By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, December 6, 2015
California Reps push rail safety amendments, vote no on gutted energy security bill
Benicia’s neighboring congressional representatives, Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11) and John Garamendi (CA-3) co-sponsored TWO important amendments in new legislation passed recently by Republicans in the House. The amendments were not enough to rescue a fundamentally bad bill. DeSaulnier, Garamendi and Benicia’s rep, Mike Thompson (CA-5), all voted against passage. (IMPORTANT: See Reasons below.)
1. According to a December 3 press release, a measure to improve the safety of crude oil rail shipments across the nation, introduced by Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11), Congresswoman Nita Lowey (NY-17), and Congressman John Garamendi (CA-3), was passed in the House by unanimous consent and included as an amendment to the Republican sponsored North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act (H.R. 8).
The amendment requires the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to study the maximum level of volatility that is safe for transporting crude oil-by-rail within one year. Since 2008, oil traffic has increased over 5,000 percent along rail routes leading from production zones in the central continent to refineries and hubs along the coast.
“Crude oil production is at record levels, and railroads are moving more crude oil than ever. For over 25 years, I have represented areas in Contra Costa County which include four oil refineries and two destination facilities for oil-by-rail. This initiative is a first step in addressing concerns of communities, like those in my district, that face threats of environmental degradation, injury, and loss of life due to the unsafe handling of volatile oil in our railroad system,” said Congressman DeSaulnier.
2. Another amendment to the bill, introduced by Rep. Garamendi, added the single word “transportation” to the section directing the Department of Energy to study “energy security valuation methods.” According to Rep. Garamendi’s press release:
Energy policy can’t simply focus on “generation” …. “How we transport energy deserves very careful consideration. Too often, these choices are made without consideration of strategies to achieve important policy goals like creating good manufacturing jobs and enhancing our national security. Safety must also be a top concern: oil train traffic has increased by 5,000 percent because of the shale oil boom. The risk of derailments, spills and explosions is very real, and we need a volatility standard to guarantee the safety of the communities this oil traffic passes through. Oil trains can and do pass by major residential neighborhoods and schools in my district, including Davis, Dixon, Suisun and Marysville. I want them to be as safe as possible.”
Reasons… Garamendi’s press release included his reasons for voting NO on the bill as amended:
Despite the success of his amendments, Congressman Garamendi voted against final passage of H.R. 8. The bill started out as a bipartisan compromise on energy policy before being gutted in favor of a bill that caters to the wish lists of big coal and big oil at the expense of consumers, agriculture and the environment.
“The very same week that leaders across the globe are meeting in Paris to find a worldwide solution to climate change, our Congress is seeking to lock our country into dependence on energy sources like coal and oil that pollute our environment and contribute to climate change,” said Congressman Garamendi. “H.R. 8 would artificially subsidize coal, inhibit the development of clean energy technologies, and reverse progress on energy efficiency. With climate change threatening our planet and way of life, we need to search for new solutions, not drag our country back to the energy policy of the last century.”
Congressman Garamendi was especially troubled by the adoption of an amendment to allow unfettered exports of crude oil without any safeguards for American motorists or industries.“If our country is seeking to become energy independent, it makes zero sense to allow unrestricted exports of our oil overseas,” he said. “It may make more profits for the oil industry, but it won’t help consumers, agriculture, or the refinery industry here at home. It’s a bad idea.”
AP: Railroads beat back new safety rules after derailments
By Matthew Brown and Michael Kunzelman, December 05, 2015
FILE -In this Monday, Feb. 23, 2015, file photo, clean up continues near Mount Carbon, W.Va., where a train derailed and sent a tanker with crude oil into the Kanawha River. A little-known truth about North American railroads: No rules govern when rail becomes too worn down. Since 2000, U.S. officials blamed rail wear as the direct cause of 111 derailments causing $11 million in damage. (AP Photo/Chris Tilley, File)
A pair of train derailments in 2012 that killed two people in Maryland and triggered a fiery explosion in Ohio exposed a little-known and unsettling truth about railroads in the U.S. and Canada: No rules govern when rail becomes too worn down to be used for hauling hazardous chemicals, thousands of tons of freight or myriad other products on almost 170,000 miles of track.
U.S. transportation officials moved to establish universal standards for when such steel gets replaced, but resistance from major freight railroads killed that bid, according to Associated Press interviews with U.S. and Canadian transportation officials, industry representatives and safety investigators.
