Tag Archives: explosion

Bakken Crude, Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Lac-Mégantic, Oil Industry, Rail industry, Train braking systems

‘Weak safety culture’ faulted in fatal Quebec train derailment, fire

Repost from McClatchy DC
[Editor: This report by Curtis Tate is one of many reports on the Canadian investigation into the Lac-Megantic derailment and explosion.  See also Desmogblog on ‘Cost cutting,’ this CNN report, ’18 Errors‘, and Business Week, ‘Law Firms react.’  – RS]

‘Weak safety culture’ faulted in fatal Quebec train derailment, fire

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, August 19, 2014
Aerial view of charred freight train in Lac-Megantic in Quebec, Canada. | TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD OF CANADA

CHICAGO — Canadian safety investigators on Tuesday blamed a “weak safety culture” and inadequate government oversight for a crude oil train derailment last year in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people.

In its nearly 200-page report, issued more than 13 months after the deadly crash, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board identified 18 contributing factors.

“Take any one of them out of the equation,” said Wendy Tadros, the board’s chairman, “and the accident may not have happened.”

Among other factors, the investigation found that the train’s sole engineer failed to apply a sufficient number of handbrakes after parking the train on a descending grade several miles from Lac-Megantic, and leaving it unattended for the night.

The engineer applied handbrakes to the train’s five locomotives and two other cars, but investigators concluded that he did not set handbrakes on any of the train’s 72 tank cars loaded with 2 million gallons of Bakken crude oil.

Investigators said the engineer should have set at least 17 handbrakes. Instead, he relied on another braking system in the lead locomotive to hold the train in place. But after local residents reported a fire on the locomotive later that night, firefighters shut the locomotive off, following instructions given by another railroad employee.

Not long after, the train began its runaway descent, reaching a top speed of 65 mph. The train derailed in the center of Lac-Megantic at a point where the maximum allowable speed was 15 mph.

Investigators said that the derailment caused 59 of the 63 tank cars that derailed to puncture, releasing 1.6 million gallons of flammable crude oil into the town, much of which burned. In addition to the 47 fatalities, 2,000 people were evacuated, and 40 buildings and 53 vehicles were destroyed.

The train’s engineer and two other railroad employees are set to go on trial next month. But Tadros noted that the investigation revealed “more than handbrakes, or what the engineer did or didn’t do.”

“Experience has taught us that even the most well-trained and motivated employees make mistakes,” she said.

The Quebec derailment set in motion regulatory changes on both sides of the border to improve the safety of trains carrying crude oil. Sixteen major derailments involving either crude oil or ethanol have occurred since 2006, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

Tadros said the railroad relied on its employees to follow the rules and that regulators relied on the railroads to enforce their own rules. But she said that a complex system requires more attention to safety.

“It’s not enough for a company to have a safety management system on paper,” she said. “It has to work.”

Bakken Crude, Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Lac-Mégantic, Oil Industry, Rail industry, Train braking systems

Report Reveals Cost Cutting Measures At Heart Of Lac-Megantic Oil Train Disaster

Repost from Desmogblog
[Editor: See also this nicely-bulleted summary of the TSB Report: Lac-Mégantic derailment: Anatomy of a disaster, by Kim Mackrael, The Globe and Mail.  – RS]

Report Reveals Cost Cutting Measures At Heart Of Lac-Megantic Oil Train Disaster

2014-08-19, by Justin Mikulka

Today the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) released its final report on the July 6th, 2013 train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The report produced a strong reaction from Keith Stewart, Greenpeace Canada’s Climate and Energy Campaign coordinator.

“This report is a searing indictment of Transport Canada’s failure to protect the public from a company that they knew was cutting corners on safety despite the fact that it was carrying increasing amounts of hazardous cargo. This lax approach to safety has allowed the unsafe transport of oil by rail to continue to grow even after the Lac Megantic disaster. It is time for the federal government to finally put community safety ahead of oil and rail company profits or we will see more tragedies, Stewart said.”

