Tag Archives: Fire

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Hazmat notification, Rail routing

REUTERS: CSX plans to bypass crude train derailment site

Repost from Reuters
[Editor:  Gee, this is great news for devastated and shaken residents of Fayette County, West Virginia … but, well, just exactly whose communities will now be visited by the bomb trains that used to run through Fayette County?  – RS]

CSX plans to bypass crude train derailment site: state officials

By Jarrett Renshaw, Thu Feb 19, 2015 1:51pm EST
Firefighters inspect derailed train cars after CSX Corp train derailed in Mount Carbon, West Virginia pictured across the Kanawha River in Boomer, West Virginia February 16, 2015. REUTERS/Marcus Constantino
Firefighters inspect derailed train cars after CSX Corp train derailed in Mount Carbon, West Virginia pictured across the Kanawha River in Boomer, West Virginia February 16, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Marcus Constantino

(Reuters) – CSX has notified state officials of its plans to bypass the scene of a crude train derailment and continue delivering oil to a terminal on the Virginia coast, emergency management officials from Virginia and West Virginia said Wednesday.

A train carrying North Dakota crude to an oil depot in Yorktown, Virginia, derailed on Monday in a small town 33 miles southeast of Charleston, causing 20 tank cars to catch fire. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were still small fires at the scene.

Early last year, the Obama administration ordered all rail operators to disclose their crude routes to local and state emergency management officials. The companies must also report any changes.

“All appropriate state notifications are complete for re-routing of oil shipments that would typically use that line. Those shipments will use a combination of CSX and other railroads to reach eastern Virginia destinations,” CSX spokesman Gary Sease said in an email Thursday.

CSX has notified West Virginia and Virginia officials of its plans to use other rail lines to deliver crude oil, state officials confirmed. Part of the plan is to use a Norfolk Southern line, West Virginia officials said.

States have taken differing approaches to releasing the routes to the public. Some see a risk of attacks or sabotage if routes are disclosed and say it is confidential company information. Others regard it as the public’s right to know. West Virginia refuses to disclose the routes, while Virginia does.

“That’s the best legal advice we have. It’s proprietary information, said Chris Stadelman, a spokesman for West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, a Democrat.

In the past, Virginia has released the details, and a state official was determining whether to release the changes.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Andrew Hay)
Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire

NPR: What we know three days after the Fayette Co. oil train derailment

Repost from WMKY FM, Morehead, KYNational Public Radio

What We Know Three Days After the Fayette Co. Oil Train Derailment

By Dave Mistich, Thu February 19, 2015 2:25 pm
Credit U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer Angie Vallier

Investigators from the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration are on the scene of Monday’s oil train derailment near Mount Carbon, W.Va. The incident sparked massive fireballs stretching hundreds of feet in the air. One home was destroyed in the incident and the homeowner was treated for smoke inhalation and then released.

1. Some initial reports from the scene turned out to be incorrect.

Department of Military Affairs and Public safety spokesman Lawrence Messina said Monday that one and possibly more cars fell into the Kanawha River.

As a result, West Virginia American Water shut down intakes at their Montgomery and Cedar Grove. Those intakes were reopened after no evidence of crude oil was detected in the river. 

Messina and other officials, including the state Department of Environmental Protection, later said no tanker cars fell into the river and no evidence of oil could be detected.

2. Federal Authorities and CSX say the train was not speeding.

The Federal Railroad Administration said Thursday that the CSX-owned train that derailed was traveling at 33 mph. They said the speed limit in the area where the incident occurred was 50 mph.

3. Fires continue to burn and containment is the focus of the response.

Kelley Gillenwater of the DEP said at least one small fire continued to burn Thursday morning.

Environmental protective and monitoring measures on land, air, the Kanawha River and Armstrong Creek. Gillenwater said response crews vacuumed about 5,000 gallons of an oil-water mixture on Wednesday. CSX contractors, overseen by the U.S. Coast Guard and DEP, were able to deploy about 500 feet of containment boom as a precautionary measure to limit potential impact on the environment.