Now, following yet another major accident linked to worn-out rails — 27 tanker cars carrying crude oil that derailed and exploded in West Virginia earlier this year — regulators are reviving the prospect of new rules for worn rails and vowing they won’t allow the industry to sideline their efforts.
“We try to look at absolutely every place where we can affect and improve safety,” said Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg. “Track generally is the place that we’re focusing at the moment, and it’s clearly overdue. Rail head wear is one place in particular that we feel like needs to be addressed as soon as possible.”
An official announcement on the agency’s intentions to revisit rail wear is expected by the end of the year.
In the meantime, federal regulators haven’t taken the positive steps that they need to, said Ronald Goldman, an attorney for the families of the two 19-year-old women who died in a 2012 derailment outside Baltimore.
“It’s a lack of will, not a lack of ability, in my opinion,” he added.
Industry supporters argue that the seven major freight railroads in the U.S. and Canada are in the best position to know what is going on with their lines, including when they need to be replaced or have the maximum speeds for trains traveling on them lowered. They also note a long-term decline in accidents that has reduced the frequency of derailments by more than 40 percent since 2000.
All sides agree it’s difficult to pinpoint how many accidents are tied to worn rail. Since 2000, U.S. officials blamed rail wear as the direct cause of 111 derailments causing $11 million in damage.
That’s less than 1 percent of all accidents, yet it masks a broader safety dilemma: Years of massive loads rolling over a rail will exacerbate defects in the steel, such as cracks or fractures. Investigators ultimately list the defect as the cause of a derailment, but it might never have been a problem if the rail had not been worn down.
“Rail defects are internal and rail wear is external, and when external meets internal, that’s when problems may arise,” said John Zuspan of Track Guy Consultants, a Pennsylvania firm that offers track inspections, safety training and other services for railroads.
Two accident causes in particular have the strongest correlation with worn-out rails: “detail fractures” that result from fatigued metal, and “vertical splits” in the head of the rail, where it makes contact with a train’s wheels, according to the FRA.
Those problems caused a combined 1,200 derailments with $300 million in damages, three deaths and 29 people injured in the U.S. between 2000 and the present, according to accident records reviewed by the AP.
Among them was the July 2012 derailment of a Norfolk Southern Railway train hauling ethanol and other products through Columbus, Ohio. Seventeen cars derailed, including three hauling highly flammable ethanol that exploded into flames, triggering an evacuation of surrounding neighborhoods.
A month later, another accident occurred involving a CSX Transportation train hauling coal over a bridge along Main Street in Ellicott City, Maryland, outside Baltimore. Twenty-one cars derailed when the company’s worn-down rail split beneath the weight of the coal cars. The two college students sitting on the bridge died, crushed by thousands of pounds of spilled coal.
The victims’ families reached a settlement with CSX last year for undisclosed terms. Goldman, the families’ attorney, said he pressed federal officials for a forum that would allow his clients to testify about the issue, but “nothing really happened.”
A month after the CSX derailment, federal regulators asked the Rail Safety Advisory Committee — a panel created by the Railroad Administration to include the industry and others in fashioning safety rules — to craft new standards to reduce the risks of worn-down rail. The committee set up a 116-person working group to tackle the problem, made up of industry representatives, government officials, consultants, researchers and railroad worker unions.
The group included 55 representatives from the major freight railroads and their industry organization, the Association of American Railroads. The FRA had 14 seats at the table and their counterparts from Transport Canada had five.
Following several meetings in 2012 and 2013, the group — which required consensus before recommending action — agreed on voluntary guidance for companies to manage rail wear, but no new regulations.
“There was certainly a lot of pushback and a lot of political pressure put on FRA not to adopt regulations for rail wear,” said Richard Inclima, director of safety for the union that represents track inspectors and a member of the working group. “Rail wear limits were on the table. The industry raised a lot of arguments against rail wear limits.”
“The industry doesn’t want to be regulated,” he added. “That’s no secret.”
The railroads’ opposition was confirmed by others involved with the group’s work including from the National Transportation Safety Board, the FRA and Transport Canada.
Association of American Railroads spokesman Ed Greenberg said the railroads were “unaware of any science-based data supporting rail wear limits.”
NTSB investigator Richard Hipskind, who took part in the Ellicott City and Columbus accident investigations and later served on the rail wear working group, said more research would be needed to establish universal standards.