Throughout the report there is ample evidence to support Stewart’s position and plenty to show why the people of Lac-Megantic want the CEO of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), the rail company responsible for the accident, held accountable in place of the engineer and other low level employees currently facing charges.

At the press conference for the release of the report the TSB representatives often noted that they had found 18 factors that contributed to the actual crash and they were not willing to assign blame to anyone, claiming that wasn’t their role.

But several critical factors stand out and they are the result of MMA putting profits ahead of safety and Transport Canada (TC), the Canadian regulators responsible for overseeing rail safety, failing to do its job.

Engine Fire

The issue that set the whole chain of events into motion on July 6th was an engine fire in the unattended locomotive. As usual the engineer had left the train unattended with one locomotive running while shutting off the others. This locomotive supplied power to the air braking system. The locomotive caught on fire, the fire department was called and they put out the fire and shut off the locomotive in the process.

Today’s TSB report notes that the fire was due to an improper repair of a cam bearing. Instead of doing a costly replacement, the cam bearing was repaired with epoxy (polymeric material).  As the report states:

This temporary repair had been performed using a polymeric material, which did not have the strength and durability required for this use.

Braking Failure

Once the locomotive was shut down due to the fire, it could no longer power the air brake system.

As previously reported on DeSmogBlog, this type of system has been described as “19th century technology” by a rail safety expert at the Federal Railroad Administration but as a whole the rail industry has not upgraded to newer technologies because of the costs involved.

Without power to the air braking system, the braking system lost pressure over time and the train began to roll towards Lac-Megantic.

This wouldn’t have been an issue if the proper number of handbrakes had been applied. But the engineer had not applied enough handbrakes because he had not performed the hand brake effectiveness test properly and had left the locomotive air brakes on while conducting the test. The report notes the lack of training and oversight for that particular locomotive engineer (LE).

Furthermore, the LE was never tested on the procedures for performing a hand brake effectiveness test, nor did the company’s Operational Tests and Inspections (OTIS) Program confirm that hand brake effectiveness tests were being conducted correctly.

The report also notes that when MMA employees were tested for safety knowledge, they could take the tests home.

Requalification typically consisted of 1 day to complete the exam, and did not always involve classroom training. On many occasions, employees would take the exam home for completion.

However, in this case, there were not even questions on the test on this critical subject.

They did not have questions on the hand brake effectiveness test, the conditions requiring application of more than the minimum number of hand brakes, nor the stipulation that air brakes cannot be relied upon to prevent an undesired movement.

And they found this had been the situation since before the oil trains starting running.

Since 2009, no employee had been tested on CROR 112(b), which targeted the hand brake effectiveness test. In 2012, U.S. employees had been tested twice on that rule; both tests had resulted in a “Failure”.

Single Operator Risks

The report goes into detail about how MMA came to be operating oil trains with only one crew member. And while ultimately the regulators failed, some did raise flags about this. When MMA initially sought to move to single person train operations (SPTO) from the standard two person crew, it was noted that there were significant issues with their operations.

In July 2009, TC expressed a number of concerns that centred on deficiencies in MMA operations, including lack of consultation with employees in doing risk assessments, problems managing equipment, problems with remote-control operations, issues with rules compliance, issues with fatigue management, and a lack of investment in infrastructure maintenance.

Additionally the report notes that Transport Canada’s Quebec office expressed specific concerns in 2010.

TC Quebec Region reiterated its concern about MMA’s suitability as an SPTO candidate.

And yet despite the concerns and MMA’s poor track record, in 2012 they were allowed to start running single crew trains despite TC Quebec still expressing concern.

In February 2012, TC met with MMA and the RAC. TC advised MMA that TC did not approve SPTO. MMA only needed to comply with all applicable rules and regulations. TC Quebec Region remained concerned about the safety of SPTO on MMA.

Unsurprisingly, the additional training for employees who would be operating trains on their own was almost non-existent. And it was focused on the fact that for safety purposes, engineers were allowed to stop the trains and take naps.

