Board as inadequate to carry ethanol and crude oil, chiefly because of its inability to prevent a puncture in the event of a crash. But the NTSB’s recommendations are not legally binding anywhere in North America. More than 100,000 DOT-111s were transporting crude across American and Canadian rails when the Quebec accident occurred, and still are today.

View image on Twitter
TWITTER – The Hill ✔ @thehill Fires are still burning three days after the West Virginia oil train crash: http://ow.ly/Jlmlk 12:40 PM – 19 Feb 2015

The CSX Corporation, the railway company that owns Monday’s crashed tankers, was quick to point out that the tankers in use in the West Virginia crash were not DOT-111s, but CPC-1232s. But the fact is that a CPC-1232 tanker is just a reinforced, purportedly tougher version of the DOT-111—a redesign put in place after the NTSB’s 2009 warning. The biggest difference between the DOT-111 and the CPC-1232 is that the head shields (the puncture-prone ends of the cylindrical tankers) are more heavily protected.

Enough shielding?

These CPC-1232s are being increasingly used for crude oil transportation, and are planned to eventually phase out the older DOT-111 models. But as the West Virginia accident is shows, the CPC-1232 is also far from disaster-proof.

America needs a crude oil tanker that will not puncture in a crash

Why? Although the CPC-1232 boasts sturdier head shields, both it and the DOT-111 suffer from a much more basic problem: they simply aren’t thick enough overall. Both train cars have a steel shell that measures 7/16 inch thick. That width falls short of the 9/16 inch steel shell that U.S. regulators say would significantly reduce the likelihood of puncture during a derailment. (Granted, the regulators came to this conclusion in January 2014—long after the CPC-1232 redesign.)

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TWITTER – Matt Heckel @WSAZmattheckel Another explosion just happened here at the train derailment: 8:29 PM – 16 Feb 2015

A real crude oil tanker

Rather than relying on insufficiently beefed-up old-style tankers — which, when first created, were not designed for crude oil anyway — America needs a crude oil tanker that will not puncture in a crash. It’s more important now than ever: Since 2005, thanks to a glut of oil production, the U.S. has seen a 400 percent increase in crude oil transportation. And that number looks to be rising.

Derailments are rare, and railroad techs and transporters do an impressive job of almost always avoiding them. But they will never be completely unavoidable.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation, Explosion, Fire, Train speed

AP: Most residents return to homes near W.Va. train derailment – 5 homes remain under evacuation order

Repost from ABC News, AP

Most residents return to homes near W.Va. train derailment

Feb 20, 1:01 PM EST

MOUNT CARBON, W.Va. (AP) — Most residents were allowed to return to their homes Friday along a road where an oil train derailed in southern West Virginia.

State public safety agency spokesman Lawrence Messina said the last of the small fires were out at the scene of Monday’s fiery crash in Mount Carbon.

One lane of the state highway nearby reopened Friday. Because of the presence of heavy equipment trucks responding to the crash site, traffic was moving slowly.

About 225 people live in 100 homes in the area of the crash along the road. A statement from multiple agencies responding to the derailment said residents of five homes adjacent to the site remained under an evacuation order. Authorities will assess those properties to determine when it becomes safe for those residents to return.

Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Kevin Thompson said frigid weather continues to hamper crews trying to transfer oil out of wrecked tanker cars before the cars are removed. Hydraulic pumps were being used Friday to pump out the oil. Other equipment froze Thursday night in subzero weather conditions, he said.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the derailment of the train carrying 3 million gallons of crude from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields to an oil-shipping depot in Yorktown, Virginia. Speed doesn’t appear to have been a factor, Federal Railroad Administration acting administrator Sarah Feinberg said Thursday.

The crash shot fireballs into the sky, destroyed a house, leaked oil into a Kanawha River tributary and forced nearby water treatment plants to temporarily shut down.

Twenty-seven of the 107 tank cars on the CSX train derailed, and 19 of those were involved in the fires.

CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Lynchburg VA, Rivers

Lynchburg Editorial: A sense of déjà vu all over again

Repost from The Lynchburg News & Advance

A Sense of Déjà Vu All Over Again

By The Editorial Board, Thursday, February 19, 2015 6:00 am
WVa Train Derailment
Tanker cars carrying Bakken shale crude oil burn Monday after a derailment in West Virginia. The Associated Press

Monday afternoon, as Central Virginia was bracing for its first blast of winter weather, an event Lynchburgers are all too familiar with was unfolding in the tiny town of Mount Carbon, W.Va.

Situated on the Kanawha River in the southcentral part of the state, there are only 428 people in the town, at least according to the 2010 U.S. Census. But Monday, Mount Carbon became a dateline known across the country.

You see, a CSX rail line passes through Mount Carbon — and Clifton Forge, Covington, Lynchburg, Richmond and Williamsburg — with a final destination of Yorktown. And on this rail line travel four to six trains each week, pulling hundreds of tanker cars headed to the Plains Marketing transfer terminal in Yorktown. In each one of those tanker cars? More than 30,000 gallons of Bakken shale crude oil from North Dakota.

On Monday, one of those CSX train derailed. In a huge explosion, more than 20 tanker cars caught fire. A massive fireball shot into the sky, burning one house to its foundation. Oil leaked into the Kanawha River, threatening the water supply of thousands of West Virginians.

It was eerily reminiscent of April 30, 2014, when another CSX oil train derailed on the banks of the James River in downtown Lynchburg, just yards away from the Depot Grille restaurant and the Amazement Square children’s museum. More than a dozen tankers jumped the track, and three landed in the James. One ruptured and erupted into flames, with up to 31,000 gallons of oil either burning or flowing into the river.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is on the scene today in Mount Carbon, investigated the Lynchburg derailment but has still to determine its official cause. A defect in the track near the site of the derailment had been detected April 29, but NTSB officials don’t know if it played a role in the derailment.

In the wake of the Lynchburg derailment, the White House and Transportation Department fast-tracked new regulations and safety standards for trains carrying Bakken crude and for the tanker cars used. Rail companies were told to alert local governments when hazardous shipments would be coming through their communities, as well as exactly what those shipments were. Old, single-hulled tankers were to be phased out and replaced by new, double-hulled cars designed to be safer and puncture-proof. But in Mount Carbon as in Lynchburg, the cars that ruptured and caught fire were the newer models.

The upshot is simple. Domestically produced crude is fueling an energy revolution in the United States, but federal regulators and the rail industry must make its transport as safe as possible, regardless of the cost. After near-miss disasters in Lynchburg and now Mount Carbon, we may not be so fortunate the next time.