Railroads have their own internal standards for rail wear, and have replaced more than 30,000 miles of rail since 2010, according to reports submitted by the major railroads to the U.S Surface Transportation Board, a semiautonomous agency under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Standards vary among railroads and are complicated by differences in how much weight a given line bears, whether it’s in a wet or dry climate, and if the line goes through mountains or involves lots of turns. Those variables can make the difference between well-worn rail that’s still safe and routes that poses a heightened safety hazard, according to industry experts and safety officials.
Greenberg said the industry takes an aggressive approach to identifying and removing defective or worn sections of rail.
“Each railroad has its distinct operating environment and operating conditions that would be factored into this,” Greenberg said. He added that the industry was now interested in “renewed dialogue” with the FRA on the topic.
The AP requested details on rail wear standards from each of the seven major freight railroads — BNSF Railway, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, CSX, Canadian National, Norfolk Southern and Kansas City Southern. They either refused the request or referred questions to the railroad association, which also declined to release the standards.
Public attention to train derailments increased sharply after July 2013, when an out-of-control oil train derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. One of the most significant changes to emerge from that and other accidents involving crude and ethanol was a mandate for companies to phase out or upgrade tens of thousands of tank cars that are prone to rupture.
Those are important changes, said James Horbay, a rail safety engineer with Transport Canada. But what causes trains to come off the tracks in the first place needs to be resolved, he said.
“If you crash an airplane, are you going to say, ‘Let’s build an airplane that’s not going to fall apart when it hits the ground?'” he asked. “Whether rail wear is something that should be looked at is a good question to ask. You’re going right to the cause now.”
Matthew Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Michael Kunzelman reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Repost from DeSmogBlog [Editor: Many thanks to Justin Mikulka for this excellent report on “Oil Train Response 2015,” nicely summarizing the important issues as well as the event. Great photo below – click on it to enlarge so you can play Where’s Waldo. 🙂 For a local media report and some good links, see also my earlier posting. – RS]
“We Need Not Be Polite” Hears First National Conference On Oil Train Threats
By Justin Mikulka • Wednesday, November 25, 2015 – 03:58
Oil Train Response 2015, 1st national conference on oil train threats, 11/14-15/15, Pittsburgh
On November 12th, I boarded a train headed to Pittsburgh, PA to attend the first national independent gathering focused on the topic of oil trains. The trip would take me through Philadelphia where an Amtrak train crashed in May resulting in eight fatalities and over 200 injuries.
There is general consensus that the accident would have been avoided if positive train control technology had been in place. In 2008, Congress mandated that positive train control be installed by the end of 2015. However, the railroads failed to do this and were recently given a three to five year extension by Congress after the rail companies threatened to shut down rail service if the mandate were enforced.
It is a reminder of the power of the rail lobbyists. Another example of this power is currently playing out in Congress. Earlier this year, the Senate voted to raise the amount of money that could go to victims of accidents such as the one in May. However, rail lobbyists and members of Congress are working to strip this change out of pending legislation.
Having covered the topic of oil trains for the past two years, none of this is surprising. The rail and oil lobbyists have been very effective at weakening new oil-by-rail regulations and achieving huge delays for any actual implementation of these changes.
In 2013, an oil train full of Bakken crude oil derailed in Lac-Megantic resulting in a fire that killed 47 people. The existing regulations will allow trains like the one in Lac-Megantic to roll on the rails until 2023.
These known risks and lack of regulations have created new activists across the continent and the Oil Train Response 2015 conference was the first time they have all come together in one place to discuss the issue and organize together. The event was sponsored and organized by The Heinz Foundation, FracTracker and ForestEthics.
The first day of the conference was designed to inform the attendees about various aspects of oil-by-rail transportation and included presentations from first responders, politicians, Riverkeepers, legal experts and railroad safety consultant Fred Millar.
What You Are Up Against
Ben Stuckart is president of the Spokane city council, a city currently seeing 15 oil trains a week and facing the potential of as many as 137 a week by 2020 by some estimates. During his presentation, Stuckart described a trip he took to Washington, D.C. to meet with Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx to express his concerns about the oil trains.
“We sit down and we’re talking to him and he’s like ‘well here is what you are up against.’ He goes, ‘My first day in office. BNSF and Union Pacific just showed up and walked into our office.’ And he asked up front what’s going on, I don’t have an appointment. ‘Oh there is an open door policy.’
The railroads have an open door policy. Do you know how long it took for me to get an appointment with transportation secretary Foxx?”
This isn’t the only time Secretary Foxx learned what we “are up against.”
Earlier this year, Reuters reported that when the White House was finalizing the new regulations, Secretary Foxx requested that the regulations address the volatility of Bakken crude oil. His request was denied.