The actual SPTO training for several LEs, including the accident LE, consisted of a short briefing in a manager’s office on the need to report to the RTC every 30 minutes, on the allowance for power naps, and on the need to bring the train to a stop to write clearances.

This report is a clear indictment of a system that allows for corporate profit over public safety. However, what also is clear from today’s press conference and from the regulatory situation in the United States is that nothing of significance has changed regarding the movement of oil by rail in the US and Canada.

A poorly maintained locomotive can still be left running and unattended. There still is no formal regulation on how many hand brakes need to be applied to secure a train.

Single person crews are still allowed and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the company moving the most oil-by-rail in the U.S., is working to implement this as a practice despite the objections of the employees.

In short, the corporate profit before public safety approach is still standard operating procedure. And the oil trains are expected to return to the tracks through Lac-Megantic within a year.


Train tracks where the ill-fated train was parked. (c) Justin Mikulka.

Image Credit: Transportation Safety Board via flickr.

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232 standard, Crude By Rail, DOT-111

Outdated tank cars carry explosive crude in NY; feds seek refit

Repost from lohud.com, the Journal News
[Editor: Check out the map of rail routes in NY State showing schools, hospitals and shopping centers along the oil train tracks.  (Zoom in on the area about 35 miles north of New York City.)  – RS]

Outdated tankers carry explosive crude; feds seek refit

Khurram Saeed, August 16, 2014

When you see an oil train roll by, you’re probably looking at a DOT-111 tank car.

The DOT-111s are an industry workhorse. They’ve been around for decades and make up 68 percent of the 335,000 tank cars in active use.

Until recently, the non-pressurized cars weren’t used to haul oil. That changed with the Bakken oil boom and when rail became the modern-day pipelines.

The federal government now wants the industry to retrofit or replace them over the next two years in the name of safety. Currently, 100,000 DOT-111s move crude oil and ethanol but only 20,000 meet the latest safety standards, making the older models susceptible to ripping open in a derailment or collision.

Railroads like CSX own fewer than 1 percent of the tank cars; most are owned by the oil industry and leasing firms, the Association of American Railroads says.

The U.S. Department of Transportation wants new tank cars to have thicker outer shells, thermal protection, a full-height head shield, rollover safeguards for top fittings and removable handles on valves that protrude from the bottom of the cars to reduce the risk of opening in an accident.

Eric de Place, a policy director at Seattle-based think tank Sightline Institute, said the valves, which are used to drain fluid, likely would remain even though federal investigators have found they can shear off or open in derailments, causing the car’s contents to spill and possibly catch fire.

“Generally speaking, the oil producers — abetted by the oil shippers and the railroads themselves — have encouraged a go-slow approach to upgrading safety standards,” de Place wrote in an email. “They are principally concerned that requirements to use new tank cars or to retrofit existing ones would cost money and reduce the fleet available to move oil in the near term.”

Phil Musegaas, Hudson River program director for Riverkeeper, said the rules do not go “nearly far enough” to protect the public and the environment, and include loopholes. He said the safer tank cars would only have to be used on trains that have 20 or more rail cars hauling flammable liquids.

“If they don’t like these safety standards, they can continue to ship oil in mixed trains with 19 older DOT-111s on them,” Musegaas said. “It doesn’t take 20 of these cars to cause a horrific accident.”

Riverkeeper and other environmental groups have called on the DOT to ban use of the tank cars immediately, citing an imminent risk to the public.

“How we ship this oil can be figured out later,” Musegaas said. “We need to protect communities that live near these oil trains.”

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has been calling for stricter standards for the “dangerous, crude-carrying” DOT-111s since last year.

“These much-needed regulations will phase out the aged and explosion-prone DOT-111 tanker cars that are hauling endless streams of highly flammable crude oil through Rockland and Westchester counties and lead to commonsense safety measures — like speed limits, new braking controls and standards for a safer tank car — that will further safeguard local communities,” Schumer said.