Response teams are beginning to remove derailed cars that have not been involved in the fires. says they will begin transferring oil from the damaged cars to other tanks for removal from the site when it is safe to do so.

4. Quick Facts: Numbers on the Derailment

  • The train consisted of two locomotives and 109 rail cars (107 tank cars and two buffer cars).
  • 27 cars derailed and 19 were involved in fires.
  • The train was carrying a total of 3 million gallons of Bakken crude oil, according to the Associated Press.
  • Each of the tankers contained 29,500 gallons of oil.
Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Foam, Train speed

FRA Official: Speed doesn’t appear to be factor in oil train derailment; may need to use dry chemical on lingering fires

Repost from The Star Tribune | Nation, Minneapolis, MN
[Editor: An updated version of this appears on the Associated Press.  – RS]

Official: Speed doesn’t appear to be factor in oil train derailment in southern West Virginia

By Associated Press, Updated: February 19, 2015 – 2:05 PM

MOUNT CARBON, W.Va. — A federal official says speed doesn’t appear to be a factor in an oil train derailment in southern West Virginia.

Federal Railroad Administration acting administrator Sarah Feinberg said Thursday the CSX train was going 33 mph at the time of Monday’s crash in the town of Mount Carbon. The speed limit was 50 mph.

The derailment shot fireballs into the sky, leaked oil into a Kanawha River tributary and destroyed a house. Nineteen of the 107 tank cars were involved in the fires, which continued smoldering Thursday. The fires have prevented investigators from gaining full access to the crash scene.

Feinberg says it might be necessary to use a dry chemical to douse the fires, out of worry that using water or spray foam would wash oil into the river.

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

DOT: Gas vapor eyed as factor in West Virginia oil train fireball

Repost from Reuters

Gas vapor eyed as factor in West Virginia oil train fireball

By Patrick Rucker, Thu Feb 19, 2015 3:26pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal investigators will examine whether pressurized gas played a role in the massive blast that followed the derailment of a train carrying crude oil through West Virginia this week, the U.S. Transportation Department said on Thursday.

Questioning the possible role of gas vapors in the West Virginia fire broadens the debate over how to ensure public safety at a time when drastically larger volumes of crude oil are being shipped by rail and roll through cities and towns.

At least two dozen oil tankers jumped a CSX Corp track about 30 miles south of the state capital, Charleston, on Monday, touching off a fireball that sent flames hundreds of feet into the sky.

The U.S. Transportation Department said it has an investigator at the site to take samples of crude once the wreckage stops burning.

“We will measure vapor pressure in the tank cars that derailed in West Virginia,” said department spokeswoman Suzanne Emmerling.

Some experts say the nature of the explosion, which saw a dense cloud of smoke and flame soaring upwards, could be explained by the presence of highly pressurized gas trapped in crude oil moving in the rail cars.

“Vapor pressure could be a factor,” said Andre Lemieux of the Canadian Crude Quality Technical Association, a trade group which is helping the Canadian government adopt crude oil quality tests.

The American Petroleum Institute, the leading voice for the oil industry, declined to comment on whether high vapor pressure might have played a role in West Virginia.

“What we need to do now is allow the accident investigators to do their jobs,” said Brian Straessle, a spokesman for the trade group.

In the past twelve months, API and the North Dakota Petroleum Council have argued that the dangers of vapor pressure are exaggerated, citing self-funded studies that indicate vapor pressure readings are safe.

The Transportation Department did not call for regulations governing the presence of gas vapors in a national oil train safety plan it drafted last summer and is now with the White House for review.

That plan would have oil trains fitted with advanced braking systems to prevent pileups and tougher shells akin to those carrying volatile propane gas on the tracks.

The question of whether gas vapors make oil shipments more prone to detonate has been kept on the margins of the U.S. debate over transporting oil by rail.

The oil train sector has thrived in recent years, pushed by a crude oil renaissance in North Dakota’s Bakken region.

(Reporting By Patrick Rucker; Ernest Scheyder contributed from Williston, North Dakota; editing by Andrew Hay)