Stuckart’s recounting of Foxx’s candid explanation of the reality of regulation in Washington, D.C. is an excellent example of the power of the industry, and provides insight into why these trains continue to run despite the known risks.
We Need Not Be Polite
Much of the morning session of the first day of the conference was devoted to emergency response, featuring three different presentations on the topic. A bit later, rail safety consultant Fred Millar took to the podium and wasted no time in getting everyone’s attention. With the earlier emergency response presenters flanking him on either side of the podium, Millar did not pull any punches.
“We need not be polite with the railroads and first responders,” Millar said. And then he proceeded to point out what a farce the idea of emergency response planning is regarding Bakken oil trains.
“It’s a lie,” Millar said as he showed a slide of emergency responders operating fire hoses standing very near a black rail tank car that was on fire. Millar noted that these are public relations efforts meant to calm the public, but the reality of a Bakken oil train accident is that everyone within a half mile is evacuated and the train is allowed to burn itself out because it is too dangerous for first responders to approach. Often the fires last for days.
Millar’s presentation was enthusiastically received by the conference audience. As he delivered one of his many hard-hitting lines to applause, an audience member could be heard saying, “He’s like a preacher up there!” However, as repeatedly noted in his presentation, his opinion is that very little is being done to address the risks of oil-by-rail transportation.
They Are Our Children
Things got a bit heated in the question and answer session following Millar’s presentation. One point of contention was that the first responders maintained that they need to keep information about oil trains secret so as to not help out “the bad guys” — an idea not well received by the many people in the audience living near oil train tracks.
Raymond DeMichiei, Pittsburgh’s Deputy Coordinator of Emergency Management, sparked the biggest outcry when he stated that he didn’t see why “people need to know how many daycare centers are within the blast zone.” Among the responses was a woman yelling, “They are our children!”
As the session came to a close, a frustrated DeMichiei said, “Get ’em off the rails. I’ll be a happy guy.” It was one point that everyone in the room could agree on.
FRA Administrator Grateful For Luck
A week before the conference, an ethanol train derailed in Wisconsin and spilled ethanol into the Mississippi River. The next day, an oil train derailed and spilled oil in a residential neighborhood in Wisconsin. On the first day of the conference, news broke that an oil train derailed near Philadelphia, although there was no spill.
Sarah Feinberg, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, commented on the accidents in Wisconsin saying, “We feel we got really lucky.” When I pointed out on Twitter that luck is currently a big part of the oil train safety plan, she responded.
While it is true that regulators are taking many steps to improve safety, it is also true that the oil and rail industries are working hard against any real improvements to safety. The dangerous oil is not being stabilized. The unsafe tank cars will be on the rails for at least eight more years. Modernized braking systems are years away and the industry is fighting that as well. And trains continue to run through many large cities.
On my train ride home from the conference, I saw many of the signature black tank cars on the rails. Some were carrying liquid petroleum gas, some ethanol and at least one was a unit train of oil cars (although likely empty as it was traveling West). The potential of an accident involving a commuter train and an oil train didn’t seem far fetched.
View from Amtrak train, photo by Justin Mikulka.
A National Movement Begins
The people gathered in Pittsburgh don’t want to rely on luck to protect their communities. They are committed to fighting for real rail safety, and they were clearly energized by this event. As Ben Stuckart said, “This is so awesome. I haven’t seen this big of a group about this very specific issue since I’ve been working on it the last four years.”
And that is good news for the 25 million people currently living within bomb train blast zones. Because if there is one lesson learned from the long delay over the implementation of positive train control, it is that this battle is likely to be a long and difficult effort.
Repost from Public Source [Editor: Although the emphasis here is on Pennsylvania, this article gives some detail on state laws regulating crude oil trains in several other states. – RS]
Can Pennsylvania officials do more to address crude oil train safety?
Other states with heavy crude-by-rail traffic have passed various laws to address safety. Pennsylvania legislators have not.
By Natasha Khan | PublicSource | Nov. 22, 2015
Legislators in states with an uptick in crude-by-rail traffic have passed laws and changed policies. But not in Pennsylvania. (iStock photo)
They hug rivers, breeze by farms and cross 100-year-old bridges. They chug past hospitals, schools, stadiums and many, many homes. And sometimes, they derail.
As shipments of crude oil by train have increased nationwide, anxiety over the chance of a derailment happening in a big city, like Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, has grown.
Philadelphia Energy Solutions, a refinery, is the nation’s largest consumer of fracked oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale, which makes Pennsylvania a top destination for oil trains.