A newer-model tank car known as the CPC-1232 features many of the higher standards the DOT is seeking but they are not invincible. On April 30, a 105-car CSX oil train derailed in Lynchburg, Va.  Several of the 17 tank cars that went off the track fell into the James River, and a CPC-1232 spilled about 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil, causing a massive fire. No one was injured.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which raised issues about the DOT-111s several years ago, said it has concerns about the newer tank cars.

“We have found that the 1232 is also not as robust as is needed,” NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Take Action

Bainbridge Island Review Guest Opinion: Why I blockaded an oil train

Repost from the Bainbridge Island Review

GUEST OPINION: Why I blockaded an oil train

BY ANNETTE KLAPSTEIN, August 16, 2014

On Monday, July 28, I joined Jan Woodruff of Anacortes and Adam Gaya of Seattle in locking ourselves to barrels full of concrete on the rail spur into the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes in order to keep an oil train from leaving the refinery.

Why would a 62-year-old retired lawyer and long-time resident of Bainbridge Island take such a drastic action?

The short answer is: I could not do otherwise.

This kind of resistance may seem extreme, but these are extreme times — these oil trains present an imminent threat to the lives and safety of tens of thousands of our friends and neighbors, and our politicians have done a woefully inadequate job of addressing this.

The puncture-prone DOT-111 tanker cars were deemed “inadequate” by federal authorities more than 20 years ago. Yet every week, more than a dozen of these trains travel through downtown Seattle to refineries including Tesoro.

These trains are carrying Bakken shale crude, which the DOT has warned is unusually volatile and can catch fire at temperatures as low as 75 degrees F!

There have been very frequent derailments, including one in Seattle last week (headed for the Tesoro refinery), which occurred despite a train speed of only 5 miles per hour. Had it been going much faster, the results would likely have been catastrophic.

There have been five explosions and massive fires associated with derailments within the past year, the worst being at Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where a derailment caused a massive explosion, leveling several city blocks and vaporizing 47 people. If this happens in Seattle near the sports stadiums during a Seahawks or Mariners game, tens of thousands of people will die a horrific death.

Tesoro had a terrible safety record even before the huge increase in oil-by-rail.

After its tragic 2010 fire, which killed seven workers, it was found to have committed 39 “willful” and five “serious” violations of safety regulations.

Tesoro is planning to build the massive Tesoro Savage Vancouver Oil Terminal, a project so fraught with potential problems that the Vancouver City Council has asked Governor Inslee to reject it.

The United States Supreme Court, in its questionable wisdom, has declared corporations to be “persons” with human rights. If Tesoro and the other oil companies trying to turn our beautiful state of Washington into the Bakken shale oil dealer to the world are “persons” it is terribly clear to me what sort of “persons” they are: psychopaths — lacking all conscience or empathy. If any other group of people exposed us to such risks, they’d be locked up as the criminals they are. Instead, we get cheap bromides about “safe fracking,” while wells across the country are poisoned and billions of gallons of water in drought-stricken California are ruined: all for cheap dirty energy, in an era when the ravages of climate change are becoming increasingly visible.

The fires in Washington last week were one small sample of ominous things to come. In under a week of the official fire season, more area was burned than in any full year of the past decade. If we do not take drastic measures to address climate change immediately, our children and grandchildren will have to live through the collapse of our civilization within decades. I cannot live with that on my conscience.

And what has our political leadership offered to address these issues? Feeble and half-hearted actions such as the federal plan to “phase out” the most unsafe oil-by-rail cars over the next four years.

In four years we are certain to have more disasters and more deaths — such a plan is criminally negligent and absolutely unacceptable.

We need a total ban on all shipment of Bakken crude by rail NOW, and a complete halt to the development of any new oil terminals in the Pacific Northwest.

The oil companies have no sense of responsibility to anything but their bottom lines. Companies that make decisions like this have no place doing business on our increasingly fragile planet, and we the people of the state of Washington have to draw the line.

Annette Klapstein is a Bainbridge Island resident and a retired attorney who worked for the Puyallup Indian Tribe for 21 years, primarily on fisheries issues.