PublicSource reported in March that 1.5 million Pennsylvanians live within a half-mile of tracks that haul crude oil — the federally recommended evacuation zone for oil train fires.
While the railroad industry says that 99.99 percent of shipments of oil by rail safely make it to their destinations, there have been at least seven derailments of trains carrying crude oil involving spills or fires in North America this year; the latest spill was earlier this month in Wisconsin.
So far, only minor derailments have occurred in Pennsylvania. Some say it’s only a matter of time before the state experiences a big crash.
Regulating railroads is mostly under the purview of the federal government, which recently issued new safety standards for older tank cars and braking systems. But legislators in some states with heavy crude-by-rail traffic have passed laws and changed policies out of fear of what a major derailment could mean for their states.
While Gov. Tom Wolf has taken some action on the issue — most notably commissioning a rail safety expert to assess ways to lower risks of derailments — no laws addressing prevention or emergency response have passed, or been introduced, by state legislators in Pennsylvania.
“There have been bills introduced in New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, Washington state and California, and I haven’t seen squat out of Pennsylvania,” said Fred Millar, an independent hazardous materials consultant in Washington, D.C.
Laws passed in other states vary and offer several paths for Pennsylvania to consider.
In 2014, Minnesota passed a law that raises millions of dollars a year to fund emergency response initiatives, state studies on infrastructure improvements and rail inspectors.
“I feel like there’s a huge responsibility for state and even local governments to be laying down these issues and challenging the railroads,” said the law’s sponsor, state Rep. Frank Hornstein (D-Minn).
In May, Washington state passed a law requiring railroads to show oil spill response plans and how they would pay cleanup costs for a worst-case spill. The law also placed a fee on barrels of oil entering the state to help pay for more emergency response programs. Additionally, the law required more public disclosure of crude oil train shipments.
A few days after Wisconsin experienced two train derailments in early November, state lawmakers introduced rail safety legislation that addressed prevention and response.
‘Evaluating options’
A group of Pennsylvania state senators have been exploring oil train safety issues.
“As far as legislative action, we are in the process of evaluating options,” said Nolan Ritchie, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee, which is looking at the issue along with the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.
Sen. John Rafferty, R-Berks/Chester/Montgomery, chairman of the transportation committee, did not want to comment until they have something they plan to introduce, according to Ritchie.
Ritchie said they’re looking at safety precautions taken by railroads, what the governor has done and laws in other states, while also making sure Pennsylvania doesn’t overstep legally.
“Pennsylvania really cannot add additional regulations that would basically be under the jurisdiction of the federal government,” he said.
Some states are testing that idea. Similar to Washington’s law, California passed legislation in 2014 requiring that railroads provide emergency response plans and proof they can pay oil spill cleanup costs. Two railroads and an industry group sued claiming federal law preempts state rail laws.
In June, a federal court dismissed the case because the state hadn’t started enforcing the law, and railroads couldn’t challenge it if it hadn’t yet been enforced. The law is now in effect.
Part of the issue for railroads is the inconsistency of having to follow different rules in each state with oil trains moving across the country.
“It’s a national system that needs to be managed as a national system,” said Grady Cothen, a retired Federal Railroad Administration safety official. “And you really can’t lay on [state officials] for regulating the safety of railroad operations. If you do, it’s a very inefficient patchwork and you end up with railroads lobbying legislatures all over the United States… ”
Prevention and response
A train carrying crude oil can be identified by a red triangle-shaped placard on tank cars with the code 1267. It is a U.S. Department of Transportation classification code that identifies the hazardous material for emergency responders. (Photo by Molly Duerig/PublicSource)
Matt Stepp, policy director at environmental group PennFuture, said there are legislative steps that can be taken now in Pennsylvania.
He said the state should find or create revenue streams to pay for oil spill prevention plans and more robust emergency response initiatives.
“They need to come up with a consistent revenue stream where they put some money … to double, if not triple, the number of inspectors the state can deploy to the areas with a lot of traffic,” Stepp said.
Washington state’s 2015 oil train law put oil refineries on the hook for a 4-cent per barrel spill prevention tax and 1-cent oil spill response tax on oil moved by rail in bulk. The funds are put toward emergency response programs in oil train communities. Washington’s law also increased a state tax on railroads that helped pay for eight new rail inspectors.
In August, Wolf released a rail safety report recommending the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission [PUC] add rail inspectors. PUC Chairman Gladys Brown said the commission has filled one vacancy for an inspector since the report and is currently looking to fill another.
Brown said they hope to have the funds to hire two more after that to work with the Federal Railroad Administration to monitor the tracks. Railroads also hire their own inspectors.
To create more funding for cleanup and response programs in California, legislators approved a 6.5-cent fee on oil companies for every barrel of oil that comes into the state by rail.
Pennsylvania State Planning and Policy Secretary John Hanger said these kinds of fees are something Wolf’s administration is “open to,” but that they would likely require legislative action.
Within the last year and a half, Washington state and New York have increased funding for oil spill response funds.
At the national level, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa, has proposed a bill that would put a $175 fee per shipment on each older DOT-111 tank car, which have been known to catch fire or spill when trains derail and are being phased out. The money generated by the bill would go to oil spill cleanup costs, training emergency responders and hiring railroad inspectors.
Stepp said state legislators also should create a cleanup fund that communities can tap into if an accident happens. Pennsylvania doesn’t have one, although there is a federal oil spill fund that states can access.
“Whether you’re talking about a big city like Philly or a county, none of them are necessarily prepared for taking on such a kind of accident [crude oil derailment] and the long term impacts of that accident,” he said.
Railroad and oil companies would “play a role” in cleanup costs, Stepp said, but that can take time and sometimes doesn’t cover all the mitigation costs. “Taxpayers tend to be on the hook for at least some of it,” he said.
Railroads say safety first
Officials from CSX and Norfolk Southern also testified at a hearing with the two state Senate committees on how they’ve advanced safety for crude oil transport. The officials focused on how they’ve trained first responders across Pennsylvania, supported tougher federal tank car standards and invested billions to improve track conditions.
“We are investing in Pennsylvania and elsewhere to further enhance safety and efficiency as we move the goods that move America,” David Pidgeon, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, wrote in an email.
“Safety is CSX’s highest priority,” CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle wrote in an email.
You can use this map to explore Bakken crude oil train routes within Pennsylvania. Use the search bar to zoom in and see whether your house, workplace or school is located within the federal half-mile evacuation zone.
Their safety precautions aren’t always sufficient. In February, a CSX oil train derailed in Mount Carbon, W.V. The crash caused explosions and people were evacuatedfrom their homes. Regulators discovered a contractor twice found a flaw in a rail in the months before the accident.
But the railroad didn’t repair it and the rail cracked, causing the derailment of 27 cars on the 107-car oil train. Local residents are suing the railroad for failing to properly inspect the track.
In October, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) fined CSX and announced new track guidelines, including calling for railroads to improve inspections.
Doolittle said CSX is working with the FRA to develop additional inspection processes to more quickly and accurately identify rail flaws.
State rail safety report
The state rail safety report was prepared by Allan Zarembski, a University of Delaware railroad engineering professor and an expert in railway track and structures. He focused on how railroads could prevent track and railcar wheel failures.
The report lists 27 steps that can be taken by railroads and state agencies to reduce the risk of a derailment in the state.
Spokesmen for Norfolk Southern and CSXwouldn’t talk to PublicSource about whether they have adopted the recommendations. Instead both sent statements listing what they’ve done to improve safety and said they’re open to working with state officials to address the issue.
“The railroads are currently meeting some, but not all, of the recommendations,” Jeff Sheridan, Wolf’s spokesman, wrote in an email.
For instance, both railroads have refused to adopt a 35 mph speed limit for oil trains through cities with populations of more than 100,000, requested by the governor and Casey. They run them at a maximum of 40 mph.
“The administration continues to pursue this recommendation and absolutely feels that this is [an] important step to reduce the chances of a derailment,” Sheridan wrote.
Hanger said the recommendations aimed at state agencies have almost all been adopted.
These included steps the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) can take to improve response initiatives.
Ruth Miller, a PEMA spokeswoman, said the agency has focused on crude-by-rail emergency planning and is studying where more training and response materials may be needed.
“PEMA plans to provide opportunities for additional exercises as may be requested or needed (as funding is available),” she wrote in an email.
Emergency response coordinators in Cambria, Dauphin and Huntingdon counties told PublicSource that first responders have received more training regarding crude oil trains — some of it paid for by the railroads and some by state grants — but more is needed.
Lancaster County emergency response managers testified in June that the Legislature should expand the law on hazardous materials emergency planning to create more funding.
“The emergency services are prepared for a small-scale incident,” said Lancaster County Commissioner Scott Martin at the hearing, “but the amounts involved in a train spill or fire would be quickly overwhelming.”
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